(Florence 1487–1527)
The Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist,
oil on panel, diameter 69.8 cm, framed

We are grateful to Professor Louis Waldman for confirming the attribution to Giovanni di Lorenzo Larciani on the basis of a high resolution digital photograph.

The facial types of the Madonna, the Christ Child, and the Infant Saint John the Baptist, as well as the balanced colours of the composition and the delicate landscape motif in the background, inspired by topography north of the Alps, are all unmistakable features of the Master of the Kress-Landscapes. Federico Zeri compiled a group of some twenty works of this formerly unidentified Florentine master active around 1510–20 and named him the Master of the Kress Landscapes, after two landscapes once conserved in the Samuel L. Kress Collection. When new documents for an altarpiece by this master in Fucecchio near Florence surfaced, Louis Waldman succeeded in identifying the artist as Giovanni di Lorenzo Larciani (L. Waldman, The Master of the Kress Landscapes Unmasked: Giovanni Larciani and the Fucecchio Altarpiece, in: The Burlington Magazine, 140, no. 1144, pp. 456–69).

Larciani was born in Florence in 1484, where he lived throughout his life. In 1503 he joined the Compagnia di San Luca until 1525. Whilst his altar pieces were primarily painted in the rural regions of Tuscany, the present tondo suggests an urban patron. The present work is the only known tondo by Larciani known at present. It underlines Larciani’s awareness of the works of Granacci, from whom similar mother and child compositions in the tondo format are known which might suggest that Larciani temporarily worked in Granacci’s workshop. The vast landscape with its northern atmosphere is typical of Larciani’s art.

additional picture:
Giovanni Larciani, Bucknell University Art Gallery, Lewisburg