拍品专文
Born in Verona, Antonio Butafogo worked for most of his life in Padua after training in the studio of the Rococo and early Neoclassical painter, Giambettino Cignaroli. This Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist exhibits the enduring influence of his master in both the sweet faces of the figures and in the darkening of the colors towards the canvas edges, which creates a spot-lit effect. It is possibly the altarpiece commissioned for the Chiesa di Santa Giuliana in Padua, now destroyed, although another work, which bears an inscription 'Antonius Butafogo pinxit' and is now in the Museo Civico, Padua, has also been proposed as the product of the same commission.