Cosimo Rosselli (1439 – 1507)

Cosimo Rosselli

The Adoration of the Infant Christ

Rome, about 1480

Tempera on wood

177.8 x 149.5 cm

The Virgin Mary looks adoringly at her son, Jesus. The precious pigments of lapis lazuli and cochineal in Mary’s garments echo the lavish jubilation of the scene.

God the Father looks down from above. He is surrounded by seraphim: the highest order of angels who burn red with God’s love. Two more human-like angels hover in the sky either side, with clouds on their feet. On the far-right edge is Joseph, Mary’s husband, who has nearly been entirely cut off from the painting due to the lateral edges being narrowed.

Mary is joined in the central group by, in clockwise order, Saint Francis (1181-1226), the three Magi, Saint Benedict (480-547) and Saint Jerome (about 342-420). Rosselli has brought together figures from different time periods to symbolise the continuity of Christian history and tradition.

This painting may have once been an altarpiece for a chapel in Santa Trinita, the Vallambrosian Abbey in Florence. The Vallambrosians were a Catholic order from the Pratomagno Mountains, Tuscany. Rosselli’s decorative landscape celebrates the rural origins of the order. The landscape is rich in trees, flowers, and plants, carefully positioned in a rolling landscape situated near a river.

As an altarpiece, this painting would have been used as a visual aid for Christian worship. The baby Jesus lies on a bed of wheat, which is a sobering reminder of the bread and wine consumed during the Eucharist signifying sacrifice of Christ’s body and blood.

Purchased 1965 (No. 65.7)

Further reading:

Borenius, Tancred, Catalogue of the collection of pictures at Northwick Park, London, 1921, p. 38.

Budny, Virginia and Frank Dabell, ‘Hard at Work “di note chome di di”: A Close Reading of Cosimo Roselli’s Career, with Some New Documents’, in Cosimo Rosselli: Painter of the Sistine Chapel, ed. Arthur R. Blumenthal, Winter Park, 2001, pp. 23-43.

Noszlopy. George T. and Susan May, ‘Cosimo Rosselli’s Birmingham altarpiece, the Vallombrosian Abbey of S. Trinita in Florence and its Gianfigliazzi Chapel’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 78, 2015, pp. 97-133.

Santi, Bruno, ‘Cosimo Rosselli nella bottega di Neri di Bicci’, in Cosimo Rosselli Tre Restauri, ed. Cristina Acidini and Niccolo Rosselli del Turco, Florence, 2018, pp. 21-29.

Strehlke, Carl Brandon, ‘Cenni di Francesco, the Gianfigliazzi, and the Church of Santa Trinita in Florence’, The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal, 20, 1992, pp. 11-40.

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15 December 2020

The Green Gallery Project

This artwork was part of a research project into the Barber’s pre-1600 Italian paintings.