The Holy Family with St. John the Baptist and St. Mary Magdalen

In this intimate holy gathering, the Madonna supports the Christ Child's little foot and meets our gaze with a melancholic expression, as if aware that her son will one day sacrifice himself for humankind. The Christ Child fixatedly looks into the viewer's space with his right hand raised in a gesture of blessing. He is adored by his young cousin, John the Baptist, from the lower left. Also at the left is the Madonna's husband and Christ's earthly father, Saint Joseph. To the right is one of Christ's later followers, Saint Mary Magdalen, holding a gold and silver vessel containing the ointment she is said to have used to anoint Christ’s body after the Crucifixion. The figures are set against a green curtain which functions as a cloth of honor—denoting Christ and Mary's roles as King and Queen of Heaven—as well as a barrier between the figures and the distant landscape. The parapet in the foreground acts as an additional barrier between the viewer and the holy figures. A “cartellino” (small piece of paper) is illusionistically painted on the parapet and bears the signature of Marco Palmezzano, the leading painter in the north Italian region of Emilia-Romagna during the late 1400s and early 1500s. The Walters’ panel is a typical work of Palmezzano’s, with its rigidly posed figures bathed in a strong light that provides a heightened sense of three-dimensionality. For a painting at the Walters’ by one of Palmezzano’s assistants, see 37.505.

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Provenance

Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object.

Marquess Filippo Marignoli, Rome and Spoleto, until 1898 [mode of acquisition unknown]; Marquess Francesco Marignoli, 1898 [mode of acquisition unknown]; Don Marcello Massarenti Collection, Rome, 1899 [mode of acquisition unknown] [1900 catalogue supplement: no. 5]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1902, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.