The Holy Family with Saint Anne, by candlelight

A smaller, somewhat abraded, version of this composition is in the Suida-Manning collection (Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas; pp. 402-3, no. 95, illus in color). Suida-Manning associated that work with a drawing of a nocturn representing the Virgin and Child with Saints Anne in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (inv. no. DYCE.332), which shows Saint Joseph holding an oil lamp and a candle burning at right (see B. Suida Manning and W. Suida, Luca Cambiaso. La vita e le opere, Milan, 1958, p. 161). Presumably both the Suida-Manning painting and the present work both derive from a prime original by Luca Cambiaso. The pared-back treatment, with almost stylized, geometric forms defined by highlighted contours, suggests that the composition dates from late in Cambiaso’s career, and this is likely a variant produced in his workshop. Cambiaso had a particular affinity for nocturnal scenes, in which the simplified forms of his figures emerge from darkness, an effect reminiscent of Georges de la Tour, to whom the Suida-Manning painting mentioned above was formerly attributed.