Follower of Andrea del Sarto (Florence, July 16, 1486 – Florence, September 29, 1530)
Madonna with Child, Saint John the Baptist, and two Angels
Oil on panel, 73 x 61.5 cm
With frame 100 x 90 cm
Francesco Bocchi, in his Discourse on the Excellence of the Works of Andrea del Sarto, Florentine Painter, published in 1567, one year before the second and most famous edition of Vasari's Lives, was already a convinced admirer of Andrea del Sarto and lavishly praised him. In the final two decades of the 16th century, the artist was a copied and unsurpassed model, so much so that two unusual behaviors were determined by his admirers. On the one hand, there were those who boasted extreme honor in putting their hand to works started by the master, as Alessandro Allori did when he had the opportunity to approach his Tribute to Caesar in the Medici villa of Poggio a Caiano. On the other hand, the race to appropriate originals by Andrea del Sarto played a very stimulating role, often causing the production of necessary copies to replace the void left by the possession of collectors. Autographs by the artist were highly requested by the Medici; a case in point is the altarpiece of Sant'Ambrogio painted for the Compagnia di Santa Maria della Neve in borgo la Croce, next to the church of S. Ambrogio. The original painting was requested by Cardinal Carlo de' Medici, and a copy of the canvas by Jacopo de Empoli was necessary so that the Compagnia would not remain bare.
The present painting reproduces the Virgin with Child, Saint John the Baptist, and two angels, the original of which is now kept at the Wallace Collection in London. It was a canvas so appreciated that Andrea del Sarto himself reproduced it in several versions. One may recall the one now kept at the Galleria Borghese in Rome (once identified as a work by Jacopo Pontormo but already appearing as a replica by the Florentine master in the Borghese inventory of 1694) and the similar example from the Neapolitan museum of Capodimonte from Farnese provenance. There are also many replicas, such as those of the Florentine area in the convent of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence, the Musée des Beaux Arts André Malareux, and two versions that have appeared on the Italian antiquarian market, as well as a copy by an anonymous Flemish artist kept in the Museum of Fine Arts in Dijon.