(Florence circa 1441–1493)
The Madonna and Child with the Archangel Gabriel and the Infant Saint John the Baptist,
tempera on panel, tondo, diameter 83.3 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private European collection

We are grateful to Andrea De Marchi for confirming the attribution of the present painting.

This tondo da camera is a particularly important example of a painting by Jacopo del Sellaio intended for domestic devotion. This painter produced exquisite works of this kind, some of which were remarkably inventive. He primarily depicted the Madonna adoring the Christ Child in scenes based on the iconography of the Nativity. The present example, however, shows a “Madonna dell’Umiltà” (Madonna of Humility) viewed from the front and seated on a red cushion on the ground, so that the figure perfectly fits in with the round format of the compostion.

The background is made up of a wide river landscape flanked on both sides by rocks where bluish tones fade into translucent veils on the horizon. The painter’s approach to the figures in this fantastic landscape, which extends horizontally, is suggestive of the final years of the master’s life, the period around 1490, when the influence of Perugino’s proto-classicism made itself more distinctly felt and a more austere and reduced composition for themes devoted to the adoration of the Child prevailed.

The painter has assigned the place on the right-hand side to the figure of the Infant Saint John the Baptist, an indispensable protagonist in such groups, while the Archangel Gabriel appears on the left, recognisable by his attribute of a lily. Kneeling on the ground, the divine messenger mirrors the Madonna’s pose. The gesture with which he lets an open booklet slide down his right leg is reminiscent of Botticelli. This entirely unusual scene alludes to the secret of God’s incarnation and is therefore also meant as a spiritual episode. Such paintings were indeed intended for meditative prayer, for silent devotion: with their affectionate and anecdotal depictions, they invited deeper contemplation. The premonition of Christ’s sacrifice justifies the Madonna’s melancholic expression, her delicate complexion betraying Jacopo del Sellaio’s admiration for the young Botticelli, who preceded him as a pupil in the workshop of Fra Filippo Lippi. Her melancholy is answered by the pose of the head of the Archangel Gabriel, who seems to completely abandon himself to this emotion of sadness. In Jacopo del Sellaio’s compositions, the Infant Saint John is frequently shown in direct adoration of the Christ Child. Here, however, he stands slightly apart from the rest of the scene: wearing a garment of camel hair and ready for a life of penitence in the desert, he raises his right hand in a gesture of blessing. In his other hand, he holds a tall, thin cross and a scroll inscribed “ECCE AGNUS DEI QUI TOLLIS [peccatum mundi]”. Similar to the Christ Child, he faces the spectator, seeking to arouse feelings of mercy and piety. The Christ Child’s gesture, which can be traced to figure studies by Lippi, is highly original and unusual. Balancing on his mother’s left knee, he reaches out for her naked breast with both of his arms, having probably been interrupted and distracted from suckling. Christ’s gesture of surprise seems to have been meant to convey a touchingly childlike truthfulness and spontaneity, in contrast to the melancholic gazes of the other figures, who appear frozen in timelessness and abstracted. The violet veil which is loosely draped across the Madonna’s chest over which her hair falls is typical of Jacopo’s late period, leaving a long strand of hair exposed (in some way the artist’s signature).

By depicting the Madonna dell’Umiltà in a seated position in which one knee is bent and the other raised, Jacopo del Sellaio seems to have recalled a particularly successful composition by Luca della Robbia that had likewise been executed in a round format (the most felicitous example is the stucco variant in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford; see G. Gentilini, I Della Robbia. La scultura invetriata nel Rinascimento, Florence 1993, I, pp. 22 and 147, note 21). The idea was realised earlier in the form of a tondo, now in the Alana Collection in Newark (see A. Staderini, in: The Alana Collection. Italian Paintings from the 14th to the 16th Century, ed. by S. Chiodo and S. Padovani, Florence 2014, pp. 152–55, cat. 21). In this latter painting, however, the Christ Child standing on the Virgin’s knee is rather tall; the composition shows the Infant Saint John adoring the Child, as well as two angels directly set off against the sky, holding up a garland from behind a marble balustrade. Being clearer and more atmospheric, the colours of this roundel in the Alana Collection give a more festive impression and point to an earlier period in the painter’s career, to the years around 1480, when the artist was strongly influenced stylistically by Domenico Ghirlandaio (see the altarpiece in San Giusto). Despite their youthful looks, the two angels evoke the archangels Michael and Gabriel, with the first depicted in armour and holding a myrtle branch and the other carrying lilies. In addition, mention should also be made here of a tondo in the Petit Palais in Avignon (see M. Laclotte and E. Moench, Peinture italienne. Musée du Petit Palais Avignon, Paris 2005, p. 188, cat. 250): this painting with some workshop intervention from the 1480s repeats the balustrade from the tondo in the Alana Collection and the motif of the Christ Child’s affectionate embrace (as does a painting in the Johnson Collection in Philadelphia), with the Infant Saint John in prayer behind a small wall on the left-hand side and the Archangel Gabriel with a childlike expression on his face and a lily branch on the right.

