San Francesco d'Assisi con angeli

For a long time this little gold-ground panel was filed under the name of Filippino Lippi. Then a cleaning and restoration at the National Gallery in 2002 pointed the other way, toward Filippino's own teacher, the young Sandro Botticelli, working around 1477. Francis stands on a marble ledge in the brown, cord-tied habit of the order he founded, holding a crucifix and looking down with real tenderness at the tiny figure of Christ upon it. Angels crowd in on either side, playing instruments, their feet resting on small clouds. Those heart-shaped faces, stacked one behind another so they seem to slip back into the gold, are the detail that gave the young painter away.