By Anne Leader
The Florentine painter Pesellino died on 29 July 1457. Born Francesco di Stefano around 1422, Pesellino’s style is closely linked to Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi, with whom he shared a penchant for brilliant colors and delicately rendered figures. Known to have painted both panels and manuscript illuminations, Pesellino collaborated with a number of mid-century Florentine painters including Lippi, Piero di Lorenzo di Pratese, and Zanobi di Migliore, creating highly prized sacred and secular works.
Reference: Francis Ames-Lewis. “Pesellino.” Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press.
Madonna and Child with Six Saints, tempera on wood with gold ground, late 1440s. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of Mary Stillman Harkness, 1950.
Saint Philip Seated, Holding a Book and a Cross, brush and brown wash, highlighted with white gouache, over black chalk. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art,Rogers Fund, 1965.
Allegory of Rome from De Secundo Bello Punico by Silius Italicus, gouache and gold on parchment, ca. 1448. St. Petersburg, Hermitage