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Title:Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist and Angels
Artist:Master called Pseudo-Pier Francesco Fiorentino (Italian, Florentine, active ca. 1460–1500)
Medium:Tempera and gold on wood
Dimensions:33 3/8 x 23 3/4 in. (84.8 x 60.3 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:The Friedsam Collection, Bequest of Michael Friedsam, 1931
Object Number:32.100.79
[Sir George Donaldson, London and Brighton]; [Duveen, New York, by 1917–19, as by Pier Francesco Fiorentino; sold to Kleinberger]; [Kleinberger, New York, 1919–21; sold for $6,000 to Friedsam]; Michael Friedsam, New York (1921–d. 1931)
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Michael Friedsam Collection," November 15, 1932–April 9, 1933, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Florentine Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum," June 15–August 15, 1971, no catalogue.
B[ernard]. Berenson. Letter. March 1917, ascribes it to Pier Francesco Fiorentino, stating that it is based on a design by Pesellino.
Gustave Soulier. "Pier Francesco Fiorentino pittore di Madonne." Dedalo 7 (1926), p. 96, groups it with paintings he calls "pierfrancescane," including a replica of it formerly in the Costantini collection, Florence.
Bernard Berenson in The Michael Friedsam Collection. [completed 1928], pp. 42–43, discusses it in connection to a group of works by an anonymous artist he names the Pseudo-Pier Francesco Fiorentino; considers it a "copy with variations" of a Madonna and Child now in the Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio [see Ref. Toledo 1945], noting that the figure of the infant Saint John is from a Nativity by Filippo Lippi in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin.
Raimond van Marle. The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting. Vol. 13, The Renaissance Painters of Florence in the 15th Century: The Third Generation. The Hague, 1931, p. 447, fig. 298, attributes the MMA and Toledo Madonnas to Pier Francesco Fiorentino.
Bernhard Berenson. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Oxford, 1932, p. 451, lists it as by Pseudo-Pier Francesco Fiorentino.
Maria Mseriantz. "Two New Panels by Pier Francesco Fiorentino." Art in America 23 (June 1935), pp. 104, 112, attributes it to Pier Francesco Fiorentino, notes the influence of Filippo Lippi, and calls it an early work, about 1480–85.
F. Mason Perkins. Letter. March 24, 1938, attributes it to Pseudo-Pier Francesco Fiorentino.
Harry B. Wehle. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of Italian, Spanish, and Byzantine Paintings. New York, 1940, p. 38, ill., attributes it to the Lippi-Pesellino Imitators.
"Pesellino's Masterpiece." Museum News: Toledo Museum of Art no. 110 (December 1945), unpaginated, ill., calls it an adaptation of the Toledo Madonna by Pesellino.
Herbert Friedmann. The Symbolic Goldfinch: Its History and Significance in European Devotional Art. Washington, 1946, p. 149, as by Pier Francesco Fiorentino.
Josephine L. Allen and Elizabeth E. Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1954, p. 60.
Bernard Berenson. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Florentine School. London, 1963, vol. 1, p. 173, lists it with an incorrect accession number.
Federico Zeri with the assistance of Elizabeth E. Gardner. Italian Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Florentine School. New York, 1971, pp. 107–8, ill., as by the the Lippi-Pesellino Imitators; mention three other versions of the composition (ex Costantini collection, Florence; Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence; Lord Rochdale collection, Lingholm, Keswick).
Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972, pp. 134, 329, 536, 607, identify the figure in the lower right corner as the donor.
Lionello Puppi inOpus Sacrum. Ed. Józef Grabski. Exh. cat., Royal Castle, Warsaw. Vienna, 1990, p. 90.
Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 22, ill.
Mojmír S. Frinta. "Part I: Catalogue Raisonné of All Punch Shapes." Punched Decoration on Late Medieval Panel and Miniature Painting. Prague, 1998, p. 117, ill. (detail of punch mark), as by an imitator of Pesellino; classifies a punch mark appearing in this painting.
Meryle Secrest. Duveen: A Life in Art. New York, 2004, pp. 250–51, 470–71.
This painting is derived from a Madonna and Child with three angels by Pesellino in the Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio. Zeri and Gardner (1971) discuss other versions of the composition.
Botticelli (Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi) (Italian, Florence 1444/45–1510 Florence)
early 1490s
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