04/03/2023
Michele Tosini (1503–1577)
Mary's with child and little St. John the Baptist
1540-1550 ; Oil on wood 92.5 × 68 cm
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest
The damaged painting is a self-contained version of a composition preserved in a private collection in England until 1987. Around 1525, his painter became an assistant to Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, who applied cinquecento style elements in a way that never completely broke with the quattrocento tradition . Michele Tosini took the name Ridolfo out of respect for her older workshop. Now independent and running his own workshop, he became sensitive to the changes brought about by Mannerism from the 1540s. It is during this period that the picture of England and Budapest can be made. These Mannerist style features are organically built on the foundations of a mature Renaissance. Forming a dynamic and harmonious unity from the figure of Mary and the two children, from Leonardo to Raffaello to Andrea del Starto, was one of the prestigious opportunities for artistic experimentation. Here, too, movements and gazes are organically connected, forming a round whole. The turn of Mary's head opposite the right arm holding Jesus is reminiscent of Raffaello Esterházy's Madonna. Jesus ’posture is a mirror image of an almost accurate retrieval of Andrea del Sarto’s masterpiece painted in 1517, the Madonna of Harpy. The study of Michelangelo's Madonna of the Medici certainly played a role in shaping the majestic Mary. The truly Mannerist feature of the composition is precisely the elegance of the outline and elongated figures, the porcelain smoothness of the body surfaces and the range of colors from the poison green to the pale incarnate to the unusual purple of the scarf. The turn of Mary's head opposite the right arm holding Jesus is reminiscent of Raffaello Esterházy's Madonna. Jesus ’posture is a mirror image of an almost accurate retrieval of Andrea del Sarto’s masterpiece painted in 1517, the Madonna of Harpy. The study of Michelangelo's Madonna of the Medici certainly played a role in shaping the majestic Mary. The truly Mannerist feature of the composition is precisely the elegance of the outline and elongated figures, the porcelain smoothness of the body surfaces and the range of colors from the poison green to the pale incarnate to the unusual purple of the scarf. The turn of Mary's head opposite the right arm holding Jesus is reminiscent of Raffaello Esterházy's Madonna. Jesus ’posture is a mirror image of an almost accurate retrieval of Andrea del Sarto’s masterpiece painted in 1517, the Madonna of Harpy. The study of Michelangelo's Madonna of the Medici certainly played a role in shaping the majestic Mary. The truly Mannerist feature of the composition is precisely the elegance of the outline and elongated figures, the porcelain smoothness of the body surfaces and the range of colors from the poison green to the pale incarnate to the unusual purple of the scarf.
