FLORENCE, ITALY – An exhibition focused on Renaissance painter Filippino Lippi opens Saturday with an emphasis on the inspiration the artist drew from the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary.
The show in the Pinacoteca di San Gimignano in central Tuscany includes two large works by Lippi, who lived from 1457 to 1504, commissioned by the leaders of the Guelph faction for the Palazzo Comunale of San Gimignano in 1482.
The first of the two round paintings features the Angel Gabriel, one of the key players in the Annunciation tradition, as he brings the news to the Virgin Mary that she will give birth to Christ. The second focuses on the Virgin Mary, eyes downcast as she receives the news.
The exhibition concludes on November 2. Besides the Lippi tondos, the exhibition will include sketches by the artist on loan from the Prints and Drawings Gallery of Florence’s internationally acclaimed Uffizi Gallery. Curated by Alessandro Cecchi, the exhibition follows last year’s show built around Pinturicchio’s Assumption of the Virgin with Saints Gregory and Benedict.
Born in Prato, Tuscany, the illegitimate son of the painter Fra Filippo Lippi and Lucrezia Buti, Filippino first trained under his father. They moved to Spoleto, where Filippino served as workshop adjuvant in the construction of the Cathedral there.
When his father died in 1469, he completed the frescos with Storie della Vergine (Histories of the Virgin) in the cathedral. Filippino Lippi completed his apprenticeship in the workshop of Botticelli, who had been a pupil of Filippino’s father. In 1472, Botticelli also took him as his companion in the Compagnia di San Luca.
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