(Belluno 1659–1737 Venice)
The Holy Family,
oil on canvas, 71.5 x 82.5 cm framed

Provenance:
art market, Italy;
where acquired by the present owner

We are grateful to Annalisa Scarpa for confirming the attribution and for her help in cataloguing this lot.


The subject the Madonna and Child was a subject that Sebastain Ricci repeatedly returned to. He frequently accompanied the Mother and Child with Saint Joseph, as seen in the present painting. This sacred group is often rendered within landscape settings that are alternately elaborate and rich, or restrained and minimal, yet suggestive of a ‘Rest on the Flight into Egypt’. Angels are often included as witnesses to the scene, or as in the present painting, they create a celestial background in an evanescent layering of colour on colour, creating a heavenly chorus which envelops the setting.

Several works can be compared to the present and to help place this composition chronologically. The Rest on the Flight into Egypt in the Museo Civico di Belluno reveals a striking resemblance in the composition of the hands to the present work. Indeed, as is evident from their comparison, the left hand of the Madonna in both works is almost identical: not only do they form the same gesture, but the manner in which a slight depression is revealed where the fingers meet the back of the hand is also the same.The canvas in Belluno was probably executed between the final years of the seventeenth and the first of the eighteenth century, and certainly before Sebastiano Ricci travelled to Florence: these are the years during which the artist was engaged on the magnificent canvases of the Palazzo Fulcis at Belluno, which are a significant example of Sebastiano Ricci’s first maturity. Another two representations of the Madonna made in Belluno can also be dated to this period: the altarpiece for the chapel of Palazzo Fulcis, now in the church of San Pietro in Belluno, representing the Madonna and Child with Saint Peter and Saint John the Baptist and that for the Carthusian monastery of Vedana, near Belluno, representing the Madonna and Child with Saints Ugo and Bruno.

The features of the Madonna in the present painting differ somewhat from those of the Madonna in the works mentioned above, but they can more readily be compared to those of the model used in a Holy Family recently on the London art market (formerly Appleby Brother’s Ltd); it is notable that the right hand of the Virgin in this painting is, though in the opposite direction, very similar to the left hand of the Virgin in the present work.

Other significant stylistic comparisons can be made with a Holy Family
with the Infant Saint John the Baptist in a private collection in Monte Carlo Here the dramatic destiny of the two infants seems quite naturally and subconsciously suppressed and both paintings reveal a similarly tender delicacy and serenity of spirit.