Compared to other paintings, which are generally of modest quality and therefore difficult to attribute, this one demonstrates with rare clarity his authorship, beginning with the vague yet accomplished expression of Christ, depicted with an extremely detailed application that brings to life with rosy touches the eyelids, nostrils, cheeks, and sighing lips. This sensitivity is matched by the exquisite pictorial material of the carmine red of the cloak and the stigmata, set in the hands like well-ground rubies, the metallic refractions of light, as well as the characteristic gold applications, in leaf for the cruciform halo, in mission along the hems of the garments, from the white crucified camisole to the high-collared blouse, to the Sanrocchino vermilion, tied at the chest with two golden threads.

This painting dates from a rather late period, as it appears to be based on a lost prototype by Filippino Lippi dating to the early 1480s. Compared to the group of works based on models by Pesellino and Fra Filippo Lippi, it therefore harks back to a later period and helps reconstruct the continuity of a workshop that between the 1470s and 1480s radically reformed its repertoire, updating itself with the most fashionable painters, Filippino first and foremost, while maintaining the solidity of a traditional and unalterable formal signature. It is a truly exquisite painting, which at the same time demonstrates how this workshop did not simply and mechanically revert to the late production that Everett Fahy had already begun to identify and which is carefully traced in the list produced by his student Christopher Daly, but rather was capable of qualitative peaks and therefore of astutely differentiating between standard production and more demanding commissions.

Pseudo Pier Francesco Fiorentino work reinvents the illustrious prototypes he copies, and in some cases even combines and contaminates. Fra Filippo’s painting is fragile and delicate, composed of thin glazes, impalpable nuances, and shadowy and elusive atmospheres. The chromatic veneers of our artist have a different, decidedly solid preservation, yet they pursue values that are downright antithetical to those of Lippi’s supreme painting.