- Museum number
- 1860,0616.6
- Description
-
The Virgin, St Joseph, St Antony of Padua and two angels all kneeling before the Infant Christ, top arched
Black chalk
Turner, Florentine Drawings of the Sixteenth Century, London, 1986
The Virgin kneels in the centre of the composition, behind the Infant Christ, who lies on the ground with his right hand raised, looking back up at her; on either side of the Virgin are two kneeling angels and behind them stand St Joseph, on the left, and St Anthony of Padua with the flaming heart in his right hand, on the right; in the distance on the right is the angel appearing to a shepherd on a hilltop. In the spandrels of the arch in front of the composition are two roundels, the one on the left containing the half-length figure of the Angel of the Annunciation, the one on the right the half-length figure of the Virgin with her hands held together in prayer. Beneath the Infant Christ, on the predella, is another, smaller roundel showing the body of the Resurrected Christ standing in the tomb.
- Production date
- 1507-1544
- Dimensions
-
Height: 349 millimetres
-
Width: 242 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- The attribution depends on the similarity of types with the painting by the artist of the 'Adoration of the Shepherds' previously in the Villa Capponi in Arcetri, now belonging to the Cassa di Risparmio e Depositi, Prato (see, P. Costamagna and A. Fabre, 'Un ritratto di Tommaso di Stefano agli Uffizi', "Prospettiva", 1985, 40, p. 74, fig. 3).
Turner, Florentine Drawings of the Sixteenth Century, London, 1986
This fine sheet, attributed to Fra Bartolommeo when in the Woodburn sale, entered the collection under the name of Lorenzo di Credi (1456 or 1459-1537); it was transferred to Tommaso di Stefano in 1966, following Berenson's suggestion of as long ago as 1938 that it might conceivably be taken for the work of this little known pupil and follower of Credi by analogy with the 'Nativity' in the chapel in the Villa Capponi at Arcetri, Florence, which is recorded by Vasari and which is certainly by him (repr. 'Dedalo', ix, 1928/29, p. 468).
The drawing is clearly a design for an altarpiece to be placed within a round-headed arch, but no such painting has yet been identified.
There is much to recommend Berenson's suggestion that the drawing may be by Tommaso; the pose and gesture of the Virgin and her position vis a vis the Infant Christ is much the same as in the painting at Arcetri; but the composition of the latter is far too complicated to justify the view that the one is a preparatory study for the other. In further support of the attribution to Tommaso of the British Museum drawing is the nearly identical pose of the Infant Christ to that in a painting given to Tommaso of the 'Virgin adoring the Child with two Angels and the Infant St John' in the Los Angeles County Museum (BB 'Florentine Pictures', no. 1180).
Vasari briefly describes the work of Tommaso (Vasari/ Milanesi, iv, p. 570). He also records that the painter was a friend of Sogliani and that the two had worked together in Lorenzo di Credi's workshop. The contact with Sogliani would seem to explain the unmistakable presence in this drawing of the style of Fra Bartolommeo, which is perhaps the one feature that is least consistent with Tommaso's authorship.
Tommaso's hand as a draughtsman has been discussed by Pouncey ('Master Drawings', ii, 1964, p. 293), who was commenting on some drawings attributed to the artist by Berenson in his 1961 edition of 'The Drawings of the Florentine Painters'.
Literature: BB (1903) 2727 (as Sogliani); BB (1938) 2727 (suggesting the possibility of Tommaso di Stefano).
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1986, BM, Florentine Drawings 16thC, no. 65
- Acquisition date
- 1860
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1860,0616.6