The Virgin and Child with the infant Saint John the Baptist

Bartolommeo Biscaino was taught the principles of painting by his father, Giovanni Andrea Biscaino (1605-1657). Biscaino usually treated religious subjects, and the Virgin and Child appear, with or without the infant Saint John, in a number of his etchings (see, for example, Bartsch 26, 27-9). The confident handling of the red chalk in combination with white heightening are typical for the artist’s drawings and can be compared to the technique of The Reclining nymph in a garden with a fountain, vase and three cupids in the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen (M. Newcome Schleier, Italian Drawings in the Department of Prints and Drawings: Statens Museum for Kunst: Genoese Drawings, Copenhagen, 2004, no. 65). Another drawing by Biscaino, in similar technique, was sold at Christie's, New York, 22 January 2004, lot 54.

We are grateful to Dr. Mary Newcome Schleier for confirming the attribution on the basis of a digital photograph.