Giovanni Battista di Jacopo, known as Rosso Fiorentino or Il Rosso, was an Italian Mannerist painter who worked in oil and fresco and belonged to the Florentine school.
Paintings by Rosso Fiorentino
Volterra Deposition (1521)
The Deposition from the Cross is an altarpiece, completed in 1521, depicting the Deposition of Christ by the Italian Renaissance painter Rosso Fiorentino. The painting is dated and signed: RUBEUS FLOR. A.S. MDXXI. It is broadly considered to be the artist's masterpiece. Painted in oil on wood, the painting was previously located in the Duomo of Volterra, but has been moved to the town art gallery, Pinacoteca Comunale.
This painting has often been compared to the fellow Mannerist painter Pontormo's near contemporary (1528) treatment of the same subject in his Deposition canvas in Florence.
Madonna and Child with Cherubs (1517)
Madonna and Child with Cherubs or The Virgin and the Child with Angels is an oil painting by the Italian Mannerist painter Rosso Fiorentino, created between 1512 and 1517. Originally on panel, it was later transferred to canvas. It was acquired in 1810 in Paris with help from the baron Dominique Vivant Denon for the Hermitage Museum, in Saint Petersburg, where it now hangs.
The composition draws on models by Fra Bartolomeo and the pyramidical group owes much to Michelangelo. It is also reminiscent of Fiorentino's own Assumption of the Virgin, first painted in 1512–1513 and retouched or repainted in 1517.
Moses Defends Jethro's Daughters (1523)
Moses Defends Jethro's Daughters is an oil on canvas painting attributed to Italian artist Rosso Fiorentino, created c. 1523–1524, now held in the Uffizi in Florence, which acquired it in 1632. It depicts the Biblical episode when Moses defended the seven daughters of Jethro, who would be his father-in-law.
Vasari's Lives of the Artists states the work was produced for Giovanni Bandini as "a canvas with some very handsome ignudi in a story [from the life] of Moses, when he lived in Egypt... and I believe it was commissioned in France". The work was then sent to Francis I of France around 1530 It was already in the Casino di San Marco by 1587 among the goods of don Antonio de' Medici. It was first connected to the reference in Vasari by Gaetano Milanesi It is unclear if the original work was sent to France or, as Antonio Natali theorises, this is a faithful copy.
Cherub Playing a Lute (1522)
Cherub Playing a Lute or Musical Cherub is a 1521 oil on panel painting by Rosso Fiorentino, now in the Uffizi in Florence. It is signed "Rubeus Florentinus" and dated - though the date is unclear it probably reads 1521.
It entered the Tribuna of the Uffizi on 29 June 1605, at which date it had its present attribution. The 1635–1638, 1704 and 1853 inventories altered this to Beccafumi and the 1784 inventory to Francesco Vanni before an 1825 inventory restored the present attribution.
Spedalingo Altarpiece (1518)
The Spedalingo Altarpiece or Ognissanti Altarpiece is a 1518 oil-on-panel painting by Rosso Fiorentino, now in the Uffizi in Florence, which acquired it in 1900. It was commissioned by Leonardo Buonafede, "spedalingo" (i.e. rector) of the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence. The contract was dated 30 January 1518. The painting was intended for the St John the Baptist chapel in Ognissanti, according to the will of Francesca de Ripoi, a Catalan widow.
To the left are John the Baptist (patron of Florence and of the chapel) and Antony the Great, while to the right are Saint Stephen (patron saint of the chiesa di Grezzano, with one of the stones used in his martyrdom embedded in his head) and Jerome (with a book).
Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist (Rosso Fiorentino) (1521)
Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist is an unfinished c. 1521 oil on panel painting by Rosso Fiorentino, produced early in his stay in Volterra. The work is now in the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.
The devotional altarpiece, unfinished, is usually referred to the early 1520s, at the beginning of the stay in Volterra, due to the close connection with the Villamagna Altarpiece. It shows the Madonna holding the Child standing on a green cushion, placed near the lower edge of the table, while on the left St. Joseph and St. John the Baptist turn towards the Savior, with a very accentuated rotation. The impulse of the Child embracing his mother recalls the Madonna of the Harpies by Andrea del Sarto (1517). The presence of Donatellesque stylistic features have been related to a possible frequentation of Jacopo Sannazzaro in a hypothetical Neapolitan trip of those years.
