Sienese painter and sculptor. He was a pupil of Vecchietta and worked in partnership with Francesco di Giorgio until 1475. Most of his paintings are representations of the Virgin and Child with Saints, but one of his finest works is a Portrait of a Girl in the National Gallery in Washington. He continued the elegant and refined Sienese tradition that stretched back to Duccio and his work is particularly noted for its delicate colouring.
Around the turn of the 1460s and ‘70s, Neroccio and Francesco di Giorgio created together a new, blonde and ethereal female ideal in Sienese painting, of which this Madonna is an especially beautiful example.
In this composition, a slender and long-necked Virgin holds before her the Child, who looks up at his mother while blessing and supporting himself on the armrest of the throne. The sweeping outline of Mary’s gold-edged cloak, sharply delineated against the gold ground, still follows the Ducciesque tradition, but signs of receptivity to the new style can be discerned in every detail of the picture. The vigorous figure of the Child was inspired by the reliefs of Donatello, who spent the last years of his life in Siena.
Regarding the composition, the starting point for Neroccio’s work was the Madonna type created by Sano di Pietro at the middle of the century.
Devotional images of the Madonna and Child were a mainstay of Neroccio’s workshop. Working from a standard half-length format, the artist altered the composition by adding different saints according to the wishes of his clients. Here, he has inserted John the Baptist, who carries a scroll that proclaims the coming of Christ, and Mary Magdalene, who holds the jar of oil with which she anointed the feet of Jesus.
Neroccio’s style remains almost unchanged in his several compositions presenting the Madonna with Child and Saints. The drawing is always perceptibly subtle and light, the colours do not glow with varnish, but enchant with their unlacquered, milky opaque effect. This painter, stemming from a distinguished patrician family, seems to have wanted throughout his life to express the nobility of the human face and the elegance of gestures and attitudes in his paintings. He did not make use of many innovations of the first half of the 15th century, and in fact one has the impression as if Neroccio, forgetting about his direct artistic antecedents, had intended to reach back to traditions of the previous century. And yet in fact he knew and employed the devices of perspective and used light and shadow in the modelling of his figures, but he was less interested in these. Neroccio had no wish to deny the two-dimensional quality of the surface he painted, and the application of foreshortening and the adding of depth to his composition concerned him only as long and inasmuch as they contributed to the harmonious effect of the composition as a whole. In the light that brushed the faces and hands he did not look for a method to achieve plastic unity and compactness, but rather for a means to expose as much of the beauties of detail as possible and to make the pictorial surface as rich as possible.
This early panel by the painter shows the influence of Francesco di Giorgio Martini.
Unlike other Italian cities such as Florence and Mantua, there are relatively few surviving examples of fifteenth-century portraiture in Siena - a genre that was becoming popular elsewhere. The painting of a young woman, now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, is one that does survive. It is still in a frame that is probably original. The identity of the sitter is unknown but the treatment of the subject is typical of portraits of young women at that date. Adopting a convention derived from Flemish portraiture, it shows her head and shoulders as if from relatively close quarters. Her physical proximity is enhanced by the distant view of a lake or river in the background and the feathery trees that frame her head. The viewer is thus encouraged to examine the features of the young woman in some detail and enjoy the texture and colour of her abundant golden hair and pale skin, the embroidery of her gown and the ropes of pearls and gems round her neck.
The inscription on the lower edge of the painting where the letters OP and NER appear - is interpreted as an abbreviation of ‘OPUS NEROCCIO’ (the work of Neroccio). The Latin inscription is a testimony to the sitter’s beauty.
Reading the two letters in the lower left corner as AP (instead of OP) some critics assume that the sitter is Alessandra Piccolomini, the grandniece of Pope Pius II, AP being her initials.
Neroccio (his full name Neroccio di Bartolommeo Landi) was a painter and sculptor, the pupil of Vecchietta. He worked for a time with his brother-in-law, Francesco di Giorgio Martini. His paintings are religious or devotional, in the tradition of Simone Martini.
This sculpture, showing antique effects, was intended to stand in a niche.
The three scenes form a predella which belonged to an unknown altarpiece. The traditional attribution to Francesco di Giorgio Martini has been recently changed. The styles of the two painters are close to each other.
The three scenes form a predella which belonged to an unknown altarpiece. The traditional attribution to Francesco di Giorgio Martini has been recently changed. The styles of the two painters are close to each other.
The three scenes form a predella which belonged to an unknown altarpiece. The traditional attribution to Francesco di Giorgio Martini has been recently changed. The styles of the two painters are close to each other.
