Catalogue Roberti Fine Art, TEFAF Maastricht 2026 (1) compressed - Flipbook - Page 38
The two panels were last on the market in 1993 with a rather over-ambitious attribution to
Filippino Lippi. They are, in fact, typical works by Agnolo del Mazziere, as first suggested by the
scholar Nicoletta Pons, who points out that the figure of the Baptist is directly comparable with his
counterpart in Agnolo9s altarpiece of the Madonna and Child with Saints in the collection of the Earl
of Halifax (fig. 1).
This artist was formerly known as the 8Master of Santo Spirito9, thus named in reference to the
altarpieces in the Bardelli (fig. 2; compare the figure of Saint John the Evangelist on the far right to
the present Saint John) and Corbinelli chapels in the Church of Santo Spirito in Florence.
Contemporary documents uncovered by Anna Padoa Rizzo and published in 1988 have enabled the
corpus to be associated with the bustling Florentine workshop of two brothers, Agnolo and
Donnino del Mazziere.¹ Agnolo appears to have been a pupil or assistant of Domenico Ghirlandaio
and his style was much influenced by Cosimo Rosselli, with whom (if one is to believe Giorgio
Vasari) he was 8amicissimo9. Agnolo appears to have been the better known of the two brothers and
was among the artists summoned by Michelangelo to Rome in 1507-1508 to confer over plans for
the decoration of the Sistine chapel.
Fig. 1. Agnolo di Domenico di Donnino del Mazziere, The Virgin and
Child enthroned with Saint John the Baptist and Saint Verdiana. oil on
canvas, 154.3 x 152 cm. Private Collection, United Kingdom.
© SimonDickinson
Fig. 2. Agnolo di Domenico di Donnino del Mazziere, The Virgin and Child
enthroned, two angels, Saint Bartholomew and Saint John the Evangelist.
tempera on panel, 178 × 185 cm. Bardelli chapel, Church of Santo Spirito,
Florence.
¹See A. Padoa Rizzo,
