Antique Painting The Visitation Oil On Canvas XVII-xviii Century Original

Oil on canvas. Northern Italian School, late 17th–early 18th century.
This large-scale painting depicts the Gospel scene of the encounter between Mary, who is expecting Jesus, and her cousin Elizabeth, who is pregnant with John, the future Baptist.
The emotion of this encounter—in which the two women embrace while, as Elizabeth says, little John leaps in her womb, will later give rise to the splendid prayer of the Magnificat, proclaimed by Mary in thanksgiving and praise of her Lord “who has looked upon the humility of his servant.”
Also unusual in this painting is the presence of the two husbands, Joseph on the left and Zechariah on the right, who are not mentioned in the Gospel and are not usually depicted.
All the figures are depicted according to traditional iconographic conventions and stand out against a background featuring the temple behind Zechariah, the priest, and a distant Italian landscape on the left.
On the back of the canvas is an old attribution of the work to Giacomo Barbelli.
The painting is completely devoid of paint along all its edges; it has been restored in the past and firmly re-painted.
It is presented in a period frame.
ARARPI0327032