Michele Tosini, called Michele di Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio

Morrocchi-Di Giulio family, Florence;
Private Collection, USA;
Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby's, 24 January 2008, lot 267, where purchased after the sale by the present owner.

Brest, France, Musée des Beaux-Arts, 2008-2011 (on long-term loan).

H.J. Hornik, Michele Tosini and the Ghirlandaio workshop in Cinquecento Florence, Brighton 2009, p.69, reproduced colour plate 4.

The catalogue illustration is much too pink in tone. The support consists of six horizontal panels through which a deep vertical trench has been chiselled approximately 2 inches wide. The support appears stable. The paint surface itself is slightly abraded in parts though for the most part remains substantially intact. There are however restored losses along two of the horizontal panel joins and fairly numerous spot retouchings throughout, notably on the pink vestment of the virgin, on the Christ child’s body and face and some older restoration less obvious to the flesh tones of each figure. The blue/grey drape covering the virgin’s lap is substantially restored and the blue pigments have deceased. There is a restored damage to the book held by Saint Joseph to his hand, small restored damage beneath his right eye, and various smaller restorations around his head. On the virgin’s face there are simply several small spot retouchings and one larger restoration immediately above her right eyebrow, approximately 2 by 0.5 cm. The painting is offered in a later parcel-gilt frame
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Michele di Jacopo Tosini inherited the Ghirlandaio workshop from his adopted artistic father, Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio (1483-1561). Under Tosini's direction, and no doubt aided by Tosini's inclusion in the second edition of the Vite written by his friend and colleague, Giorgio Vasari, the workshop enjoyed considerable success in mid-16^th Century Florence.  This large panel is one of four autograph versions of a composition clearly much-favoured by Michele Tosini. This and the other three (St. Petersburg, The Hermitage; Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi; and Fiesole, Museo Bardini), are all nearly identical, with any differences being very minor in nature. The pose of the Madonna is echoed in another work by Tosini in the Galleria Palatina, Florence.¹ All of these works are dated by Hornik circa 1560-1.  As Hornik observes,  "The painting recalls an extrabiblical pietà scene between mother and son.  Mary is never recorded in the passion narratives as holding the dead body of Christ on her lap yet is was a popular theme in the North that Michelangelo, especially, favored." ²

1. Hornik, op. cit., reproduced p. 68, fig. 7.
2. Hornik, op. cit., pp. 69-70.