A St Francis by Botticelli in the National Gallery

A small panel in the National Gallery displays St Francis full-length against a gold background, flanked by means of music-making angels (Fig. 1). The panel penetrateed the collection in 1858 as a work by dint of Filippino Lippi, but was reassigned to an anonymous follower of Botticelli in Martin Davies's Catalogue of the Earlier Italian gymnasiums first published in 1951. (1) It was formerly musing to date from 1492 or shortly afterwards, since this date was included in an inscription that appeared upon the fictive stone ledge in the foreground. During cleaning in 1940 this inscription was base not to be original to the painting and was remov (I shall further discuss one as well as the other the inscription and its removal). Nevertheless, the St Francis continued to be considered as a work in the mode of expression of Botticelli dating from the last decade of the fifteenth century

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

The painting was first published with the attribution to Filippino in the National Gallery catalogue of 1859 (2) Crowe and Cavalcaselle also listed it as by dint of Filippino, adding the somewhat reserv judgement 'a genuine picture not independent from the defects and affectation of the master's later style' (3) The attribution was subsequently questioned by means of Frizzoni, (4) and then by dint of Richter, who seems to have been the first to ascribe it to the academy of Botticelli. (5) Jacobsen proposeed that it might be by means of Raffaellino del Garbo. (6) Van Marle included it in his list of works attributed to Filippino's place of education while Bodmer believed it to be an autograph work by dint of Filippino. (7) Scharf gives the work to Botticini, a conclusion cited approvingly by the agency of Borenius in his review of Scharf's monograph. (8) Berenson, intriguingly, identified the painting as a transcript of a lost early work by dint of Botticelli. (9) Davies, writing after the removal of the inscription, also believed that it had 'some similarities to [Botticelli's] early work'. He conclud however, that it was not through the artist but 'an inferior man, painting beneath the influence of [his] early style' (10)

Filippino scholars after Scharf have either throw asideed the attribution of the St Francis to Filippino's place of education or altogether failed to discuss it. (11) More surprisingly, perhaps, the painting has received little notice in the scholarly literature upon Botticelli. It appears neither in Lightbown's 1978 catalogue, nor in those of Caneva and Thiebaut. (12) Mandel attributes it tentatively to Botticelli, while Pon includes it in her section devot to works of uncertain attribution: the one and the other describe it as being extensively repainted. (13) The painting is illustrated and briefly discussed as by dint of a follower of Botticelli in the exhibition catalogue Maestri e Botteghi: pittura a Firenze alla fine del Quattrocento, where its gold background is understood as part of a deliberately archaic pictorial vocabulary introduced during the 1490 in reply to the preaching of Fra Girolamo Savonarola. (14)

For greatest in quantity of its recent history, the painting has been displayed in the Gallery's set by collection, in a frame that did little to enhance its appearance. Although in advantageous condition overall, its quality had been obscur through clumsy repairs and discoloured retouchings (Fig. 3) In 2002 the panel was examined in connection with the Gallery's programme of re-cataloguing the collection. This initial examination, and the cleaning and restoration that followed it, yielded a certain quantity of surprising results. Firstly, the execution of the St Francis was revealed to be of a far higher quality than had previously been suspected. next to the first although elements of the painting were rest to be directly comparable to works through Botticelli, it differed considerably in turn of expression and technique from those painted in the latter part of his career. These observations l to sum of two units main conclusions, namely that the St Francis is an autograph work by means of Botticelli, and that it dates not from the final decade of the fifteenth century' on the contrary from the second half of the 1470s

[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]

Prior to its acquisition by the agency of the National Gallery, the St Francis was in the Costabile collection in Ferrara, before which no provenance is known. The collection was formed through Count Giovanni Battista Costabile (1756-1841) around a core of paintings inherited in 1778 brow his maternal uncle, Francesco Containi (1717-78) With the help of a local antiquarian, Ubaldo Sgherbi (1788-1872) Costabile added to this nucleus; by means of 1835, the collection had expanded to number five hundr and ninety-one works. (15) The catalogue published between 1838 and 1841 by the agency of the law professor and connoisseur, enumerate Camillo Laderchi (1800-67), lists six hundr and twenty-four paintings: three of its four turns are dedicated to the Ferrarese academy The St Francis is first mentioned in print in the fourth contortion where it is attributed to the Sienese painter Matteo di Giovanni. (16) Following Costabile's death in 1841 his nephew, number Giovanni Costabile, inherited the collection. No further acquisitions are recorded after this date. through the 1850s, growing financial crushings forced the younger Costabile to consider selling his uncle's pictures, together with his library of a certain number of ten thousand volumes. Costabile's reluctance to exchange emerges from his correspondence, in which he repeatedly expresse anxiety above the breaking up of the collection. (17)