Violante Siries Cerroti
We present today another piece restored by Advancing Women Artist Foundation. You can learn more about the Foundation's mission here—meanwhile, enjoy!
Early female artists were often women of multiple talents. It was not uncommon for their painterly skills to be matched by a keen sense of diplomacy. Many were ladies-in-waiting for noblewomen and they befriended royal and noble families, for whom they later painted.
Violante Beatrice Siries Cerroti benefitted from this perception of art by women, garnering commissions from many wealthy sitters, including Tuscan nobility like the Gondi and Sansedoni families. Hers was a time when paintings where either devotional or works of pure marketing strategy. She studied in Paris with Rococo masters Rigaud and Boucher, which granted her increased credibility amongst her contemporaries and her father Louis Siries. Louis was a French engraver, who brought decorative stone work into vogue as Director of the Tuscan Grand Dukes’ semiprecious stone workshop at the Uffizi.
Violante’s most famous devotional work is The Virgin Mary Presents the Baby Jesus to Santa Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi. It can be viewed in the sacristy of the Church of Santa Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi, on the eclectic Via Borgo Pinti in Florence. The painting was created in 1767 when the artist was 58 (elderly by 18th century standards). Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi, whose family is best known for the Pazzi rebellion against the Medici, was a Florentine saint canonized in the 1700s. She was known for her spiritual visions.