Piero di Cosimo

Piero di Lorenzo

Florentine, 1462 - 1522

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Italian painter (1462–1522)

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A winged, nearly nude woman with ivory-white skin, partially wrapped in a crimson-red cloak, delicately holds up the reins of a gray horse as it rears toward her in this vertical painting. They stand on a roughly oval-shaped disk of gray rock carpeted with mustard-yellow growth. Stubby brown branches jut out from its sides. To our right, the woman’s body faces us as she looks toward the horse, to our left. The woman’s honey-brown hair is braided and wound into coils over her temples. The rest is pulled back, and tendrils frame her face and fall over her shoulders. A strand of pearls drapes along her hairline between the braids. Her hazel-brown eyes and slightly parted pale lips are set in a round face. Tall wings edged in earth brown and filled with a blend of ivory, caramel brown, and mustard yellow reach up along either side of her head. Her long cloak is knotted on at her right shoulder, on our left, and drapes across her clavicle, over her other shoulder, and down her back. One corner wraps across her hips and mid-section, and drapes over her outstretched left arm, on our right, revealing bare legs. A cream-white and caramel-brown striped sash under the cloak is tied over one shoulder and knotted under her bare breasts. She holds a short, dark brown tree branch covered with spiky leaves in her left hand, our right. The other hand is raised to daintily hold one end of the thin gold string wound around the horse’s neck. The horse balances on its hind legs with its front hooves dangling in mid-air. His body is angled toward the woman, but his head turns back as he faces us with his mouth hanging open. The horse's head and tail seem too small for its large body. Along the bottom edge of the composition, in front of the spit of land, a mermaid with long blond hair and two charcoal-gray tails swims with arms extended in front of her. The water is pale beige closest to us and transitions to a light blue as it recedes into the distance, where it blends into the milky white sky. Birds fly over ghostly, powder-blue headlands studded with caramel-brown trees in the distance to our left. A boat sails in the water in the distance to our right.
Piero di Cosimo, Allegory, probably c. 1500, oil on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1939.1.160

Allegory

Piero di Cosimo · probably c. 1500 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1939.1.160

A woman and a winged angel kneel and a child stands, all looking at a nude, chubby baby who lies on a slate-blue cloth under the ruins of a structure in this round painting. Three more angels and several more people are in the background. They all have pale, peachy skin with wide-set eyes and gold rings for halos. Their full lips are closed, and they have short philtrums over wide mouths. The woman, Mary, kneels at the center of the composition with her body facing us. Her face tips to the left, and her fingertips touch in front of her chest. A white cloth covers her head and drapes to her shoulders. She wears a rose-red dress and lapis-blue cloak lined with pine green, all of which puddle on the ground around her knees. To the right of Mary, the angel’s hair falls in brown, shoulder-length ringlets under a diadem of pearls and gems. Also with hands together in prayer, the angel has butter-yellow wings and wears an emerald-green garment with red sleeves under a muted blue cloak and a jeweled pendant around the neck. Saint John the Baptist, the child standing to the left, has short, brown curly hair and wears a fur-like garment under a burgundy-red cloth. His and the other’s clothing are edged with gold. Saint John clutches his hands together at his chest and holds a staff with a narrow cross at the top. At the bottom center, the nude baby lies with his head propped up on a bushel of wheat on the blue cloth. With his head to our left, he lies on his right hip so his body faces us. A pink rose lies at his feet, and a black and white bird perches on the dirt ground nearby. The facing wall of the stone structure behind the group is missing. A balding man with a white beard and hair steps carefully down a stair near the second level. He wears an aqua-blue robe under a golden yellow cloak and uses a tall staff for balance. More stairs lead to a third level. Through an opening in the back wall, two angels float on a bank of dense clouds in the sky as a barefoot angel stands on the landing, looking to our right. An alcove on our level in the building behind Mary holds a jug, dishes, and a tall vessel. An ox and ass stand in a grassy field to the left of the building. Farther back and on a dirt path, a man with a tall staff and a halo holds one hand up to face a person sitting the grass. The seated person also has a staff with a narrow cross at the top. A man on horseback near that pair gestures to our right, and two more people travel along the path on the far side of the hill. The path leads back to buildings tucked in among steep, grass-carpeted cliffs to the left and, beyond Saint John the Baptist, to hills rolling back to a town and a hazy blue horizon. Pale gray and white clouds bustle across the blue sky.
Piero di Cosimo, The Nativity with the Infant Saint John, c. 1495/1505, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1939.1.371

The Nativity with the Infant Saint John

Piero di Cosimo · c. 1495/1505 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1939.1.371

Two women stand clasping hands between two seated men, all against a deep landscape with hills and a town in this nearly square painting. Dozens of people are gathered in the town to our right, and several cluster in front of a building to our left. All the people have pale, peachy skin. Close to us, the two women both have translucent, plate-like halos. They stand with their bodies angled toward each other, and they look at each other. The woman to our left, Mary, has smooth skin with a delicate profile. She wears a gold-edged, ultramarine-blue robe lined with forest green over a long-sleeved, ruby-red dress. Sandaled toes peek under the hem. An eggshell-white and gold scarf drapes over her blond hair, which is pulled back, and over her shoulders. Leaning toward her companion, Mary gazes directly into the eyes of the older woman, Elizabeth. They clasp their right hands, and Mary touches Elizabeth’s shoulder. They stand close together, so only a sliver of the background landscape is visible between their cloaks. Elizabeth wears a maroon-red dress mostly covered by a wine-red cloak that wraps around her body. Her opaque, white scarf drapes over her head and ties loosely on her chest. Her free, left hand is raised, the palm facing Mary. The women stand on a slightly raised platform as the elderly men sit on either side, their bodies angled toward the women. Both men have faint, barely visible halos floating over their balding heads. They have fringes of gray hair and long, gray beards. Their foreheads are deeply lined with wrinkles, and they look down long, straight noses at their laps. To our left, the man wears a scarlet-red cloak over a harvest-yellow garment with gray sleeves. He hunches over a book in his lap. Three gold balls lie next to him, near Mary’s feet. On our right, the second man wears black, round spectacles perched on his nose. The hood of his black robe lies across his shoulders, over an olive-green cape. The cape has gold trim, and the underside is scarlet red. He writes on a narrow piece of parchment with a quill on a closed, blue-covered book. He braces the book and an ink pot with one hand, and a leather pouch hangs from a cord in that hand. At his feet lie an iron-colored bell, a wooden cane, and a brown book. A single sprig of garnet-red flowers lies on the stone floor between the two men. Beyond the four people, the sand-colored land dips down between the town to our right and the building to our left. Dozens of women holding babies struggle against men with swords on a platform in the town. Four people look on from windows above, and buildings continue into the distance along high, steep hills. One of the buildings there is topped by a cross, and the side of that structure is painted with a scene showing a kneeling, winged angel holding a white lily toward a woman dressed in green, who kneels and crosses her arms over her chest. To our left and deep in the shadow cast by a tall building there, a woman and several men gather and some kneel around a baby. Beyond, the land extends to body of vivid blue water, which leads back to a pale blue mountain in the deep distance. A few puffy clouds float across the sky above, which deepens from powder blue along the top edge to nearly white along the horizon.
Piero di Cosimo, The Visitation with Saint Nicholas and Saint Anthony Abbot, c. 1489/1490, oil on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1939.1.361

The Visitation with Saint Nicholas and Saint Anthony Abbot

Piero di Cosimo · c. 1489/1490 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1939.1.361