Neroccio dei Landi was a Sienese painter and sculptor of the Early Italian Renaissance. He continued the elegant and refined Sienese tradition that stretched back to Duccio and his work is particularly noted for its delicate coloring.
Neroccio was born in Siena and was a student of Vecchietta. In the early 1470's, he worked with Francesco di Giorgio. Neroccio mostly painted depictions of the Virgin and Child with Saints, but one of his greatest paintings is "Portrait of a Lady". Today it is kept in the National Gallery in Washington.
His drawing is always perceptibly subtle and light, the colors do not glow with varnish, but enchant with their milky opaque effect. Neroccio seems to have wanted to express the nobility of the human face and the elegance of gestures in his paintings.
He did not make use of many innovations of the first half of the 15th century, although in fact, he knew and employed the devices of perspective and used light and shadow in the modeling of his figures. He was not interested in these. He look rather for a means to expose as much of the beauties of detail as possible and to make the pictorial surface as rich as possible.
He also worked as a sculptor and was commissioned to help decorate the Siena Cathedral.
