(Pontormo 1494–1556 Florence)
The Madonna and Child with Saint Elizabeth and the Infant Saint John the Baptist, circa 1518
oil on panel, 121 x 93.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Severino Spinelli Collection, Florence, by 1928;
Spinelli Sale, Galleria Bellini, Florence, 23-26 April 1934, cat. no. 150;
Acquired by the grandfather of the present owner in 1934, and thence by decent in an Austrian private collection

Literature:
A. Venturi, Storia dell’Arte Italiana, 1967, vol. IX, part V, p. 119 (as Pontormo); J. Cox-Rearick, The Drawings of Pontormo: A catalogue raisonné with Notes on the Paintings, New York, 1981, cat. no. 72, fig. 76 (as a Pontormesque painting); P. Costamagna, Pontormo, Milan, 1994, cat. A56, p. 295 (with incorrect photograph and location)

We are grateful to Elizabeth Pilliod for suggesting the attribution to Jacopo da Pontormo and studio on inspection of the present painting in original and for providing the present catalogue entry. We are also grateful to Vilmos Tátrai for independently supporting the attribution to Jacopo da Pontormo.

From its modern rediscovery in the early twentieth century the present picture has been recognized as an important early composition by Pontormo, but its condition has hindered any consensus on the attribution.(1) A recent in-depth analysis of the panel which included IR reflectography has revealed underdrawing throughout the panel consistent in style with that in other paintings by Pontormo of the same period.(2) The uninflected even lines in areas such as the left leg of the Christ Child and the abbreviated lines defining in foreshortened depth his upper lip and nose are suggestive of the use of a cartoon. In a second step Pontormo adjusted some of these outlines with his characteristic loose and quick strokes. These corrections in the underdrawing are generally visible in the draperies, hands and faces of the figures. For example, the traced outline of the right hand of the Madonna, her chin, and draperies have been adjusted with visible independent strokes of chalk. Numerous deviations from the underdrawing are also evident. The underdrawing for the white drape that encircles the Madonna’s neck shows that the fabric was originally intended to fold over itself lower on her bosom with a pronounced “v” shape at its centre. The three fingers of Saint John the Baptist that are seen curled around the back of the Christ Child were painted without any underdrawing whatsoever, as were the still-life elements of the cup and cross.

Most striking is the alteration of the face of Saint Elizabeth. The underdrawing shows a line of drapery where her left cheek is now and another line shows her face was intended to extend into the area now covered by her dove colored veil. In fact, Pontormo appears to have painted or at least laid in the underpainting for her face in this other position. She originally was shown turned three-quarters towards the Madonna, with her lips parted, as if in the act of speaking. The masterful switch to the present position which emphasizes her grave and prescient gaze, is one of the better preserved and beautifully painted passages in the picture. The extremely painterly quality of her face, with pronounced shifts in the strokes of beige, brown, cream, and rose, is identical to the treatment of the elderly face of Cosimo il Vecchio in Pontormo’s Portrait of Cosimo de’ Medici Pater Patriae of 1518-19 in the Uffizi.

The motif of the interlaced Saint John the Baptist and Christ, ultimately derived from Leonardo, was very popular in the first quarter of the sixteenth century in Florence. Two works of art with this important motif have been connected to the painting: a sculpture attributed to Pontormo in the Bode Museum in Berlin,(3) and a drawing by Pontormo dated circa 1516-8 in Paris (Ecole des Beaux-Arts, see fig. 1).(4) Each of these needs to be compared to the ex-Spinelli painting, as well as to one another, in turn.
The date and attribution of the Bode sculpture, which has been broken and reassembled, perhaps with alterations to the angles at which the two embracing children are set, are still debated. Complicating the issue, the Bode group bears a remarkable resemblance to a drawing in the Louvre from the circle of Fra Bartolomeo (Louvre 213r), ca. 1520. Except for their nudity, the four figures in the Bode sculpture appear to be almost identical with those in the Louvre drawing. The embracing children in both the Bode sculpture and Louvre drawing are very similar, with Christ’s legs straight and held tightly together, and the two children looking at one another.

