Piero del Pollaiuolo

Probably acquired by William Wilshere (1806–1867), The Frythe, Welwyn, Hertfordshire, or by his brother Charles Willes Wilshere (1814–1906), whose wife Elizabeth Farmer's great-nephew inherited the estate;

Captain Gerald Maunsell Wilshere (1898–1972) – who changed his name from Farmer, in accordance with the terms of his great-aunt's will – The Frythe, Welwyn, Hertfordshire, 1934; 

By whom sold, London, Sotheby’s, 21 October 1942, lot 100 (as Florentine School), for £3,300 to Mendelssohn Bartholdy;

Edith Mendelssohn Bartholdy, née Speyer (1882–1969), London, acting for a private collector, probably Merton;

Sir Thomas Ralph Merton (1888–1969), Stubbings House, Maidenhead, Berkshire, by 1950;

Then by descent to his wife Lady Violet Marjory Merton (1891–1976);

By whose Trustees sold (‘The Property of the late Lady Merton, sold by Order of the Trustees’), London, Christie’s, 13 December 1985, lot 78 (as Cosimo Rosselli, dating to the 1460s);

Where acquired by the father of the present owners.

A.C.R. Carter, The Year's Art 1942–44, London 1944, pp. 97 and 112;

A. Scharf, Catalogue of Pictures and Drawings [in the Merton Collection], 1950, p. 36, no. XIV, reproduced (as Piero del Pollaiuolo);

E. Fahy, ‘An altarpiece by Cosimo Rosselli’, in Quaderni di Emblema, 2, Miscellanea, Bergamo 1973, p. 56 (as Cosimo Rosselli);

A. Padoa Rizzo, ‘La Cappella Salutati nel Duomo di Fiesole e l’attività giovanile di Cosimo Rosselli’, in Antichità viva, XVI, 3, 1977, pp. 7 and 12 n. 25, reproduced p. 9, fig. 11 (as Rosselli);

E. Fahy in Cosimo Rosselli, Painter of the Sistine Chapel, A.R. Blumenthal (ed.), exh. cat., Winter Park, Florida 2001, p. 252 under ‘List of Paintings by Cosimo Rosselli’ (as Rosselli);

A.  Wright, The Pollaiuolo Brothers, The Arts of Florence and Rome, New Haven and London 2005, pp. 133–34, 454 n. 96, 520–21, no. 48, fig. 103 (as Piero del Pollaiuolo, in the later 1460s or early 1470s; in good condition);

E. Gabrielli, Cosimo Rosselli, Catalogo Ragionato, Torino 2007, p. 256, R21, reproduced (listed under ‘Works wrongly attributed to Cosimo Rosselli’; as in good condition as verified by Wright 2005; Scharf’s attribution to Pollaiuolo, echoed by Wright and informally by Fahy [who previously published it as Rosselli], is more tenable than Rosselli ‘il dipinto trova una più felice collocazione nel catalogo di Piero del Pollaiolo’);

L. Kanter, Book Review ‘A. Wright, The Pollaiuolo Brothers, The Arts of Florence and Rome’, The Burlington Magazine, vol. 148, 1237, April 2006, pp. 280–81 (as not by either of the Pollaiuolo brothers; no alternative attribution proposed);

A. Natali and A. Tartuferi (eds), I Pollaiolo, Florence 2010, p. 34, reproduced in colour fig. 14 (as Piero del Pollaiuolo).

London, Royal Academy of Arts, Italian Art and Britain, 1960, no. 342.