Follower of Andrea del Sarto, 16th century.

Italian school, ca. 1600. Follower of ANDREA DEL SARTO (Florence, 1486 - 1531).
"Madonna and Child, St. John and the angels".
Oil on canvas mounted on board.
Period frame.
It presents craquelures and slight damages in the pictorial layer.
Measurements: 110 x 83 cm; 130 x 104 cm (frame).

This "Holy Family" is one of the numerous copies of the famous creation of Andrea del Sarto, of which there are also several autograph versions (one of them owned by the Wallace Collection in London). The work perfectly combines the values that made Andrea del Sarto's production a pictorial reference in 16th century Italy: the treatment of light and the use of color in the manner of Leonardo da Vinci, the formal perfection of Raphael and the sculptural volume and inventiveness characteristic of Michelangelo. To all this is added the refined sensibility that made him a milestone in Tuscan art for decades.

The son of a tailor - hence his nickname (sarto) -, according to Giorgio Vasari Andrea del Sarto began in the workshop of a goldsmith, but soon his skill in drawing led him to devote himself to painting. His artistic education took place alongside Piero di Cosimo and in 1508 he already established himself as an independent artist. After an initial period of collaboration with Franciabigio, he soon began to take on numerous commissions on his own, mainly from religious orders. The strengthening of his prestige earned him the invitation of Francis I in 1518 to move to Paris, returning to Florence the following year. There, during the second decade of the 15th century, his works had a decisive influence on the more experimental young artists such as Rosso and Pontormo, but their achievements would eventually echo in the master's works from the 1920s onwards. In addition, Sarto always took into account and applied the lessons of the great masters of the Renaissance. Leonardo da Vinci's treatment of light and color, Raphael's formal perfection and Michelangelo's sculptural volume and inventiveness. To all this he added a poetics of refined sensibility, which permanently influenced Tuscan art for decades. Of the paintings that the Prado Museum has related to Andrea del Sarto, three offer no doubt about the direct authorship of the master, Lucrezia di Baccio del Fede, the painter's wife, The Virgin and Child between St. Matthew and an Angel and The Sacrifice of Isaac. The female portrait has traditionally been assumed, although without any certainty, as a representation of the painter's second wife, Lucrezia del Fede. The first sure reference to the work is found in the inventory of the Royal Palace of Madrid in 1794. Currently his work is preserved in the best art galleries in the world such as the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid or the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, among many others.