Attribution
The authorship of the work in question merited a detailed analysis of Roberto Longhi in 1947. In a letter to Pietro Maria Bardi, now in the MASP archives, the Italian historian claims that it is possible to observe in the tondo "undoubtedly the hand of Botticelli." His opinion was corroborated by Antonino Santangelo, who said, "one can recognize the direct intervention on the painting by Botticelli". The attribution to Botticelli's work was later confirmed by other experts, including Miklos Boskovits and Yukio Yashiro.
Nevertheless, most critics seem to agree that a part of the landscape in the background and the figure of St. John the Baptist would have been performed by an auxiliary in the studio of Botticelli, based on clear difference in style compared to the figure of the Virgin and Child. Roberto Longhi believes that the drawings of the landscape and the Infant Saint John the Baptist are more typical of Ghirlandaio and proposes the name of Bartolomeo di Giovanni - disciple of both painters - as a possible contributor to the implementation of the Botticelli tondo. Antonino Santangelo, in turn, credits the implementation of the auxiliary figure of Saint John the Baptist to Raffaelino de 'Carli .
Read more about this topic: Virgin And Child With The Infant St. John The Baptist (Botticelli)
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