Workshop of Benvenuto Tisi, called il Garofalo

Art market, Rome;

Where acquired by B.J.G. Wilson, on behalf of Lord Medway, 1833 (according to a label on the verso);

Anonymous sale, Cologne, Koller, 26 March 2010, lot 3004;

Where acquired by the present owner.

This composition corresponds with the central portion of Garofalo's Circumcision of Christ (Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. no. 692), which originally comprised the central predella panel for the artist's 1519 Massacre of the Innocents altarpiece, commissioned for the Ferrarese Church of San Francesco. As early as 1632, the Louvre panel had been removed from the church and replaced by a copy (Ferrara, Pinacoteca Nazionale, inv. no. 179), both of which were widely reproduced. In addition to the present work, produced in Garofalo's workshop, another version is in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore (inv. no. 37.1077).