Lorenzo Monaco and Workshop Assistant, possibly the young Fra Angelico

Lorenzo Monaco was one of the leading artists of his age and the greatest proponent of the last flowering of the Gothic style of painting in Florence. While his output was robust and well delineated, the particulars of his life have remained somewhat elusive to scholars, who have yet to ascertain the year or place of his birth. He was born Piero di Giovanni and only assumed his monastic name, Lorenzo Monaco, after taking his vows in 1391 and entering the Camaldolese monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence. He was ordained a subdeacon in 1392 and a deacon in 1396, but at some time after this date he opened up a workshop outside of the monastery and soon became one of the most successful and sought after artists working in Florence in the early Quattrocento.  

This beautiful Madonna of Humility with two adoring angels was a devotional work likely originally intended for private display. From the noble image of the Madonna to the harmonious tones of blue, pink, and purple, this painting is exemplary of the high refinement of detail and color as well as the grand elegance of form so characteristic of Lorenzo Monaco’s work. Purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1909, it was one of the first Italian Renaissance works to enter the institution, remaining in their collection until 2013. Since the painting was first published as such by Osvald Sirén in 1905, its attribution to Lorenzo Monaco has been upheld by several art historians. Others, however, including Federico Zeri, instead have proposed an attribution to the artist’s workshop. Zeri suggested that the same workshop artist was also responsible for the Saint Laurence Triptych of 1407 (Musée du Petit Palais, Avignon), a work that Michelle Laclotte believes was designed by Lorenzo Monaco and painted under direct supervision. In more recent years, new information on the artist’s workshop has revealed a number of highly accomplished hands in his workshop that were well-vetted by the master and upon whom he would rely to meet the high demand for his works. 

What seems likely is that the large and noble Madonna at the center of the present composition was painted by Lorenzo Monaco, while the other figures were revised later by a talented workshop assistant. The later intervention is confirmed by changes visible in the work, both the naked eye and with technical imaging. First, the angels were originally conceived for a higher register, later lowered to their current placement, and ghosts of their original halos are faintly visible to the naked eye. Shifts and changes were also made in the figure of the Christ Child. It seems possible that the hand tasked with making the changes to this composition was the young Fra Angelico, who at this early period of his career would have still been known as Guido di Pietro, prior to his becoming a Dominican friar. All three figures are highly naturalistic, particularly in the proportions of the Christ-Child, and all are rendered with astonishing quality and detail, from the cross-hatched highlights, to the string tie holding the collar of Christ’s cape together, and to the flowing ribbons that twist convincingly across and around the angels. Such distinct stylistic elements further point to the hand of the young Fra Angelico. 

Although the present work may have been started during the first decade of the fifteenth century, it probably dates to about 1412-1413 and possibly as late as 1414, a proposed execution date later than what has historically been proposed in the literature (circa 1403-1410). Another autograph version of this composition of a slightly earlier date is today in the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow (inv. no. 144), and it differs only in the details of the Virgin’s veil and the tonalities of the colors. The central portion of the work also is recorded in a tondo formerly in the collection of the Early of Southesk, described by Eisenberg as a modern copy.