Provenance:

Private Collection, Spain.

Among the few extant works that may date from Plautilla’s last years is the Madonna Addolorata in the Museo del Cenacolo di Andrea del Sarto in Florence (Fig. 1), which was painted after a prototype by Alessandro Allori. The present painting and another version known in an Italian private collection have been attributed to Suor Plautilla Nelli based on style and the relationship to the work in the Museo del Cenacolo di Andrea del Sarto. Unlike the other version, this painting includes the chalice of Christ’s blood placed on a ledge and an inscription at the base: “NON VI SI PENSA QUANTO SANGVE COSTA” (“No one thinks of how much blood it costs”). This phrase is taken from Canto 29 of Dante Alighieri’s Paradiso, and is a reflection on how much blood Christ shed to redeem mankind from sin. This meditation on Christ’s sacrifice was also famously inscribed by Michelangelo Buonarroti on a drawing of the Deposition of Christ that he gifted to his friend, the poet Vittoria Colonna.