Carlo Maratta

With Kunsthandel Dirven, Roosendael;

Private collection, Amsterdam, by November 1937;

Thence by descent to the previous owner;

Whence sold ('The Property of a Gentleman'), London, Sotheby's, 7 July 2016, lot 187, £87,500;

Where acquired by present owner in 2016 through Beaumont Nathan.

A. Agresti, Carlo Maratti (1625–1713). Eredità ed evoluzioni del classicismo romano, Rome 2022, pp. 154–55, reproduced fig. 99;

S. Rudolph and S. Prosperi Valenti Rondinò, Carlo Maratti (1625–1713) tra la magnificenza del Barocco e il sogno d'Arcadia, Rome 2024, p. 1025, no. 235b, reproduced in colour (as current whereabouts unknown).

This painting is a variant of a slightly larger composition by Carlo Maratta in the Toledo Museum of Art.¹ While closely related in design, there are subtle differences between the two canvases, particularly in the colour scheme and the treatment of the draperies. In the Toledo painting, the Madonna’s hair falls across her upper torso, whereas it is arranged differently in the present work. The position of the Madonna’s right hand also varies: in the Toledo version, it rests on the draperies atop the sarcophagus, while in this work it is gently placed on the Christ Child, enhancing the intimacy of the scene. Finally, there are also small differences in the landscape, which in the present work features a small singular figure in the middle distance.

The Toledo painting is generally regarded as a late work, dating to circa 1700–1705. The brighter tonality and somewhat fresher palette of the present version suggest it may precede the Toledo canvas, however this remains speculative. A workshop replica of the Toledo composition is in the Devonshire Collection at Chatsworth House;² and a larger, faithful copy of that picture, is in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.³

Among the generation of classicizing Bolognese painters active in Rome in the early seventeenth century, Maratta remained especially responsive to the legacy of Francesco Albani (1578–1660). Albani’s refined approach to sacred themes exerted a lasting influence on Maratta’s conception of devotional imagery, particularly in the gentle expressiveness and harmonious composition seen here.

When this painting relined by A.M. de Wild in The Hague in 1937, the original canvas was found to bear an inscription with the artist’s name.

¹ Inv. no. 1967.141; oil on canvas; 71.1 x 53.5 cm.; https://emuseum.toledomuseum.org/objects/55269/the-holy-family?ctx=227eb7ecc2371e84a1212bd8da0fd2d3817e802d&idx=1

² Oil on canvas; 65.4 x 48.2; https://photocollections.courtauld.ac.uk/sec-menu/search/detail/9ea6db57-43f2-9f26-deff-a17a81229310/media/00c9d46f-b5cb-aafe-8c6f-c37447238647

³ Oil on canvas; 97.8 x 74 cm.; https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/521