Biography

Florentine sculptor, brother of Bernardo Rosselino (1409-64). He was the youngest of five artist brothers, and his nickname (Rossellino means little readhead) became the name by which the whole family was known. Antonio was trained by his brother, and his most ambitious work - the tomb of the Cardinal Prince of Portugal in San Miniato al Monte, Florence (1461-66) - is based on Bernardo's Bruni tomb. It is more elaborate and concerned with movement than Bernardo's masterpiece, but also a less coherent design, and Antonio was a more distinguished artist when working on a smaller scale. His three panels (1473), carved in high relief, for the bishop's throne of Prato Cathedral are much admired, as is his statue Young Saint John the Baptist (c. 1470) in the National Gallery of Art, Washington.

He was a fine portraitist (Giovanni Chellini, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1456) and also made charming reliefs and statuettes of the Madonna and Child, in which he continued the tradition of Luca della Robbia of stressing the naturalness and humanity of the Virgin (perhaps the finest of his reliefs is that in the Metropolitan Museum, New York).