School of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1562-1609)

The Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist

Details

School of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1562-1609)
The Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist
oil on canvas
45 x 36.3/8in. (114.2 x 92.3cm.)

Provenance

Pierre d'Atri, Paris, by whom sold in 1955 to a
private collector, Montevideo, and by descent until
Anon. Sale, Sotheby's, New York, Nov. 7, 1985, lot 97 ($21,000).

Literature

D. Mahon, The Burlington Magazine, 1951, p. 234, no. 123 (as a late seicento copy).
R. Hinks, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, 1953, p. 112, no. 45/3 (as a copy of the lost original).
M. Kitson, The Complete Paintings of Caravaggio, 1969, p. 97 (listed as a copy of a now lost composition, possibly by Caravaggio).
A. Moir, Caravaggio and His Copyists, 1976, pp. 116-7, no. 104e (as a copy of a lost painting which was not by Caravaggio but more likely by a Caravaggist such as Angelo Caroselli).

Exhibited

Milan, Palazzo Reale, Mostra del Caravaggio e dei Caravaggeschi, April-June, 1951, no. 48.
Paris, Galerie Charpentier, Cent Tableaux d'Art Religieux du XIVe a Nos Jours, 1952-3, no. 17.
Paris, Galerie Helm, Caravage et les Peintres Franais du XVIIe, no. 1.

Lot Essay

This composition is first known to appear in an engraving by Pierre Daret which dates from the 17th century and was inscribed with the name Caravaggio (see H. Voss, Prussian Jahrbuch, 1923, pp. 81f). the present painting is one of four known versions of this composition. Critics disagree as to whether this composition was invented by Caravaggio or by one of his followers. Whereas Moir and Kitson (see Literature above) do not believe that the copies derive from an original by Caravaggio, Benedict Nicolson, in his International Caravaggesque Movement, 1979, p. 32, lists this composition as a lost(?) original. The other three versions of this composition are in the Berlin-Dahlem Museum, no. 1908, the Muse de Beaux-Arts, Tours, ex-Richelieu Collection, formerly with Acquavella Gallery, New York.

More from Old Master Paintings

View All