Follower of Andrea del Sarto (Florence, 16 July 1486 – Florence, 29 September 1530), Madonna with Child, the Infant Saint John and two Angels

Follower of Andrea del Sarto (Florence, 16 July 1486 – Florence, 29 September 1530)

Madonna with Child, St. John the Baptist and two Angels

Oil on panel, 73 x 61,5 cm

With frame 100 x 90 cm

Francesco Bocchi, in his Discorso sopra l'Eccellenza dell'Opere di Andrea del Sarto Pittore Fiorentino, published in 1567, that is, a year before the second and very famous edition of Vasari's Lives, already said he was a convinced admirer of Andrea del Sarto and sang praises for him in abundance. In the final two decades of the XNUMXth century, the artist was a copied and unsurpassed model, so much so that two unusual behaviors arose on the part of his admirers. On the one hand, there were those who claimed extreme honor in tackling works begun by the master, as Alessandro Allori did when he had the opportunity to approach his Tribute to Caesar from the Medici villa in Poggio a Caiano. On the other, the rush to appropriate originals by Andrea del Sarto played a very stimulating role, causing more often than not the production of necessary copies to fill the void left by the collectors' seizure of possession. The artist's autographs were highly sought after by the Medici; one case in point: the altarpiece of Sant'Ambrogio painted for the Company of Santa Maria della Neve in Borgo la Croce, next to the church of Sant'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 Company would not remain bare.

This painting reproduces the Virgin with Child, the Infant Saint John and two angels, the original of which is now kept at the Wallace Collection in London. It was such a popular canvas that Andrea del Sarto himself reproduced it in several versions. We 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 in the Neapolitan Museum of Capodimonte of Farnese origin. There are also many replicas, such as those from the Florentine area in the convent of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence, in the Musèe des Beaux Arts Andrè Malareux and two versions that have passed on the Italian antiques market, as well as a copy by an anonymous Flemish artist kept in the Museum of Fine Arts in Dijon.