Artist: Style of Desiderio da Settignano (Italian c. 1428 or 1430 – 1464) Desiderio de Bartolomeo di Francesco detto Ferro)
Title: The Virgin and Child
Medium: Antique heliogravure on thick laid paper after the original panel relief.
Dimensions: Image size 6 x 7 inches.
Framed Dimensions: Approximately 15 x 16 inches.
Framing: This piece has been professionally matted and framed using all new materials.
This relief, representing the Virgin and Child, is in the style of Desiderio da Settignano (1428-1464). This popular composition is recorded in a number of reliefs in pigmented stucco and in paintings from the workshop of Neri di Bicci (1419-1491).
Desiderio da Settignano, real name Desiderio de Bartolomeo di Francesco detto Ferro (c. 1428 or 1430 – 1464) was an Italian Renaissance sculptor active in north Italy. He came from a family of stone carvers and stonemasons in Settignano, near Florence. Although his work shows the influence of Donatello, specifically in his use of low reliefs, it is most likely that he received his training in the large Florentine workshop run by Bernardo and Antonio Rossellino. Desiderio matriculated into the Arte dei Maestri di Pietra e Legname, Florence’s guild of Stone and Woodworkers, in 14532 and shortly thereafter already was supplying cherub head medallions for the frieze running across the front of the Pazzi Chapel in the second cloisteryard of the Basilica of Santa Croce. Desiderio da Settignano died in Florence in 1464. The most famous of his pupils was Simone Ferrucci.