Resumen de Addenda a Francesco Furini
The discovery of another autograph version of Francesco Furini's Announcing Angel clarifies the chronology of the artist's early work. The hitherto unpublished painting presented here, which very closely resembles Furini's first masterpiece, Painting and Poetry (Florence, Palazzo Pitti, Galleria Palatina), delivered in 1626, can now considered to be the initial rendering of the subject, with respect to the versions known thus far, the Announcing Angel in the Koelliker collection, Milan (circa 1628) and the pair of pictures with the Angel and the Virgin Mary housed in a private collection in Florence; the dating of the latter is here postdated to about 1635.
Another work, a drawing attributed to Cigoli in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Angers, is also assigned to Furini's youthful oeuvre. In conclusion, the Head of a Young Woman on a sheet in the Uffizi is associated with tha altarpiece in the church of Santa Maria a Vezzano - Furini's "first work", according to early sources.
