Antonio del Ceraiolo

Antonio del Ceraiolo, also recorded as Antonio di Arcangelo, was a Florentine painter whose nickname derives from his father's trade as a ceraiolo, a maker or seller of wax and candles. Sources describe him as active in Florence during roughly the second and third decades of the sixteenth century, with his documented working years generally given as circa 1518 to 1538. According to Giorgio Vasari's Le Vite de' piu eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori, Ceraiolo trained first as a pupil of Lorenzo di Credi and later of Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, both established Florentine painters. No school, university, or formal credential is recorded for him, consistent with the workshop-apprenticeship model of artistic training in early sixteenth-century Florence.

Vasari praised Ceraiolo's ability as a portraitist and singled out two altarpieces that survive today: a Crucifixion with Saints Francis and Mary Magdalen, originally made for the church of San Jacopo tra' i fossi, and a Saint Michael, originally made for the Basilica della Santissima Annunziata. Both are now held in the Museo del Cenacolo di San Salvi in Florence. Much of his other recorded output consists of half-length devotional panels of the Madonna and Child, frequently accompanied by the infant Saint John the Baptist, Florence's patron saint, a subject also seen in a panel now in the Cincinnati Art Museum's collection under his attribution and in a Sainte Marie-Madeleine held at the Musee Conde in Chantilly. No exact birth or death date is confirmed in the sources consulted; as a painter whose documented activity falls entirely within the early to mid-1500s, he is understood to be a historical, deceased figure, though no obituary-equivalent record exists to fix the precise date or place of his death.

The primary critical source on Antonio del Ceraiolo remains Giorgio Vasari, writing in the sixteenth century, who noted his skill as a portraitist and identified two of his altarpieces by name within his account of Ridolfo Ghirlandaio's circle. Modern reference works and museum entries largely repeat and summarize Vasari's framing rather than offering independent critical assessment, and no verbatim modern critical quotation about the artist from a named critic in a major outlet could be confirmed for this profile. His paintings are generally treated by cataloguers as competent, workshop-trained Florentine devotional and portrait production of the early sixteenth century rather than as work of major independent stature.

Antonio del Ceraiolo does not have a documented public auction record that meets a normal standard of verification. A panel titled The Madonna and Child with the infant Saint John the Baptist was offered under his attribution at Sotheby's Old Masters Day Sale in London in 2018, with a pre-sale estimate of GBP 50,000 to 80,000, and a work of the same subject attributed to him has also appeared in a Christie's catalogue. In both cases, the publicly accessible catalogue material available for this profile did not show a confirmed realized price, and no other Old Master sale of his work with a documented hammer price could be verified. Given this, no auction-record figure, price trend, or repeat-sale data can be responsibly reported for this artist at this time.

Because no catalogue raisonne exists and Ceraiolo's public sale history could not be confirmed with realized prices, any offered work should be evaluated primarily on provenance, condition, and the strength of its attribution rather than on comparable market data, which does not meaningfully exist for this artist. Attribution rests heavily on Vasari's account and later connoisseurship, so collectors should expect auction houses to qualify attributions and should seek independent Old Master specialist review before relying on a catalogue listing alone. Surviving securely placed works, at the Museo del Cenacolo di San Salvi, the Musee Conde, and the Cincinnati Art Museum, offer the most reliable comparison points for style and quality when assessing a work newly proposed as his.