.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Although attributed to Filippo Lippi when in the New York collection of George and Florence Blumenthal, the present animated Madonna and Child was already considered a work by a close contemporary of Lippi by the time it entered the Metropolitan Museum's collection. Though ascribed to various painters in the school of Botticelli since that time, the Metropolitan's picture has most recently--and most convincingly--been given to the so-called Master of the Argonauts, an anonymous Florentine painter who was deeply influenced by Pesellino and Filippo Lippi. In his seminal article of 1989 on the artist (op. cit.), Everett Fahy pointed out several paintings attributable to the Argonaut Master, including a pair of cassone panels in the Bode Museum, Berlin; a Judgment of Paris in the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge; two Madonnas in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and a riveting, highly original Madonna and an Angel adoring the Christ child in the Acton Collection, Florence.
Fahy's assessment of the artist's idiosyncratic style, which includes 'pinched physiognomies, sharply tapered fingers, and heavily lidded eyes' (ibid., p. 294), is evident in the present work, which was certainly inspired by Filippo Lippi's monumental Madonna and Child now in the Alte Pinakhotek, Munich, datable to c. 1460. Fahy also noted that in the present work, the Christ child's 'stretched arms recall the movement of the Christ child in Verrocchio's Madonna in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin'. He further pointed out that Zeri (1972; loc. cit.) had grouped the Metropolitan Madonna with several other pictures, including the abovementioned Acton painting: a Madonna and Child formerly in the Bernheimer collection, Munich; a Madonna and Child Enthroned formerly in the Ricasoli collection, Florence; and a Madonna Adoring the Christ child in the Musée de Tessé, Le Mans. Zeri assigned all these works to the early period of the Master of San Miniato, and while Fahy agreed that the group is cohesive, he suggested instead that they are all attributable to the Master of the Argonauts, while tentatively ascribing the Le Mans picture to the young Jacopo del Sellaio (loc. cit.).
Today, Fahy has come to the conclusion to which he only alluded in his 1989 article: that the works assigned to the Master of the Argonauts are, in fact, early paintings by Jacopo del Sellaio (Florence, c. 1441-1493), a painter Vasari describes, along with Botticelli, as a pupil of Filippo Lippi. Sellaio's oeuvre, though perhaps better understood than that of some of his anonymous contemporaries, invites further study, and the present panel provides a starting point for a revised understanding of the artist's career.
We are grateful to Everett Fahy for his considered thoughts on the present work, on the basis of firsthand inspection.
Fahy's assessment of the artist's idiosyncratic style, which includes 'pinched physiognomies, sharply tapered fingers, and heavily lidded eyes' (ibid., p. 294), is evident in the present work, which was certainly inspired by Filippo Lippi's monumental Madonna and Child now in the Alte Pinakhotek, Munich, datable to c. 1460. Fahy also noted that in the present work, the Christ child's 'stretched arms recall the movement of the Christ child in Verrocchio's Madonna in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin'. He further pointed out that Zeri (1972; loc. cit.) had grouped the Metropolitan Madonna with several other pictures, including the abovementioned Acton painting: a Madonna and Child formerly in the Bernheimer collection, Munich; a Madonna and Child Enthroned formerly in the Ricasoli collection, Florence; and a Madonna Adoring the Christ child in the Musée de Tessé, Le Mans. Zeri assigned all these works to the early period of the Master of San Miniato, and while Fahy agreed that the group is cohesive, he suggested instead that they are all attributable to the Master of the Argonauts, while tentatively ascribing the Le Mans picture to the young Jacopo del Sellaio (loc. cit.).
Today, Fahy has come to the conclusion to which he only alluded in his 1989 article: that the works assigned to the Master of the Argonauts are, in fact, early paintings by Jacopo del Sellaio (Florence, c. 1441-1493), a painter Vasari describes, along with Botticelli, as a pupil of Filippo Lippi. Sellaio's oeuvre, though perhaps better understood than that of some of his anonymous contemporaries, invites further study, and the present panel provides a starting point for a revised understanding of the artist's career.
We are grateful to Everett Fahy for his considered thoughts on the present work, on the basis of firsthand inspection.