The main group of the tondo in the Alana Collection, namely the Virgin and Child with the Infant Baptist, recurs unaltered in a tondo in the Fine Arts Museum in San Francisco (inv. 1990.21.1). It also contains the balustrade and a more modest variant of the emblematic rose garden, the hortus conclusus, which opens up behind a landscape flanked by two rocks. The youthful Archangel Gabriel once again appears on the right-hand side.

Although the present roundel echoes the landscape scenery of the latter painting, it introduces a radically new idea, as the scene, with the diverging proportions of Saint John and Gabriel, is absorbed by the expanse of the sober, bluish landscape, which lacks the appealing details Jacopo del Sellaio had taken such a great liking to around 1480. A fundamental point of reference for what can be called the painter’s “Pietist” development is the painting Pietà e santi (formerly in Berlin and now destroyed) for the altar of the Brotherhood of San Frediano, for which the artist received payment in 1487, but which had been completed as early as 1484/85. Moreover, the delicate colours are reminiscent of those in the altarpiece Crocefissione e Santi in San Frediano which dates from around 1490 and belongs to the artist’s late period.

An examination with infrared reflectography reveals the high quality of draughtsmanship particularly in the figure of the Infant Saint John, whose face and anatomy have been outlined with swift, broad brushstrokes. Modifications carried out in the drawing underscore its quality and the originality of the pictorial invention. Minor corrections have been found, such as in the right sleeve of the Madonna, which was originally wide and was then altered to fit her arm more tightly.

We are grateful to Andrea De Marchi for cataloguing the present painting.



Technical analysis


Infrared reflectography reveals that the present painting has one of the most interesting under-drawings in Florentine painting from this period. The working practice for the preparation of similar panels in Florence in the second half of the 15th century, as well as in the beginning of 16th century usually involved under-drawing that was generally limited to an accurate contour trace which was then typically transferred from a preliminary drawing on paper by pouncing or by another transposition method onto a prepared panel and then retraced with a thin brush to visualize the outline of figures, details and the folds, scarcely ever using hatching. Sometimes incisions were also made, usually in the deep blue cloaks and architectural surrounds. This was the typical working practice of Botticelli, for example, of course compositions were possibly changed in the course of painting as revealed by IR and X-rays in some positions and gestures.

In the present tondo, the use of preliminary 1:1 drawings (models) is suggested in some parts of the figures, such as the right hand and the head of the Madonna, whose eyes appear to have originally placed a little lower, in the face of the angel, and in the Child, carefully outlined with a few changes. Other clues of this preliminary careful drawing can be seen in the veil of the Madonna which was originally on her chest, just below the right shoulder, and the sleeve of her dress, drawn larger than in the final version.

This kind of contour under-drawing can also be detected in other paintings by Jacopo del Sellaio. Most interestingly, in addition to this usual Tuscan working practice, IR images show another type of drawing was made with a larger brush and black carbon-based ink, definitely free, that can be seen especially on the figure of the Infant Saint John. This figure seems to have been drawn completely without a cartoon, directly freehand, and it appears to have been worked over several times on order to find the right shape. This can be seen around the head, where the position of the eyes, mouth and nose is made with a curved line as if in quick sketches, and the size is altered several times, also apparent on the left arm. John appears to have been drawn naked at first and then dressed; small changes occurred with a second drawing and during painting. Some variations appear in the left hand and right arm of the Madonna, in her veil, in the shoulder of the Child, where free lines of drawing are evident in reflectography, and also in the angel’s dress and arms: small corrections, generally. A sort of hatched drawing is also present in the shadows of the Madonna’s dress and mantle, quite an uncommon praxis in Florence at this time. A thin linear freehand drawing can also be detected in the landscape. Among pigments, IR images suggest azurite was used in the Madonna’s cloak and a thin under-layer containing green earth was applied in the flesh tones.

In conclusion, the present painting is a sort of palimpsest, partially realized with drawing alla prima on a prepared panel, changing and reinventing the original trace and idea. A similar process, but with a different distinctive under-drawing, can be seen sometimes in paintings by Botticelli – with whom Jacopo collaborated at least in the Nastagio degli Onesti series of paintings in the Prado Museum, Madrid – and Filippino Lippi. This working practice is an important and significant example of how the use of models from previous compositions could be re-arranged and renewed.

We are grateful to Gianluca Poldi for the technical analysis of the present painting.