(Florence 1609–1675)
A Youth playing the shawm ,
oil on canvas, oval, 76 x 61 cm, framed

Provenance:
Mansi collection, Lucca

Literature:
S. Bellesi, Catalogo dei pittori fiorentini del ‘600 e ‘700, vol. I, biografie e opere, p. 128, and vol. II, biografie e opere, p. 221, ill. 465

Vincenzo Dandini began his career in the studio of his brother Cesare, and later became a pupil of Passignano, Matteo Rosselli, and Andrea Comodi. Between 1635 and 1636 he was in Rome as a pupil of Pietro da Cortona. He returned to Florence in 1637, where he began to work independently. Between 1637 and 1638 he painted the Adoration of Niobe, which was commissioned by Prince Don Lorenzo de’ Medici for his villa, La Petraia. Dandini’s mature paintings not only display similarities to works by his brother Cesare, by Furini, Lippi and Volterrano, but also far-reaching analogies to Guido Reni’s work and his milieu. His works are refined, and usually he preferred to depict domestic feelings with a subty.

Between 1662 and 1664, Dandini worked for the Medicean tapestry workshop, and contributed cartoons for the series devoted to the Story of Moses and the Grand Duke Cosimo I. Dandini died in Florence on April 22 1675, and was buried in the Compagnia di San Benedetto Bianco in Santa Maria Novella.

Another picture of a flute player by Vincenzo Dandini, stylistically akin to the present picture, is preserved in the Vasari Corridor in the Uffizi (see Bellesi, 2003, cat. no. 4, p. 76).