(San Giovanni Valdarno 1406–1486 Florence)
Putto playing a pipe; and Putto with a pipe,
tempera on panel, 45 x 41 cm, a pair, unframed (2)

Provenance:
Private collection, Northern France (circa 1880);
Private collection, Brussels

The present panels were most probably the side panels of a painted cassone or wedding chest. The putti are shown full-figure and in the nude, dressed only in a small cape lined with red; they are depicted playing music and dancing in the middle of a flowery meadow painted in the late-Gothic manner. The motif is directly inspired by monumental sculpture, with an evident reference to the pulpit by Donatello and Michelozzo in the duomo of Prato, and to the famous choir stalls by Luca della Robbia and Donatello in the duomo of Florence.

These two pictures are typical of the work of Giovanni di Ser Giovanni, known as Lo Scheggia, the younger brother of Masaccio, with whom he worked. Subsequently, Lo Scheggia was active in Florence from 1430 as the owner of a busy workshop specialising above all in the production of chests and ‘backrests’, deschi da parto and devotional tables for private and often high-ranking individuals, including Piero de’ Medici and his son, Lorenzo the Magnificent (see L. Bellosi/M. Haines, Lo Scheggia, Florence-Siena 1999; L.Cavazzini, Il fratello di Masaccio: Giovanni di Ser Giovanni detto lo Scheggia, exhibition catalogue, Florence-Siena 1999).

The marked plasticity and striving for naturalism in the handling of the putti’s nude bodies reveal a close adherence to Masaccio’s great models; it should be recalled that Lo Scheggio worked as Masaccio’s collaborator at Pisa in 1426, after starting training in the workshop of Bicci di Lorenzo. These features only occur in the early phase of his career, when the painter revealed the influence of his celebrated elder brother to the greatest extent.

There are close links with pictures such as the Madonna and Child with two angels in the Museo Horne in Florence (inv. 50; BELLOSI-HAINES, 1999, cit., p. 81), the Madonna and Child standing belonging to the Bologna authorities (A.Tambini, Un’aggiunta al catalogo dello Scheggia e l’influenza di Masaccio, in: Paragone, 467 (1989), pp. 67-72), and the Madonna and Child with the young Baptist, formerly in a private French collection (F. Zeri, Un appunto su Tommaso di Ser Giovanni, detto Masaccio, e suo fratello Giovanni di Ser Giovanni, detto Scheggia, in: Prospettiva, 33-36 (1983-84), pp. 56-64), all of which can with all probability be dated to 1430-40. Stylistically, it should also be noted – especially in the Putto playing a bagpipe with the body seen from the back in a splendid perspective view – that there is a clear affinity in manner of painting and in typology with the Child playing with a small animal (see fig.) on the rear of the desco da parto by Masaccio in the Berlin Museums (inv. 58C), recently recognised as a work by Lo Scheggia in collaboration with his brother (K. Christiansen, in: The Burlington Magazine, CXXXII (1990), p. 337; see also M. Boskovits, in: Masaccio e le Origini del Rinascimento, exhibition catalogue, Geneva-Milan 2002, p. 73n).

We are grateful to Filippo Todini for the present catalogue entry.