Madonna and Child
Artist/Maker
Material / Technique
Dimensionsh x w: Mått 66 x 50 cm
Inventory numberNMDrh 269
AcqusitionTransferred 1866 from Kongl. Museum (Martelli 1804)
Other titlesTitel (sv): Madonna och barnet Titel (en): Madonna and Child
DescriptionRes. Katalogtext: Description in Italian Paintings: Three Centuries of Collecting, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2015, cat.no. 46: FORMER INV. NOS.: 438 (M. 1804); KM 117. TECHNICAL NOTES: The support is a single piece of thin, densely woven, plain-weave linen fabric. It has been lined with glue and mounted with staples on a Martelli strainer. This was probably done in Italy before shipping to Sweden. The ground is red and covers the whole support. UV fluorescence reveals many old retouches and overpaintings; for example, the Virgin’s veil has been completely overpainted. Some of these overpaintings are hidden by the very thick, yellowed varnish. PROVENANCE: Martelli 1804. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Sander 1872–76, III, p. 134, no. 438 (as Giuseppe Maria Crespi). There are no paintings attributed to Crespi in Fredenheim’s catalogue, however the present work can be found in the 1804 catalogue of the Martelli Collection and the attribution of the painting by Corvi and Tofanelli on the lost verso Martelli paper label, transcribed by Sander, read “Spagnoletto di Bologna. Madonna”. Masreliez’s inventory of 1809 include two paintings ascribed to Crespi.¹ The present painting is of high quality, and there is no question as to its attribution to Crespi. It bears all the hallmarks of his singular artistic invention. Amongst Crespi’s previously published works, it seems to be closest to a painting of a similar size, formerly in a Bolognese private collection, and recently sold at Christie’s in 2012.² In both paintings, the Christ Child is depicted in a striking glowing light, finely offset against the dark background. His overall position, profile of face and flowing golden locks show a very close likeness between the two works, almost to the extent that it seems they were originally pendants, especially considering that the Christ Child is also reversed in relation to his counterpart in the previously known painting. The Madonna is wearing a cloak in a saturated blue colour, which in the Christie’s painting contrasts nicely with the golden hues of the Christ Child and the white of the cloth that he is partly draped in. In the Stockholm work, however, this contrast is further enhanced and given greater dramatic effect by the use of an added drape in the boldest red, partly covering the Child. Together with the pale countenance of the Madonna, the saturated blue and the golden glow create a superb chromatic harmony, reminiscent of Titian as well as Barocci, and it is not surprising that this colour combination recurs in several of Crespi’s paintings, such as Tarquin and Lucretia in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and The Continence of Scipio in the Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Virginia. Particularly similar in palette, especially as regards the use of the brilliant red, is the Magdalen in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon.³ Characteristics such as the careful delineation of the Madonna’s thin and elongated, almost Mannerist, fingers, the typical depiction of the female face with its finely pointed chin, large eyes and heavy eyelids, and the “feathery”, yet bold, impasto brushstrokes rendering the varying hues of garments, all point to a firm attribution of the painting to Crespi. The Madonna’s left hand is very similar to that of the woman in the Woman with a Dove in the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, as well as to the left hand of the woman in the variant version of that painting in the Columbia Museum of Art, South Carolina.⁴ The kind of cabinet picture that the present painting represents, for private devotional use, is also typical of the artist’s production around 1720–25, a period when religious subjects seem to have occupied all his attention and when he also painted several altarpieces for churches in Emilia, Tuscany and as far north as Bergamo. In the painting recently sold at Christie’s, the fact that the Christ Child clasps a small cross in his right hand is somewhat obscured by the shadow cast by the Madonna’s cloak. The tender way in which the connection between mother and child is conveyed through this gesture, however, is more clearly emphasized in the Nationalmuseum painting. The connection conveyed between the mother and child through her gentle touching of the top of the cross and the child’s firm grip of the same in his little fist, depicted with fine naturalistic detail, becomes even more heartfelt considering the cross’s future implications and its meaning for the relationship between mother and child; in short, a compositional invention of the highest order. dp 1 Sander 1872–76, III, p. 134, no. 438; NM Archives, Kongl. Museum, F:1, Tableaux en Sus du Nombre marque au Catalogue du D. Martelli (Document marked “1810/af Masreliez”). 2 Emiliani and Rave 1990, pp. 382–383, cat. no. 66. Christie’s, Old Master & British Paintings Evening Sale, 3 July 2012. The particular depiction of the Madonna and Child found in this painting also forms the central part of Crespi’s the Adoration of the Shepherds in the Seattle Art Museum. See Emiliani and Rave 1990, pp. 380–381, cat. no. 65. 3 Spike 1986, pp. 112–113, 119, 121–122, cat. nos. 2, 6; Emiliani and Rave 1990, pp. 278–279, 398–399, cat. nos. 14, 74. 4 Spike 1986, pp. 114–115, cat. no. 3; Emiliani and Rave 1990, pp. 302–303, 310–311, cat. nos. 27, 32. [End]
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