Lot 18: MICHELE TOSINI, CALLED MICHELE DI RIDOLFO DEL GHIRLANDAIO

MICHELE TOSINI, CALLED MICHELE DI RIDOLFO DEL GHIRLANDAIO FLORENCE 1503 - 1577 MADONNA AND CHILD WITH SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST oil on panel 33 by 25 5/8 in.; 83.8 by 65 cm.

Michele Tosini began his artistic training in Florence with Lorenzo di Credi and Antonio del Ceraiolo, and later entered the workshop of Ridolfo Ghirlandaio. By the mid-1520s, the two were frequent collaborators and Tosini had adopted his mentor's name, going by Michele di Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio. Trained in the early 16th century Florentine style of Fra Bartolomeo and Andrea del Sarto, Tosini was slow to adopt the new Mannerist sensibility; however, by the 1540s, the influence of Bronzino and Salviati is evident in his work. In the 1550s and towards the end of his career, Tosini worked on a number of significant commissions, including the fresco decoration of the Salone dei Cinquecento in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence -- on which he collaborated with Vasari -- and the city gates of Florence.

Another version of this composition, aslo by Tosini, was formerly in the collection of the Earls of Haddington (their sale London, Sotheby's 8 July 1987, lot 1). Tosini often repeated his most successful compositions, altering only minor details. For example, in the present lot, the landscape background is more fully articulated than in the Haddington picture, and the placement of the hills visible through the archway at left differs significantly. The figures are clearly based on Mannerist prototypes, and it is easy to see the influence of Bronzino in the modelling of the Virgin's drapery and in the figures of the Christ Child and the young Baptist.