Lot Essay
The Pseudo-Pier Francesco Fiorentino is a name coined by Berenson to describe an artist 'who made a business of copying and piecing together figures from Fra Filippo, Pesellino and their followers' (Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Florentine School, London, 1963, I, p. 171): it is now accepted that this body of works was not produced by one painter but rather by a workshop. This composition is based on the Madonna and Child by Pesellino in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.