Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/311

Rh help so efficient, the picture was finished in such sort, during the year 1450, that I consider it to be the best work, whether for design or colouring, that Lorenzo ever produced.

No long time after its completion, Lorenzo being old and exhausted, died at the age of sixty years, or thereabout. He left two sons, who both pursued the study of painting. The one, whose name was Bicci, assisted him in many of his labours; the other, who was called Neri, painted the portraits of his father and himself, in the chapel of the Lenzi family, in the church of Ognissanti, on two medallions, with letters around them, which give the name of both. And this artist, painting certain stories from the life of Our Lady, in the before-mentioned chapel of the Lenzi, took great pains to imitate the different vestments worn at that period, those of men, as well as of women. He likewise painted the picture, in distemper, for the altar of the chapel. In the abbey