Attributed to The Master of the Castello Nativity

(active Florence mid 15th Century )

The Madonna and Child before a gold cloth of honour with integral frame

Footnotes

Provenance
Sale, Gallerie di Porta Romana, Milan, 24 March 1987, lot 293 (as Domenico di Michelino), where purchased by the present owner's father

The author of the present work was clearly active in the artistic circle of Fra' Filippo Lippi (Florence circa 1406-1469 Spoleto). The shell-topped niche in which the figures sit and the gold cloth of honour were both devices used by the artist; see for example his Madonna and Child at the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore (acc. no. 37.429), or his painting of the same subject at the National Gallery of Art, Washington (inv. no. 1939.1.290).

The particular attention paid to the fine detail of the costume and the softer modelling of the figures in the present Madonna and Child anticipate the work of the next generation of painters after Lippi such as Domenico Ghirlandaio (Florence 1449–1494) and Andrea del Verrocchio (Florence 1435–1488 Venice). However, certain retardaire elements in a picture of the mid 15th Century are also discernable, such as the flat halo as well as the use of gold for the cloth of honour. One such artist whose work exhibits this dual approach is the painter known as the Master of the Castello Nativity (active Florence mid 15th Century). The gold cloth of honour serving as a backdrop can be seen, for example, in his Madonna and Child now in the Walters Art Museum Baltimore (accession number 37.1163, see fig. 1).

Named by Berenson after a painting at the Villa Medicea at Castello, the Master of the Castello Nativity's work steers a course from the late Fra Angelico to the young Botticelli. He was probably a close associate of Francesco di Stefano, il Pesellino (Florence circa 1422-1457), following in Lippi's footsteps. The present painting comes very close to the Master's Madonna and Child with Angels now in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (R.F.1506, see fig. 2). The facial type of the current Madonna with the long, straight nose is very comparable to that in the Paris picture, considered to date to 1450-55. The model for the latter work may be found in the head of Domenico Veneziano's Berenson Madonna at Settignano of circa 1450. Prof. Freuler believes that the present work dates to later on in the artist's career, most probably 1465-70 and so after the above work in the Louvre. It has been suggested that the anonymous master can be identified as Piero di Lorenzo di Pratese, a painter who is known to have formed a commercial partnership with Pesellino in 1453 along with Zanobi del Migliore (see C. Lachi, Il Maestro della Natività di Castello, Florence, 1995, p. 21-24).

We are grateful to Professors Gaudenz Freuler and Laurence Kanter for confirming the attribution based on colour photographs.