Raffaello Gianni, Italian, 19th century- Visitation, After Mariotto Albertinelli; oil on canvas, signed and inscribed on the reverse, bears indistinct inscription on the reverse, 142.5 x 98 cm. Provenance: Private Collection, UK. Note: A...

Raffaello Gianni,

Italian, 19th century-

Visitation, After Mariotto Albertinelli;

oil on canvas, signed and inscribed ‘Raffaello Gianni’ on the reverse, bears indistinct inscription ‘WM Beaumont’ on the reverse, 142.5 x 98 cm.

Provenance: Private Collection, UK.

Note: A 19th-century copy after the original larger oil on panel by Mariotto Albertinelli (1474-1515), painted in 1503, and held at the Uffizi Galleries [no.1890n.1587]. The scene depicts the meeting of the Virgin Mary with her older cousin St Elizabeth, the future mother of St John the Baptist. The two women are embracing on a flowery lawn against the backdrop of a wide pietra serena arcade which follows the profile of the panel and rests on pilasters decorated with elegant panoplies. The original painting was commissioned for the altar of the Oratorio di San Michele Vecchio in Florence and was later moved to Chiesa di San Michele in Palchetto, where Vasari saw it and described it in his ‘Lives’. Albertinelli ran a workshop with Fra Bartolomeo (1472-1517), whose influence is here apparent in the monumentality of the figures and the geometrically divided landscape. The artist also held an interest in the painting of both Perugino (1446-1523), whose illuminating example is evident particularly in the work’s spatial breadth, and Michelangelo (1475-1564), with the almost metallic palette anticipating that of Michelangelo’s ‘Doni Tondo’ (c.1507). Further copies after the original by Albertinelli are held at Wesley House, University of Cambridge [no.7]; Wardown House Museum, Luton [no. PCF.219]; and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London [E.3-1995].
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