The Madonna and Child with the Infant St. John, St. Francis, Tobias and the Archangel Raphael
1477-1549
(With SS John and Francis, and Tobias and the Angel) Oil on panel, 27 1/2 ins by 19 3/4 ins
Collection Details
Mrs Ross, Florence, from whom bought by Agnew, 1895, and sold to Alexander Henderson, later 1st Lord Faringdon.
Literature
A Segard, Sodoma, 1910, p.229: R H Cust, Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, 1906, pp.163–6, 358; B Berenson, Italian Pictures (Central and North Italian), 1968, i, p.405.
Background
The presence of Tobias in a Sacra Conversazione is unusual, but as a prefiguration of Christ (by curing his father of blindness with the fish, he brought light to his father as Christ brought light to those living in darkness) he is a not inappropriate figure in this context. Cust mentions the possibility of the present picture being the Virgin and Child with St Francis referred to in a letter, dated 3 May 1518, from the artist to Francesco Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua.
The Trustees of the Faringdon Collection 24.
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