Andrea di Niccolo, c. 1445-c. 1525: Sienese painter of the Renaissance

The painter Andrea di Niccolo was schooled in Siena's hieratic, decorative, and religious fashion of the mid-Quattrocento. By the end of the century, waves of foreign influence had engulfed the city and profoundly changed its artistic output. As a minor artist, Andrea mirrored these changes much more readily than his innovative contemporaries. In order to examine these changes, all documents and paintings pertaining to Andrea di Niccolo were viewed and studied. Since all of his signed and dated works were produced late in his career, their common characteristics were enumerated and used to ascribe a body of late and earlier works to Andrea. Documents discovered during the course of research led to several new attributions to Andrea, and provided new insights into the Sienese workshop system and patronage.;A number of conclusions were drawn from this research. Vecchietta was his probable teacher, with strong influence from the Master of the Osservanza. His contemporaries Neroccio de' Landi, Matteo di Giovanni, and Francesco di Giorgio and several artists of the preceding generation also had their influence on his artistic vocabulary. Andrea's painting showed little stylistic evolution after 1480. The expansive landscape which entered his work in the 1490's showed that the foreign influence of Sodoma, Signorelli, Perugino, and Pintoricchio must have been very strong in Siena to influence an artist of such limited range and invention. Patrons in Siena must have valued strongly Sienese works even after this foreign invasion for Andrea to have received so many important commissions after 1500. Andrea's influence was limited to a group of local artists of the Senese, signalling no followers in Siena proper.