The Madonna’s eyes are lowered in sadness, an effect rendered through the straight line of her top lashes, which are normally arched to give the eyes a characteristic almond shape, typical of Sano di Pietro’s figures.

Sano di Pietro, a Sienese painter and illuminator who was active in the 15th century, was one of the most faithful pupils of Sassetta, who headed an extremely prolific workshop. Continuing the late-Gothic tradition, he enrolled in the ruolo dei pittori (painters’ guild) in 1428 and primarily received commissions from his home city and the surrounding area. Critics tend to divide his production into two phases: his early period characterised by unsigned works, still heavily influenced by his teacher’s style and attributed in the past to the so-called Master of the Observance,¹ and his mature period when he developed his own personal and unmistakable figurative language, although there was a decline in quality due to the extensive involvement of workshop assistants. The polyptych for the church of the Gesuati (Siena, Pinacoteca Nazionale, no. 246), an autograph masterpiece by the artist dated 1444, is considered the piece that bridges the two phases. He subsequently received numerous commissions from the Confraternity of St Mary and St Francis in Siena, in honour of the preacher Bernardino Albizzeschi, who was canonised in 1450. The widespread popular devotion to St Bernardine was expressed through the creation of dozens of panels and small altarpieces for private use showing the Madonna and Child with angels, flanked by St Francis and St Jerome,² just like the painting in the Cerruti Collection. Bernardine, on the right, wears a habit and holds the circular Christological trigram, which must have originally been blue with flaming rays executed in gold applique. St Jerome, on the left, wears a grey-brown penitential tunic tied with a leather belt, evoking his decision to live as a hermit. 

The work, from St Andrew’s Cathedral in Inverness (Scotland), where it arrived from the Culloden House Collection, appeared on the antiquarian market in 1987 with an attribution to Sano di Pietro.³ Marion Angela Knauf (1998) placed it among the high-quality pieces produced by the artist’s workshop, dating it to the 1460s, based on an analysis of the punch marks.

The painting has a frame that was probably added at a later date, overlapping the painted surface in some points. The paintwork is slightly abraded and deteriorated in the flesh tones, while the touching up on the Child’s hand raised in blessing and his right foot is clearly visible. Upon comparing its current appearance with the photograph taken during the Christie’s sale (1987; Fototeca Zeri, inv. no. 43918), we can observe the presence of a patchy layer of varnish that had altered the burnish of the angels’ wings and the majority of the flesh tones.

The panel is comparable to Sano’s most important pieces with the same composition, such as the painting in the Salini Collection (Asciano, Siena), the one at the Lindenau-Museum in Altenburg (inv. no. 73) and the one in the Chicago Art Institute (inv. no. 1933.1027), which stand out for their sophistication and beautiful details, including the elaborate workmanship and punching of the nimbuses and the decoration of the Child’s pink robe worked with gold. The Cerruti painting also features a sentimental detail that can be seen in these works. The Madonna’s eyes are lowered in sadness, an effect rendered through the straight line of her top lashes, which are normally arched to give the eyes a characteristic almond shape, typical of Sano di Pietro’s figures. Although these small altarpieces destined for private devotion feature recurrent figurative and iconographic characters,⁴ such as the heads of the angels crowned with garlands of roses or olive leaves, the Cerruti panel stands out for a number of slight variations, such as the detail of the angels’ wings engraved and differentiated from the gold background by means of burnishing, and the bunch of roses held by the Child who sits untidily on his Mother’s left arm. In keeping with the dates assigned to the paintings mentioned by way of a comparison, Sano di Pietro and his assistants are thought to have painted this panel in the second half of the 1460s, as already proposed by Knauf.

Gaia Ravalli

¹For the most recent updates on the identification with Sano di Pietro, see Falcone 2010, pp. 28-34, A. De Marchi, “Sano di Pietro prima della Pala dei Gesuati e il ‘Maestro dell’Osservanza’: aporie di una doppia identità”, in Fattorini 2012, pp. 53-85, and lastly Fattorini 2017.

²K. Christiansen in Bellosi 2009, pp. 298-301, cat. 39; Fattorini 2017.

³Christie’s, London, 10 July 1987, lot 104. 

⁴Freuler 2002 pp. 427-430.