JACOPO DEL SELLAIO | MADONNA AND CHILD WITH AN ADORING ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST, ATTENDED BY A MALE SAINT, BEFORE A LANDSCAPE, A TONDO

With Galerias La Granja, Mexico City;

Where acquired by a private collects or in 1947;

Thence by descent to the present owner.

Jacopo da Sellaio, somet.mes s known as Jacopo di Arcangelo, trained with Fra Filippo Lippi alongside Sandro Botticelli, whose style would influence the development of Sellaio's art. His major religious commissions include paintings for the churches of San Lucia dei Magnoli and San Frediano, both in Florence. The latter commission included a now-lost Pieta (formerly Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin), first.mes ntioned in documents in 1483 and finished posthumously by Jacopo's son Arcangelo, and the Crucifixion with St. Lawrence, dated to 1490.

This tondo likely dates to the same period as the San Frediano paintings, which were the last major commissions Sellaio completed. The figure of the Virgin in the present lot resembles the figures of St. Catherine of Alexandria and Mary Magdalene in the San Frediano Crucifixion, and like all of Sellaio's known works the present Virgin has an elegant, elongated figure with expressive hands.