(Venice 1540–1596 Milan) 
Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist and an angel,
oil on canvas, 74 x 61.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Dotti collection, Milan, 1959;
Private European collection;
and thence by descent to the present owner

Literature:
F. Frangi, Pittura patria, in: J. Lorenzelli, A. Veca (eds.), Museum. Intorno alla collezione, exhibition catalogue, Bergamo 1994, pp. 120–121, note 15;
F. Frangi, Tre momenti della storia di Peterzano, in: Nuovi Studi, no. 22, 2016, vol. 21, pp. 69–71, note 19, plate 132 (as Simone Peterzano, ‘della giovinezza dell’artista’);
F. Frangi, Gli anni della giovinezza di ‘Simone Venetiano’, in: S. Facchinetti, F. Frangi et al. (eds.), Peterzano. Allievo di Tiziano, maestro di Caravaggio, exhibition catalogue, Milan 2020, pp. 29–30, fig. 7, note 48 (as Simone Peterzano)

The present Holy Family was previously only known from a black and white photograph from 1959, which belonged to the art historian Roberto Longhi. The scholar had already attributed the canvas to Simone Peterzano and he suggested dating this work to around the 1560s, during Peterzano’s Venetian period.

Francesco Frangi, recently included this painting in the reconstruction of Simone Peterzano’s early activity, placing it in a period where the influence of Titian is combined with the lessons of several important Brescian and Bergamasque artists, such as Bernardino Licinio, Moretto, and Savoldo, but also with those of Paolo Veronese.

In this work Peterzano shows a more solid pictorial texture and a greater attention to naturalism and chiaroscuro effects. A significant example of this transitional moment is also the Supper at Emmaus in the Galleria Palatina, Florence, (see M. Pavesi, A Supper at Emmaus by Simone Peterzano at Palazzo Pitti, in: Nuovi Studi, no. 22, 2016, pp. 59–66).

Simone Peterzano’s was trained in Titian’s workshop in Venice. His family, of Bergamasque origin, had been active in Venice for several years, as his paternal grandfather, Maffeo, was documented in the city in 1521, working as a goldsmith alongside his son Francesco, Simone’s father. It is therefore likely that the artist was born in the city. He moved to Milan in 1572 and began the significant commission of the frescoes in San Maurizio al Monastero Maggiore. In 1584 Caravaggio entered a four-year apprenticeship with Peterzano.