Never before has the painter Pesellino been the focus of an exhibition. The National Gallery in London is now changing this, and rightly so: Pesellino was active in Florence during the early Renaissance and exerted an influence on the art movement and subsequent artists such as Andrea del Verrocchio. Pesellino, whose real name was Francesco di Stefano, lived from about 1422 to 1457. His short life and consequently rather small oeuvre certainly contributed to the fact that he has been neglected by art history until now. The painter worked extremely successfully in Florence, a center of the emerging Renaissance. He painted mainly small-format paintings with extraordinary technical skills and proved to be a skilled storyteller. His paintings on bridal chests (cassoni), the most important piece of furniture in aristocratic households, were particularly sought after. They were presented to brides at their wedding and served to store their personal belongings. The exhibition Pesellino: A Renaissance Master Revealed at the National Gallery in London runs from December 7, 2023 to 10.
Pesellino received his painterly training after the early death of his father Stefano di Francesco in 1427, probably from his grandfather Giuliano Pesello (ca. 1367-1446). This is also how he got his nickname, a diminutive of Pesello. The only surviving work that can be reliably attributed to Pesellino by documents is an altarpiece of the Trinity that he made for the city of Pistoia, near Florence, and which is now in the possession of the National Gallery in London. Another known one was in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin and was destroyed in 1945. In addition, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg owns six full-page book illustrations by Pesellino. Other paintings are described in the Vite of Giorgio Vasari, but all are lost today. Some of them hung in the famous Palazzo Medici in Florence.
