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| Title | Madonna Adoring the Christ Child with Saint John the Baptist and Angels | |
| Collection | Astley Cheetham Art Gallery, Stalybridge | |
| Artist | Attributed to manner of Pesellino, Francesco (Italian painter, probably born 1422, died 1457) Attributed to Baldovinetti, Alesso (Italian painter, ca. 1425-1499) Previously attributed to Italian (Florentine) School |
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| Date Earliest | probably about 1460 | |
| Date Latest | about 1500 | |
| Description | This is a typical devotional image used in a private home, in a bedroom or separate chapel and would have been produced in a workshop, possibly as a commission or as a variant on a well established composition. Unusually the frame and decoration are original. Pesellino was active in later fifteenth century Florence and was influence by Filippo Lippi. | |
| Current Accession Number | ASTAC:1932.41 | |
| Former Accession Number | 1/15/2 | |
| Subject | religion (Virgin and Child) | |
| Measurements | 105.0 x 65 cm.0 cm (estimate) | |
| Material | oil on panel | |
| Acquisition Details | Bequeathed by J. F. Cheetham 1932. | |
| Provenance | William Graham; Christie's, London, 1886, as by Baldovinetti. | |
| Principal Exhibitions | Don't Trust the Label, Arts Council, 1986-7; Seeing is Deceiving, Whitworth Art Gallery Manchester, 1981. | |
| Notes | Research notes by Christopher Baker, 1989, held by Astley Cheetham Art Gallery: 'This work lies stylistically, although not qualitatively close to a painting by Pesellino in Toledo and therefore an attribution to a follower of Pesellino would seem to fit. A painting in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool has been given the same attribution. The facial types from the Liverpool and the Staylebridge paintings and the closely knit grouping of their figures can be related in design and composition to the Toledo Madonna with Infant St. John and Angels. Pesellino, in turn, adopted the features of his angels and Madonna and Child from models provided by Filippo Lippi, although he tended to make his figures' faces more oval, less rounded and more assertively outlined than Lippi's creations. Fra Fillipo's Adoration of the Christ Child in Berlin, dated 1460 was produced after Pesellino's death, but it provides a quite specific source for the suckling child, the face and hands of the Virgin, and the figure of St John in the Staylebridge panel. Therefore the workshop responsible for this painting used the tight compositional format, which Pesellino developed in his re-combinations of Fra Filippo's prototypes, as well as specific figure types borrowed more directly from Lippi. This panel is most likely to have been produced by a prolific workshop active in the latter part of the 15th century which mainly produced paintings for domestic use'. Conservation notes: 'the sky has been painted over, probably early this century'. The frames have been proved by radiography to be original. The inner frame is decorated with two heraldic symbols and engraved with the words 'In excelsis deo..', whilst the outer frame is decorated with a schematic star design. | |
| Rights Owner | Astley Cheetham Art Gallery | |
| Author | Lisa Howard | |