The Holy Family with Angels. Defendente Ferrari
Enthroned as Queen of Heaven, Mary holds her son, who turns with an affectionate gesture to embrace Saint Joseph while angels play music. Mary's husband is pictured as an old man who needs to use glasses to read. The inscription on the scroll below tells us that Mary was both mother and virgin, and Joseph's old age testifies to the Christian miracle of the virgin birth. The painting was probably the central part of a polyptych (an altarpiece consisting of several panels). Rather than looking to ancient art as a model as so many of his Italian contemporaries did, Defendente Ferrari considered northern European painting with its close attention to naturalistic detail to be a proper source for an engaging religious art.
circa 1520 (Renaissance)
oil and gold leaf on panel
Painted surface H: 57 7/8 x W: 28 3/8 x D excluding cradle: 3/8 in. (147 x 72 x 1 cm)
Walters Art Museum
Accession number 37.711
Place of creation Piedmont, Italy
Object history
Don Marcello Massarenti Collection, Rome [date and mode of acquisition unknown] [1897 catalogue: no. 90, as manner of Filippo Lippi]
1902: purchased by Henry Walters, Baltimore
1931: bequeathed to Walters Art Museum by Henry Walters
Credit line Acquired by Henry Walters with the Massarenti Collection, 1902
Inscriptions [Transcription] In scroll at bottom: PARTVS ET INTEGRITAS DISCORDES TEMPORE LVNGO
References Federico Zeri (1976) (in English) Italian paintings in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore: Walters Art Gallery, no. 289, pp. 417 OCLC: 2463997.
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See also : Holy Family, Paintings, Drawings
See also : Jesus of Nazareth , Christ, Paintings, Drawings
See also : Bible, Paintings, Drawings
