Virgin and Child, St. John and angels

Initially attributed to Pier Francesco Fiorentino (Florence 1444/45 – 1497) the work has been assigned, together with others, to an unknown Florentine artist using the name Pseudo Pier Francesco Fiorentino (Perkins 1928; Berenson 1932). It is hypothesised that this artist, active in Florence in the second half of the fifteenth century, may have offered high quality paintings derived from the compositions of Filippo Lippi and of Pesellino, in this particular case destined for domestic devotional use, given the presence of the wooden tabernacle and the small dimensions.  A production that was therefore aimed at the nobility such as that present in Anghiari in the second half of the fifteenth century. The work is closely derived from a Madonna and Child, St.John and angels by the artist Francesco di Stefano, known as Pesellino, dating around 1455, which is now the property of the Toledo Museum of Art in Toledo (USA). To demonstrate the success of Pesellino’s composition we would mention as examples two other very similar versions attributable to Pseudo Pier Francesco, one of which is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (USA). 

The artwork is currently on the display in the exhibition “Il papa guerriero. Giuliano della Rovere e gli uomini d'arme di Anghiari".