Holy Family With Saint John The Baptist, Circle Of Orazio Samacchini, Bolognese School, 16th

Holy Family with Saint John the Baptist, Circle of Orazio Samacchini, Bolognese School, 16th Century

Oil on panel
88 x 74 cm unframed
100 x 85 cm framed
Antique carved wooden frame

Important Emilian panel painting from the late 16th century depicting the Holy Family with Saint Joseph and the young Saint John the Baptist. The composition is distinguished by the monumentality of the figures and by a strong plastic tension characteristic of Bolognese Mannerism in the second half of the Cinquecento.

The work reflects models close to the artistic culture of Orazio Samacchini. The vigorous construction of the figures, the compact pale flesh tones of the children, and the solemn gravity of the Virgin reveal the diffusion in Emilia of Roman and Michelangelesque influences during the mid-16th century. The Virgin, in particular, recalls the monumental language of Michelangelo’s Sibyls, reinterpreted through an Emilian sensibility.

The Virgin’s garments, painted in tones of cold pink, bluish grey and softened red, illustrate the refined chromatic taste of Emilian Mannerism. Saint Joseph, with his deeply marked features and beard animated almost as if by the wind, also belongs to this figurative vocabulary shaped by Roman artistic experiences and by painters such as Pellegrino Tibaldi and Samacchini.

At the side of Saint John the Baptist appears a small suspended metal vessel, probably intended for water, an iconographic detail alluding to baptism.

The reverse of the panel is particularly interesting, preserving its old structural elements: assembled vertical planks, ancient butterfly inserts, visible traces of manual woodworking, an old reinforcing crossbar, earlier conservation interventions and an old paper inventory label. The wrought-iron hanging device, with curved ring and triangular plate, belongs to an antique type probably dating from the 17th or 18th century.