(Garofalo c. 1476–1559 Ferrara)
Holy Family with Saint Anne and the Infant Saint John the Baptist,
oil on panel, 42.3 x 30 cm, framed

Exhibited:
Ferrara, Palazzo dei Diamanti, Garofalo. Pittore della Ferrara estense, 5 April - 6 July 2008, no. 49

Literature:
M. Danieli, in: Garofalo. Pittore della Ferrara estense, T. Kustodieva, M. Lucco, exhibition catalogue, Ferrara 2008, pp. 169-170, no. 49

The painting is stylistically related to the Matthiesen Presepe (see A. M. Fioravanti Baraldi, Il Garofalo, catalogo generale, Rimini 1993, p. 96, n. 20), the Adoration of the Shepherds in the Pinacoteca di Parma (Inv. 366) and the Holy Family in the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna (Inv. 365), which are characterisitic small paintings from Garofalo´s production concentrated between 1508 and 1513-14.

The Infant Saint John in the present composition, with his legs apart and the body leaning on his right arm, shows the influence of an idea Raphael developed around 1511: the figure of Diogene reclining on the staircase in the School of Athens’s (1509-1511) and the putto in the foreground of the Galatea in the Farnesina (1511) and, earlier, the Christ Child in the Madonna Bridgewater of Edinburgh (1507).

The Madonna´s face in the present compostion is similar to the one in Garofalo´s Madonna Adoring the Child, Saint Joseph and an Angel in a private collection (see Fioravanti Baraldi 1993, p. 151, n. 85) and the one in the Adoration of the Shepherds in the Galleria Borghese (Inv. 224) and also demonstrates a knowledge of Raphael’s Madonna di Foligno, dated 1512.

The present painting is an example of Garofalo’s work before 1530, displaying the influence of Raphael together with the rich palette of colours derived from Giorgione.