File:Drawing (BM 1860,0616.49).jpg

Height: 296 millimetres

Width: 220 millimetres

Florentine XVc. The drawing dates from about 1470. The drawing was copied in C.M. Metz, 'Imitations of Ancient and Modern Drawings from the Restoration of the Arts in Italy to the Present Time', London, 1798 (expanded edition of 1789).

Lit.: A.E. Popham and P. Pouncey, 'Italian drawings in the BM, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries', London, 1950, I, no. 279, II, pl. CCXLIV; D. Sutton (ed.), 'II. Letters from Herbert Horne to Roger Fry', "Apollo", CXXII, July 1985, p. 136, fig. 1

Popham & Pouncey 1950 In the sky in the top l.-hand corner and again on the ground beneath the Child is a face surrounded by tongues of flame, emitting rays of light. Attributed to Domenico Ghirlandaio in an early nineteenth-century hand on both mount and drawing. The difficulty of the problem of authorship presented by this drawing is sufficiently indicated by the variety of names that have been proposed for it. Wickhoff, who in 1899 found it still under the name of Domenico Ghirlandaio, was convinced that it was in fact by Domenico Veneziano. Berenson in his first edition confidently ascribed it to Sellaio. In his second edition, however, he writes that he is no longer convinced by his original idea although he is still reminded of Sellaio (in a phase when he is closely imitating Pesellino) by the landscape, the Baptist, and the angels. He remarks that the Madonna and S. Joseph "are Verrocchiesque in a way that suggests the young Perugino", and questions whether the drawing may not be "a copy of a design by the great artist" (i.e. presumably Verrocchio). He concludes by stating that "a number of features" remind him of the Castello Master. In this latter observation Berenson was anticipated by Pudelko, who had already tentatively suggested that the author might be the Master of the Castello 'Nativity'. Van Marle, with hesitation, proposed the name of Piero Pollaiuolo. Berenson is undoubtedly right in abandoning the attribution to Sellaio and in insisting on the Verrocchiesque character of the drawing. The difficulty lies in deciding which of the many artists influenced by Verrocchio could have done it. Perugino's claim is, we think, exaggerated by Berenson. That the artist was a Florentine is almost certain. The Master of the Castello 'Nativity' was fond of this composition, but the morphological details (e.g. the shape of the hands) are not his. Something of Baldovinetti's influence is also discernible. The direct simplicity of the structure of the drapery may be compared with that to be found in the 'intarsie' executed by Giuliano da Maiano in the sacristy of the Duomo at Florence on designs prepared by Maso Finiguerra and Baldovinetti in 1464. The drawing must date from about 1470.

Literature: BB 2508 (1st ed. i, pp. 73 f. and pl. LIII) ; F. Wickhoff, Prussian Jahrbuch, xx (1899), p. 213; Van Marle, xi (1929), p. 396 and fig. 245; G. Pudelko, Mitteilungen des kunsthistorischen Instituts in Florenz, iv (1934), p. 200.

Popham & Pouncey 1950: Addenda