A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery, Volume I, Foreign Schools / Including by Special Permission Notes Collected from the Works of John Ruskin

by Unknown

1220. THE VIRGIN AND CHILD

L' Ingegno (Umbrian: painted 1484-1511).

This is the only picture, says the Official Catalogue, which can be authenticated "with something like certainty" as the work of Andrea di Luigi, of Assisi. His name occurs in receipts and registers from 1505 to 1511, in the capacity of procurator, arbitrator, auditor to the magistracy, and finally of papal cashier at Assisi. It was perhaps this "talent" for affairs that won him the name of "L' Ingegno." Vasari says he was the most promising disciple of Perugino, and the resemblance to that artist in this picture is strong. Compare for instance even so small a thing as the dress patterns here with those in 288, as also the close resemblance to the "purist" landscape there described.