Master Of Pratovecchio

Italian painter. Longhi gave the name to an anonymous Florentine painter active in the mid-15th century who was influenced by Domenico Veneziano and, to a lesser extent, by Andrea del Castagno. His most important surviving work is a dismembered triptych consisting of an Assumption of the Virgin (Pratovecchio, San Giovanni Evangelista, on dep. Arezzo, Soprintendenza alle Gallerie), side panels of Sts Michael and John the Baptist and a Bishop and Female Martyr as well as side pilasters, tondi and pinnacles (all London, National Gallery). Longhi suggested that the Death of the Virgin (Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum) originally formed the predella, but this is debatable. The group of paintings assembled by Longhi reveal an artist who began painting about 1440 under the aegis of Domenico Veneziano and Filippo Lippi, but who also had a keen interest in the sculptural production of Donatello as well as, later, in the paintings of Andrea del Castagno. If his two key altarpieces do not attain the level of his chosen mentors, they are nonetheless remarkable for their inventiveness and expressivity.

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