But the children in the ex-Spinelli painting are quite different from the Bode sculpture-Louvre drawing pair. Specifically, their legs are in different positions, their heads are turned at different angles and, while in the Bode sculpture-Louvre drawing pair the hand of the Christ Child slides under the arm of Baptist, in the ex-Spinelli panel, Christ rests his hand on the top of Baptist’s shoulder. These discrepancies suggest that although the Bode sculpture and Louvre drawing must be considered together, the ex-Spinelli painting is not as closely related to them as would at first appear.(5)

On the other hand, the drawing in the Ecole des Beaux-arts (see fig. 1) is unequivocally by Pontormo and can be dated circa 1516-18 because it contains studies for two of his early works, the lost Dublin Pietà and the Pucci Altarpiece for the church of San Michele Visdomini, Florence. In the Paris drawing the two embracing children are quickly sketched on the left of the sheet. The upper child appears to look up and to the left, the lower child gazes to the right as in the Visdomini altarpiece. The general impression made by the children is certainly similar to the Visdomini altarpiece, but the Paris drawing is unlike the Visdomini painting in a number of significant ways. The motif of embracing is abandoned in the Visdomini picture, in which the two children are separated and placed on staggered levels. Both children appear older in the painting, particularly Saint John the Baptist. Finally, the legs of Saint John are in an entirely different position in the Visdomini altarpiece.

However, the Paris drawing compares very closely with The Madonna and Child with Saint Elizabeth and Saint John the Baptist. The children embrace in exactly the same manner as those in the present painting. It is perhaps significant that in the drawing Christ’s proper left hand extends around the back of the Baptist, and is just visible peeping out from behind Saint John’s back. This detail is blocked in the painting by the drapery on the arm of Saint Elizabeth, but it is clear that Christ’s hand must be located exactly in the same position as in the drawing. Christ’s other hand, resting lightly on the shoulder of the Baptist is taken directly from the drawing. In the Paris drawing the legs of the little Saint John the Baptist are much closer to those in the present picture, with his receding right leg vanishing into depth and his extended left leg narrowing to a very small pointed foot. In the drawing John’s bent right leg is shown to the knee, where it then is overlaid by the left leg of Christ. The left leg of Christ in the painting is similarly extended vertically, but the lower bodies of the two children have been pulled slightly apart. Thus the forms of the legs are derived from the Paris drawing, but they have been adjusted to the exigencies of the rest of the composition. It seems highly likely that the Paris sketch was preparatory for the present painting.

The facial type of the Madonna, an undifferentiated oval head, a long straight nose, high forehead and rounded eyes, recall other Madonnas painted by Pontormo around 1517-8.(6) The palette of the picture is also characteristic of this period in his oeuvre, as is the tendency towards thick helmet-like hair, extremely heavy drapery that is often arranged in fanciful fold patterns, and the contrast between stoic adults and lively, even talking children.
In examining the painting a very faint black chalk drawing of the head of a boy was discovered. Other chalk drawings have been found on the reverses of Pontormo panel paintings, including the panels of Saints Michael and John the Evanglist in the Collegiate Museum at Empoli (1519); the altarpiece of the Pucci family in San Michele Visdomini (1518); and a number of unpainted panels found in the chapter house of the church of San Lorenzo, Florence. Although the present painting cannot be connected with any known commission or patron, it conforms in all respects to Pontormo’s work of circa 1517-18. Aggressive over cleaning may have drained some of the three-dimensional quality from the drapery, as well as clouding the face of the Madonna. It is uncertain if the appearance of the women’s bodies is entirely due to issues of condition or if these areas were left unfinished by Pontormo and supplied by some assistant.

Notes:
1 The traditional attribution to Pontormo, dating from its first publication (Severino Spinelli, Galleria Pesaro, Milan 11-14 June, 1928), was subsequently confirmed by Adolfo Venturi (Storia dell’Arte Italiana, 1967, vol. IX, part V, p. 119). However, Janet Cox-Rearick ascribed the picture to a follower. (Janet Cox-Rearick, The Drawings of Pontormo: A catalogue raisonné with Notes on the Paintings, New York, 1981, cat. no. 72, fig. 76; See also Philippe Costamagna, Pontormo, Milan, 1994, cat. A56, p. 295, in which the entry discusses the present painting with an incorrect illustration.)
2 Scientific Report of Non-invasive Analysis, Gianluca Poldi, June 2014. Available upon request.
3 Most recently discussed by Volker Krahn, in “Bozzetti und pseudo-bozzetti aus terracotta in der Berliner Sculptursammlung, Techne 36 (2012), pp. 37-9.
4 See Cox-Rearick, The Drawings of Pontormo: A catalogue raisonné with Notes on the Paintings, New York, 1981, cat. no. 72.
5 The compressed, hunched over figure of the male in the sculpture, the large proportions of the woman, and the anachronistic hairstyle of the woman in the Bode sculpture are much more exaggerated than the Louvre drawing, suggesting that the sculpture is a later Mannerist copy after the Fra Bartolomeo-style drawing. Given the likelihood that the Louvre drawing of ca. 1520 was the inspiration for the composition of the Bode sculpture, but the fact that in the sculpture the style of the figures is Pontormesque, the sculpture likely dates from the late sixteenth century, a period of renewed interest in Pontormo. Hence comparing either the Bode sculpture or the Louvre drawing to the ex-Spinelli painting is not useful.
6 For example a Madonna with Christ and Saint John the Baptist (Elizabeth Cropper in L’officina della maniera, Venice, 1996, cat. no. 100); Madonna with Christ Child (Philippe Costamagna in Ibid, cat. no. 103); and the Holy Family with Saint John the Baptist in the Hermitage (Carlo Falciani in Ibid, cat. no. 106).

