Child with Two Doves. Detail from "The Purification of the Virgin"
Artist/Maker
Material / Technique
Dimensionsh x w: Mått 55 x 41 cm
Inventory numberNM 145
AcqusitionTransferred 1866 from Kongl. Museum
Other titlesTitle (sv): The Purification of the Virgin, 1638–39 Title (sv): Barn med två duvor. Detalj ur "Marie kyrktagning" Title (sv): Child with Two Doves. Detail from "The Purification of the Virgin"
DescriptionCatalogue raisonné: Description in Italian Paintings: Three Centuries of Collecting, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2015, cat.no. 74: FORMER INV. NOS.: 223 (M. 1796–97); 179 (F. 1798); 386 (M. 1804); KM 997. PROVENANCE: Martelli 1804. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Sander 1872–76, III, p. 129, no. 386 (as Reni); Guillaume 1980, p. 75; NM Cat. 1990, p. 295 (as Reni, manner of). The present painting is a copy of a detail from an altarpiece painted for the Sassi Chapel in the Cathedral of Modena, where it replaced an older work by Dosso Dossi. In 1774, the painting was removed to the Ducal Galleries of the Este family. During the French occupation, Reni’s work was chosen as booty and taken in 1796 to Paris, where it was exhibited at the Louvre in 1798 and 1801.¹ Several studio variants of the detail of the young boy playing with the doves in the foreground have been recorded.² The present painting, together with its companion piece NM 144 (cat. no. 72), was assigned directly to Reni in the 18th-century inventory: Un Enfant à mis corps. Ovale. Marguerite Guillaume suggests that the popularity of the motif might have arisen from an engraving.³ Its tender subject, with a clear focus on the innocence of children, appealed strongly to that increasing sense of pathos that influenced much of the painting of the later 18th century, with a particular reference to the oeuvre of the French painter Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725–1805). sne 1 Pepper 1984, p. 281 2 Ibid. with further bibliography. 3 Guillaume 1980, cat. no. 122, p. 75. [End]
Collection
TechniquePainting
Object category
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