Workshop of Andrea Mantegna

(Isola di Carturo/Isola Mantegna 1430/31–1506 Mantua)
The Holy Family with Saint Anne (?),
oil on panel, 50 x 37 cm, unframed

Provenance:
Collection of Baron Alberto Fassini (1875–1942), Rome;
Private collection, Rome, circa 1970;
Private European collection

The present painting is registered in the Fototeca Zeri under no. 26643 (as Follower of Cima da Conegliano).

This devotional panel depicting the Madonna, half-length, and Child relates to the works of Andrea Mantegna (1430/31–1506) and his circle.

The Madonna cradles the sleeping Christ Child in loose swaddling and gently supports his head. The two attendant figures have been traditionally identified as Saints Joseph and Anne, as well as Saints Peter and Catherine.

The picture sits within the pictorial language of Mantegna’s small devotional works. It recalls the Madonna with the Sleeping Child in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin (inv. no. 5), sharing the same motif of the dozing infant tenderly held by the Madonna, and also relates to the Madonna and Child with Saints Joseph, Elisabeth, and John the Baptist in the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth (inv. no. AP 1987.04) in the compact, half-length grouping before an open sky, with an elderly male and a veiled female saint. The present work can be further compared to the Madonna and Child in the Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan (inv. no. 1595).