Pietà (Rosso Fiorentino) (1536)
Pietà is a c.1537-1540 oil painting by Rosso Fiorentino, originally painted on panel and later transferred to canvas. Now in the Louvre in Paris, it is the only securely-identified original painting by the artist known to have been produced for a courtier of Francis I of France. X-ray examination has shown an initial composition under the bodies of Christ and St John.
According to Vasari's Lives of the Artists, it was commissioned by constable Anne de Montmorency soon after the artist's work on the Francis I Gallery at Fontainebleau Palace. De Montmorency's coat of arms features on the pillow under Christ and it was originally at the doorway to the chapel in his Château d'Écouen, from which it was moved to the Louvre at the end of the 18th century.
Sansepolcro Deposition (1528)
The Sansepolcro Deposition or Sansepolcro Lamentation is a 1528 oil on canvas painting by Rosso Fiorentino, now in the San Lorenzo church, in Sansepolcro.
It was commissioned in 23 September 1527 by the Confraternity of the Holy Cross (hence its subject) for its altar in Santa Croce church in Sansepolcro. Rosso had arrived in the town shortly before this date.
The Dead Christ with Angels (Rosso Fiorentino) (1525)
The Dead Christ with Angels or Four Angels Lamenting the Dead Christ is an oil on panel painting by Rosso Fiorentino, executed c. 1525–1526, now in the Museum of Fine Arts in Museum of Fine Arts, in Boston.
Despite the discrepancy in the number of angels, the work is traditionally held to be the "canvas of a dead Christ supported by two angels" mentioned in Vasari's Lives of the Artists as produced for Leonardo Tornabuoni, Bishop of Sansepolcro, one of several Florentine prelates at Pope Clement VII's court. Vasari did not specify the work's intended destination.
Bacchus, Venus and Cupid (1531)
Bacchus, Venus and Cupid is a 1531–1532 oil-on-canvas painting attributed to the Italian Mannerist painter Rosso Fiorentino, now in the National Museum of History and Art in Luxembourg.
In two editions of Lives of the Artists, Vasari described Cupid and Psyche and Bacchus and Venus, two mythological oil paintings produced for Francis I of France by Fiorentino. In the first edition (1550) he recorded that the paintings were produced soon after the painter's arrival in France in 1530 and before Primaticcio's arrival two years later. They were both displayed at the end of the Francis I Gallery at Fontainebleau Palace.
Portrait of a Young Man Seated on a Carpet (1525)
Portrait of a Young Man Seated on a Carpet is an oil on panel painting by the Italian Mannerist painter Rosso Fiorentino, from c. 1525-1527. It is held in the National Museum of Capodimonte, in Naples. The identity of its subject is unknown.
It may have been produced during or just after Rosso's stay in Castello di Cerveteri, home to the Anguillara, a ducal branch of the Orsini family. It was recorded in a 1600 inventory which attributed it to Rosso, but it was misattributed around 1650 to Titian. It later entered the Farnese collection in Parma as a work by Parmigianino, with the Farnese's librarian Orsini acting as an intermediary - it is also known to have previously been in his collection. It was brought to Naples with most of the rest of the Farnese collection in 1739 but was only reattributed to Rosso in 1940 thanks to Roberto Longhi.
Portrait of a Young Man (Rosso Fiorentino) (1517)
Portrait of a Young Man is an oil painting on wood by the Italian Mannerist painter Rosso Fiorentino, executed c. 1517–1518, now in the Gemäldegalerie, in Berlin.
In his Lives of the Artists, Vasari briefly mentions that many portraits by him could still be seen in Florentine homes, probably produced before Rosso left for Volterra in 1521 – this work is thought to be one of them. Its attribution was uncertain until 2006, when Antonio Natali identified it as an early autograph work by Rosso.