Ask the Scholar

This small devotional painting intended for a domestic interior depicts the Madonna adoring the Christ Child in the presence of his young cousin John the Baptist, patron saint of Florence. It is one of many simplified versions of a famous altarpiece painted by Filippo Lippi (ca. 1406-69) around 1460 for the chapel of the Medici Palace in Florence (now in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin). Florentine citizens seem to have desired these smaller versions of Lippi’s painting to hang in their homes, not only as the focus of daily prayer and devotion but as a way to express their allegiance to Florence’s powerful ruling family. Many of these copies, including the Walters’ panel, were mass produced in the workshop of the so-called "Pseudo Pier Francesco Fiorentino," an anonymous artist whose works used to be confused with those of the real Pier Francesco Fiorentino (1444-after 1497).