Andrea del Sarto

Andrea del Sarto (b.1486-d.1530) was Italian painter and draughtsman. He was born in Gualfonda, Florence, as the son of the tailor Angelo die Francesco, for which he received the nickname Sarto (tailor).

His drawing skills attracted the attention of an unknown artist, who instructed Andrea del Sarto in painting and later sent him to Piero di Cosimo. As his student, he was influenced by the great masters of High Renaissance. In 1506 Andrea del Sarto set up a joint workshop with Franciabigio. From 1508 to 1514 he painted his main works, frescoes depicting the life of Philippus Benizzi, the worship of the kings and Mary's birth, in the atrium and the cloisters of the Servite church Sant'Annunziata in Florence. Around 1511 Andrea del Sarto painted a gray on gray fresco of the Baptism of Christ for the brotherhood in the Chiostro dello Scalzo. In 1517 or 1518 he married a wealthy widow who had modeled for him for several years. He went to France in 1518, where he completed a few works at the invitation of Francois I and was well received there, but he broke his contract in order to return to his wife.

In the second decade of the 16th century his art anticipated aspects of Mannerism, while his direct, immediate works of the 1520s became important models for the more naturalistic Tuscan artists of the Counter-Reformation. He painted mainly religious works, including both altarpieces and major cycles of frescoes.

Andrea del Sarto died on January 22, 1531 in Florence.

Andrea del Sarto was the leading painter in Florence in the early years of the 16th century, and, under the influence of Leonardo da Vinci, Fra Bartolommeo, Michelangelo and Raphael, he elaborated and perfected the classical style of the High Renaissance.