Pittore di Pontignano (possibly Agostino d'Anselmo Carosi)

Marco Ciampolini has recently given this painting to the Pittore di Pontignano, an artist that he named after a set of frescoes in San Pietro a Pontignano, a church just outside of Siena.¹ This artist was particularly drawn to the passionate modes and styles of some of the leading artists in Counter-Reformation Siena, including Alessandro Casolani (1552-1606), Francesco Vanni (1563-1610), and Ventura Salimbeni (1568-1613) as well as Francesco Bartalini and Giovan Paolo Pisani (1574-1637).² The Pittore di Pontignano, according to Ciampolini, “absorbed the emotionality of Casolani, the velvety, painterly brio of Vanni, as well as the tender humanity of Ventura Salimbeni,” and his oeuvre is characterized by brilliant color, a notably skilled brush, and elegant compositions.³ Other works Ciampolini has assigned to this hand include a Saint Sebastian in the church of SS. Pietro e Paolo in Roccalbegna and a number of canvases in the Chigi-Saraceni collection in Siena, including a Holy Family with Saint John the Baptist and Saint Catherine that shares close visual affinities to the present example.⁴Ciampolini has introduced the possibility that Pittori di Pontignano, a moniker for an anonymous hand, may in fact be Agostino d’Anselmo Carosi, an artist linked to the workshop of Casolani. Carosi was active in Siena during the first quarter of the 17th century. In 1602, a payment was made to Carosi by the Compagnia of San Antonio Abate for a now lost altarpiece of the Madonna and Child with Saints. Carosi is also recorded as purchasing a farm near Siena from Francesco Bartolini in 1603, the same farm that would be sold after Carosi’s death in 1627 to Rutilo Manetti, a prominent artist of the Sienese Baroque.  

On the original strainer of this painting is an inscription identifying the author as Giovanni Francesco Rustici (1475-1554), a Florentine sculptor. This erroneous inscription likely arose from a confusion between this sculptor and the Rustici family of painters, active in Siena from the end of the 16th century to the early 17th century. 

We are grateful to Marco Ciampolini for endorsing the present attribution. His expertise forms the basis of this cataloguing entry.

1. For the frescoes, see  M. Ciampolini, Pittore senesi del Seicento, Siena 2011, vol. II, reproduced plates 325-328.

2. M. Ciampolini, Pittore senesi del Seicento, Siena 2011, vol. II, p. 635. As translated, “assorbe l’emotivi del Casolani e il vellutato smalto pittorico del Vanni, nonché la tenera umanitá di Ventura Salimbeni.” 

3. Ciampolini 2011, p. 635.3. 

4. Other examples from this set in the Chigi-Saracene collection include Angels with Flutes (inv. No. MPS 425) and Angels with a Violin (inv. No. MPS. 427).