Antonio del Ceraiolo (Florence active 1520–1538)

A pupil of Lorenzo di Credi and Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio, Antonio del Ceraiolo worked in Florence in the first half of the sixteenth century, where he is recorded by Vasari as a painter of portraits and several altarpieces. This composition draws on the arrangement of the Madonna and Child, with the latter’s right arm raised up, in Fra Bartolomeo’s altarpiece commissioned in 1512 by Ferry Carondelet, and given in 1518 to the cathedral of Saint-Étienne in Besançon (now in Saint-Jean, Besançon). A variant of this composition was formerly in the Scharf Collection and was sold at Fischer, Lucerne, June 1960, lot 1736 as by Mariotto Albertinelli.

We are grateful to David Franklin for confirming the attribution on the basis of photographs.