Alesso di Benozzo ('Maestro Esiguo')

Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 23 November 1962, lot 113 (as Bartolommeo Caporali), for 1,600 guineas to Braswell;
Anonymous sale, Rome, Finarte Casa d'Aste, 2 December 1974, lot 78 (as School of Benozzo Gozzoli), for ITL 13m.

The panel is uncradled and stable, with a very faint convex bow. There is an old 5cm crack with some minor associated losses running down from the upper edge into the Madonna's head. The painting is now dirty and its varnish layer discoloured. The opaque varnish layer impedes any assessment under ultra-violet light, but the paint surface appears to be in beautiful condition, with no signs of wear and all original details intact. Although some degree of old repair should be allowed for beneath the old varnish, this seems to be confined to a speckling of old spot retouching across the faces and becks of both Madonna and Child and again to the drapes of the latter, and the picture should respond very well indeed to cleaning. This lot is offered unframed.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

The attribution to ‘Maestro Esiguo’ is due to Federico Zeri. The master was one of probably two assistants working for Benozzo Gozzoli during the last years of his life in Pistoia. It is almost certain that the two assistants were in fact his sons Francesco, who had established himself as a painter in Pistoia in 1489, and Alesso. However, since there are no signed or firmly documented, independent works by either son, precise attribution is impossible. In her 1996 catalogue raisonné Diane Cole Ahl does however differentiate between the two hands: the better of the two, whose ‘figures are slender, enveloped in intensely lit drapery with intricate linear and cursive rhythms… Their faces… smooth, elongated ovals, their small eyes widely spaced, their noses long and their features sharp’ is the one variously identified as ‘Maestro Esiguo’, Alunno di Benozzo, and Alesso di Benozzo (Gozzoli's younger son).¹ The style of the other hand is described by Ahl as much coarser and simplified, the faces with heavy and inexpressive features. Padoa Rizzo proposed to identify the more pedestrian master as the elder son Francesco and the one with a more acerbic rhythm and grace as the young Alesso.² Ahl identifies certain parts of Benozzo’s last two paintings, the monumental canvasses depicting the Descent from the Cross and the Raising of Lazarus of 1497, as by each of these hands.³

The composition of the present work may be associated with Benozzo's own Mystic Marriage of St Catherine in Terni and his Madonna of Humility with Sts Mary Magdalene and Martha in Berlin (now destroyed).⁴ Both those works show the Christ child bénissant seated on his mother's lap, before a cloth of honour held aloft by two angels. In the ex-Berlin painting the angels are particularly close to those here.

1. See D. Cole Ahl, Benozzo Gozzoli, New Haven and London 1996, p. 196. Roberto Longhi coined the term ‘Maestro Esiguo' for this painter, noting also in him the influence of Perugino and Pinturicchio. Berenson, adding several drawings to the group, changed the artist’s sobriquet to Alunno di Benozzo; and later Padoa Rizzi termed him Alesso di Benozzo (see Cole Ahl, ibid., p. 310, n. 22).
2. A. Padoa Rizzo, Arte e committenza a Pistoia alla fine del XV secolo: Benozzo Gozzoli e I figli Francesco e Alesso. Nuove ricerche, Pistoia 1989, pp. 22–25.
3. Both reproduced in ibid., p. 197, fig. 257, and p. 198, fig. 258.
4. Cole Ahl, pp. 262–63, cat. no. 81, and p. 209, cat. no. 5, reproduced.