Technical analysis

Examining the present painting with IR reflectography it has been possible to examine the underdrawing and preparation technique of the panel. The IR reflectography shows a pure linear detailed underdrawing, tracing the figures and the folds, the particulars of the faces. The style of the underdrawing is almost incised, showing thin black lines, suggesting the use of a cartoon, perhaps transferred on the panel by the means of a copy paper or a sort of tracing paper. No sign of squaring or pouncing can be seen.
An important characteristic of this drawing is in its peculiar angularity and the depiction of the thin fingers with the tips left open. This is typical of Pontomo and can be seen in many of Pontormo’s drawings on paper, as well in some other known underdrawing, such as in the Pala Pucci. In some of Pontormo´s frescoes the incised lines are similar for example in the Madonna di San Ruffillo, Florence Santissima Annunziata, 1514.

Compositional changes (pentimenti)

The most relevant change in the composition is that of the head of Saint Elizabeth, as an IRR scanner shows: originally painted turned three-quarters towards the Madonna, with an open mouth, the painter decided to turn her face to the observer, looking out. Very carefully painted in the passages of light and shadow, with a clear sense for form, especially in the lights, the structure of the face can be compared to the drawing in the Uffizi (GDSU inv. 451; Cox Rearick no. 28) with the veiled head of an old woman, believed to be a study for the pharaoh’s wife in Joseph stories of the Borgherini Room. Use of colour - pigments The Madonna’s cloak is made only with azurite and partially lead white (biacca). The red of the Madonna’s dress is a common vermilion-made structure with shadows obtained by red lake glazing. The lake is of animal origin, a carmine type one, like the one cited above. Another kind of red is used – together with vermilion– for the Saint Elizabeth’s dress: a red earth, and this is the same type used by Pontormo in his frescoes. Yellow and brown ochre and earth are used in browns with some amount of vermilion red. The use of azurite, instead of ultramarine, is also documented in some paintings by Pontormo, such as the Madonna and Child of the “tondo Capponi”. Azurite seems to be largely employed in the mantle of the Madonna in the Holy Family of Hermitage, in the Corsini Madonna and in the Mexico City one (Costamagna 1994, A77, attributes it to Jacone). All have a dark background, these paintings also show strong red colours in the Madonna´s dress, as present here. In the Madonna and Child of Mexico City other characteristics are similar to our piece: the haloes made with a yellow and red line, the face expression of the Child, the grey-violet veil painted over a red base. These observations about the palette and the general intonation of the work, together with the data related to the underdrawing, suggest that the present painting could have been made in the period 1519-1525 before Pontormo´s palette partially changed to lighter colours and to an extraordinary use of pink-red lakes and quasi pastel tones, such as those in the Deposition of Santa Felicita.

Verso - head of a young boy

The verso of the thick panel is original, with two horizontal crossbars, many worm-holes, traces of dirt and moisture. On its upper part, above the bar, almost completely lost because of fading, is the drawing of a head of a boy, in a complete frontal view, made with a black medium, probably a charcoal (see fig. 2). The oval outline is quickly sketched, giving emphasis to eyes and mouth, resolved with dark areas. The right eye and part of the nose seem to be almost completely lost. The drawing does not show any relation with the subject of the painting, but recalls the face of the sitting child in a drawing (Florence, GDSU inv. 6554, see Cox Rearick no. 79) dated at 1517-19.

A similar black drawing by Pontormo was recently discovered (2012) on the verso of the Pala Pucci probably representing an apprentice, viewed from behind.

A full report of the technical analysis is available upon request.

We are grateful to Gianluca Poldi for the technical analysis of the present painting.

Additional pictures
Infrared reflectograph, details
Jacopo da Pontormo, Etudes d’hommes nus, 1515, red chalk, print, paper, 26.4 x 40.2 cm, Paris, École nationale supérieure des Beaux-arts
© bpk / RMN - Grand Palais / Paris, École nationale supérieure des Beaux-arts