Francesco Brina

Private collection, New Jersey;

Thereafter acquired by the present owner.

Francesco Brina was one of the “Studiolo” painters, responsible for the panel of Neptune and Amphitrite in Francesco I de’ Medici’s jewel-box study in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, and the author of several altarpieces in Florence, San Gimignano, and Volterra. But he is best known for paintings of the Madonna and Child, intended for the domestic interiors of private patrons. Sometimes these are two-figure compositions, but more often attendant saints appear, as in the present painting.

Brina was a student of Michele di Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, and though the palette of the present work reflects the brilliant colors of Florentine mannerism, the composition, with its Christ Child sprawling across the Virgin’s lap, harkens back to Raphael’s Bridgewater Madonna. For Brina the emphasis is less on the religious significance of the subject than on the personal and emotional bond between mother and child, which is evoked through gentle gestures and tender expressions.