The Holy Family with putti

Cesare Franchi is best known as a miniaturist and draftsman, as no paintings from his hand are known today. Scholars wonder whether he ever painted large scale compositions. Franchi was mainly active between Rome and Perugia following in the artistic footsteps of important masters such as Federico Barocci and Federico Zuccaro.

This lively composition is executed in Pollino’s characteristic vibrant and quirky style. The technique, red chalk in combination with pen and brown ink and wash, was the artist’s favorite. The drawing was offered at auction in 1981 together with other sheets from the same small sketchbook (Sotheby’s, London, 9 July 1981, lots 107-110). In these drawings Pollino repeated the theme of the Holy Family with putti and saints in many slightly different iterations. The subject of the Holy Family recurs frequently in his work and it was the subject of one of Franchi’s most famous miniatures: The Holy Family with putti, John the Baptist and Elizabeth, in Perugia in the Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria (fig. 1; inv. 382; see Marignoli, op. cit., no. 32, ill.).

Fig. 1. Cesare Franchi, The Holy Family with putti, John the Baptist and Elizabeth. Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria, Perugia.