The Holy Family

Publishing it in her monographic article on Giovanni Martinelli (loc. cit.), Francesca Baldassari dates this tender representation of the Holy Family to around 1653. She posits that the canvas may be identifiable as the Holy Family called before the Accademia del Disegno that same year, alongside the artist’s Feast of Balthasar (op. cit.). In this late phase of the artist’s career, she notes his employment of broader brushwork, his shift toward more balanced compositions and a more tender, emotional approach to his subject. The face of the Virgin can be compared to that in Martinelli’s Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John (op. cit., p. 88, 91, fig. 24), whose features and expression are remarkably similar.