(Florence 1484–1527) and (Florence 1477–1548)
The Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist and two angels,
oil on panel, tondo, diameter 86 cm, framed

Literature:
U. Schlegel, Tafelbilder des Cinquecento Fiorentino in Berliner Privatbesitz, in: Pantheon, Internationale Zeitschrift für Kunst, 21st year, January/February 1963, pp. 39–46, p. 38 (as Giovanni Antonio Sogliani)

We are grateful to Louis Waldman for his help in cataloguing the present painting.

Executed in Florence in the first quarter of the sixteenth century, the present tondo on panel is a joint work by Giovanni Larciani and Mariotto Dolzemele. Together with Piero di Cosimo, Francesco Granacci, Andrea del Sarto, Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio, and the young artists Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino, the two painters belonged to the group of the so-called “eccentrici fiorentini”, the eccentric Florentines, who earned their merits as pioneers of Mannerism. In the early sixteenth century, Florence, home to faithful followers of the great Florentine examples of Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Raphael, also encouraged eccentricity and archaism and was extremely conducive to artistic innovation. The present tondo combines approaches to the subject of the Madonna deriving from the workshop of Verrocchio, such as those practised by Leonardo and Lorenzo di Credi, with novel tendencies coming from the workshop of Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio and distinctly revealing themselves in a noticeable penchant for saturated, contrasting colours and rosy complexions. This painting of a Madonna is thus a characteristic work from the group of the “eccentrici” from the period around 1510–1520.

Known as the so-called Master of the Kress Landscapes until identified by Louis Waldman as Giovanni di Lorenzo Larciani (see L. Waldman, “The Master of the Kress Landscapes Unmasked: Giovanni Larciani and the Fucecchio Altar-Piece”, in: The Burlington Magazine, 1998, 140, no. 1144, pp. 456–69), the artist was born in 1484 in the parish of S. Ambrogio in Florence, where he lived throughout his life. In 1503 he joined the Compagnia di San Luca in Florence, where he was a member until 1525. He ran his workshop, which he rented from the Benedictine convent of the Badia Fiorentina, together with his documented partner, Mariotto Dolzemele, formaly known as the Master of Serumido, whose hand Waldman recognises in the present tondo next to Larciani’s. Mariotto’s works primarily included large-sized altar retables such as the famous Pala of the Madonna and Child with Saints from S. Pietro Gattolino alias di Serumido, and these were executed until the middle of the century for Florentine and Tuscan churches, where they are still installed today.