Born the son of a goldsmith in 1457 or 1459, Lorenzo di Credi was, with Leonardo da Vinci and Perugino, a pupil in the Florentine workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio, where he is first recorded in 1480 as a poorly paid assistant.[1] During the master's absence in 1482-1483, Lorenzo took over the shop, and he became Verrocchio's heir upon Andrea's death in 1488. Though not a very original painter, Lorenzo was technically proficient, with the result that the meticulously detailed, enamel-like surfaces of his pictures are, as a rule, better preserved than are the works of his teacher or his fellow pupils. Lorenzo continued Verrocchio's style well into the sixteenth century, and the commissions he received were, accordingly, conservative in character, and mainly for half-length devotional pictures and altarpieces. Several of his patrons are known to have had ties to the religious reform movement instituted by Savonarola. Lorenzo painted very few secular works, but he was sought after as a portraitist; among his finest works is a series of keenly observant metalpoint drawings of the heads of men, women, and children. As a prominent member of the Florentine artistic community, Lorenzo was appointed in 1504 to the committee charged with deciding the placement of Michelangelo's David, and he remained active as a painter, despite his retardataire style, into the 1520s. He died in 1536. [This is the artist's biography published in the NGA Systematic Catalogue]
[1] Gigetta Dalli Regoli, "Lorenzo di Credi," in DA, 19 (1996): 675.
Artist Bibliography
1966
Dalli Regoli, Gigetti. Lorenzo di Credi. Milan, 1966.
1996
Dalli Regoli, Gigetti. "Lorenzo di Credi." In The Dictionary of Art. Edited by Jane Turner. 34 vols. New York and London, 1996: 19:675-677.
2003
Boskovits, Miklós, and David Alan Brown, et al. Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 2003: 421.