(active in Florence between 1478 and 1500)
The Madonna and Child; in the lunette above: The Crucified Christ with Saint John the Baptist and Saint Francis
tempera on panel, 75.5 x 43.5 cm, arched top, framed

Provenance:
Private European collection

The Master of San Miniato is a Florentine painter who was categorized by Bernard Berenson in 1913 and named after an altarpiece of the Madonna and Child with Saints in the church of San Domenico in San Miniato al Tedesco. Based on this work, Berenson compiled a catalogue of eight works. The master’s art is rooted in Florentine painting of the 1460s and particularly relies on the work of Filippo Lippi. Additional influences came from Cosimo Rosselli and the first students of Andrea Verrocchio, first and foremost the young Sandro Botticelli and Domenico Ghirlandaio.

An almost identical second version of the painting is conserved in Florence (Galleria degli Uffizi, depositi; J. H. H. Kessler, “The Master of S. Miniato”, in: The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, 46 (1925), pp. 230–235 [230]).

The present composition was undoubtedly intended for a small altar intended for private devotion – a function that accounts for the painting’s iconography: the lower part shows the Madonna and Child in a niche extending with perspective into the picture’s space, while the central perspective is contradicted by the lunette added above, depicting a landscape with John the Baptist and Saint Francis in adoration of Christ on the Cross. The painting appears in a frame, which is inscribed at the lower margin (“AVE MARIA GRATIA PLENA DOM.”). The Christ Child holds a pomegranate in his hand, which might symbolically allude to the blood of Christ. This interpretation is supported by the fact that Saint Francis, whose stigmatisation re-enacted Christ’s crucifixion, appears in the lunette above.

The present painting is catalogued as a work by the Master of San Miniato in the Fototeca Zeri (no. 13445).