Dreweatts 1759
Los 87
Domenico Puligo (Italian 1492-1527)Madonna and Child with the infant St John the BaptistOil on panel 95 x 70cm (37¼ x 27½ in.)Provenance:Sale, Sotheby's, New York, 25 January 2001, lot 72, sold for $52,000, where it was attributed as an authentic work by Domenico Puligo by Everett Fahy.Dr Elena Capretti has suggested that this may be a later work, with possible studio assistance, made around the same moment as the altarpieces in the church of S. Maria degli Angiolini and Santa Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi in Florence. Domenico Puglio was an Italian Renaissance painter who worked primarily in Florence. As a pupil of Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, his tutor's influence can be seen in much of Puglio's work. Other influences included Jacopo Pontormo and Il Rosso, as well as Andrea del Sarto for whom Puglio acted as an assistant. During this period Puglio is believed to have met and formed a friendship with the author and artist Giorgio Vasari, the latter also working in Sarto's workshop for a time. Puglio is therefore mentioned in the author's Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects:"He, considering that his method of painting with softness, without overloading his works with colour or making them hard, but causing the distances to recede little by little as though veiled with a kind of mist, gave his pictures both relief and grace, and that although the outlines of the figures he made were lost in such a way that his errors were concealed and hidden from view in the dark grounds into which the figures merged, nevertheless his colouring and the beautiful expressions of his heads made his works pleasing, always kept to the same method of working and to the same manner, which caused him to be held in esteem as long as he lived" (Vasari, Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, 1913, Vol. IV, p.281)There is a lack of information and documentation on Puligo's life and works, making it hard to determine and understand the chronology and background of his output. In his writing Vasari does not mention any works pre-dating 1525. However, it is believed that it was during the artist's early career that most of his Madonna and Child paintings were produced. Puligo was especially interested in compositions around the Madonna of Humility, as is depicted in the present lot, and created several paintings related to the subject. The work offered here, is smaller and more compact than the later life-sized voluminous figures which make up the large-scale altarpieces of Puligo's mature oeuvre. It is therefore possible that this work was produced before 1520. Dr Elena Capretti, however, has suggested that this may be a later work, with possible studio assistance, made around the same moment as the altarpieces in the church of S. Maria degli Angiolini and Santa Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi in Florence. Condition Report: The panel appears to be stable and is supported by two horizontal stretchers on the reverse. It is slightly bowed in the bottom right corner. Old woodworm holes visible to the stretcher. Fine surface cracking is visible across the surface, which appears to be generally stable Inspection under UV reveals scattered retouching across the image. Particularly on the darker pigment of the Madonna's hair and across the Christ child and across the infant St John the Baptist. These are not visible in natural light. Cleaned and revarnished. Presented in a carved and giltwood frame. Condition Report Disclaimer
