MANNER OF JACOPO DEL SELLAIO

Publishing this Madonna and Child in 1976, Everett Fahy considered it to be by the Master of the Fiesole Epiphany (loc. cit.), an anonymous fifteenth-century Florentine painter, supposedly taught by Cosimo Rosselli but also influenced by Jacopo del Sellaio. According to annotations on a record in Fahy's archives, however, he later revised this attribution, believing the painting instead to be the work of Sellaio himself (see Fondazione Federico Zeri Fototeca, no. 14939).

This Madonna and Child seems to have been considerably repainted, most probably in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. While the overall effect is pretty, the figures have a solidity that contrast with their sweet, well-proportioned faces. This 'sweetening' corresponds with the style of Louis Vertegas, a restorer who worked closely with Michele Lazzaroni, a former owner of this painting. While it may be possible that this panel originated from Sellaio's workshop, the overpaint makes it difficult to gauge the extent of Vertegas's intervention and what might be preserved beneath.