Giovanni de Lorenzo Larciani

Giovanni di Lorenzo Larciani (1484 - 1527) was an Italian painter. He was originally referred to as the Maestro dei paesaggi Kress (Master of the Kress landscapes).

One of the Kress landscapes

Work & attribution edit

His original name referred to a body of works at the National Gallery of Art that form part of the Kress Collection. He is also now known to be the creator of a Holy Family and Four Saints at the Museo di Fucecchio [it]. While studying that work, Louis Alexander Waldman discovered documents, including a contract from 1521, that linked it with someone named Giovanni Larciani, whose biography and oeuvre the same scholar has reconstructed in a series of publications.

Works that had already been assigned to a young Rosso Fiorentino (such as the Madonna and Child at the Galleria Borghese, 1510–1515, and a similar work at the Museo statale d'arte medievale e moderna [it] in Arezzo, c.1510-1520), were now reassigned to Larciani. He may also have painted Portrait of a Young Woman, also previously attributed as a very early Rosso work. He is credited with the background landscape in Joseph Being Led to Prison by Francesco Granacci, painted for the camera nuziale Borgherini [it].

He has since been credited with a Madonna and Child at the Galerie Hans in Hamburg and a Holy Family with St.John at the Galleria Borghese.

Sources edit

  • Federico Zeri: "Eccentrici fiorentini - Il pittore dei Paesaggi Kress". In: Bolletino d'Arte, 47, 1 (1962) pg. 227.
  • L. A. Waldman: The 'Master of the Kress Landscapes' Unmasked: Giovanni Larciani and the Fucecchio Altar-piece". In: The Burlington Magazine, 140, 1998, pgs. 456–469.
  • Antonio Natali, Rosso Fiorentino, Silvana Editore, Milano 2006. ISBN 88-366-0631-8

External links edit

  • Scenes from a Legend (1), ca. 1515/1520, Washington, National Gallery of Art [1] Inv. Nr.1939.1.344.a
  • Scenes from a Legend (2), ca. 1515/1520, Washington, National Gallery of Art [2] Inv. Nr.1939.1.344.b
  • Scenes from a Legend (3), ca. 1515/1520, Washington, National Gallery of Art [3] Inv. Nr.1939.1.344.c