Madonna and Child in Glory over the City of Bologna
Madonna and Child in Glory over the City of Bologna is a c.1593 oil on canvas painting by Annibale Carracci, also known as The Virgin and Child in the Clouds or the Madonna of Bologna. It is now in Christ Church Picture Gallery in Oxford.
History
It is unanimously identified with the work seen in the private chapel at Palazzo Caprara in Bologna by Giovanni Pietro Bellori and entitled "Madonna [and Child] in Glory with Angels over the City of Bologna seen in the distance" in his 1672 Vite dei Pittori, Scultori ed Architetti Moderni.[1] The Caprara family was powerful and active in politics, producing several noted soldiers, which probably explains the clear civic symbolism of the work, almost certainly commissioned by them.[2] Its dating is solely on stylistic grounds, with no documents surviving as to its commissioning and no date painted onto the work itself.
Influenced by Correggio and Venetian painters like the same artist's 1593 Madonna and Child with Saints,[3] its composition is similar to Madonna of the Earthquake, a Francesco Francia work commissioned by the city of Bologna just under fifty years earlier as an ex voto for ending a series of earthquakes that had terrorised the city's inhabitants in 1505.[4] Its balanced composition also suggests influence from Renaissance artists from Florence and the rest of central Italy[3] and from works by Raphael such as his Ezekiel's Vision, which was for a long time in Bologna - the proportions of the vision's foreground and the far-off bird's eye background landscape both seem to have been a strong influence on the centre of the work now in Oxford.[2]
A smaller version of the work on card was re-discovered by the American art historian John T. Spike, who published on it in 2002, proposing it was an autograph work by Annibale, possibly a preliminary modello requested by the painting's commissioner for final approval.[5] Alessandro Brogi rejected this as an autograph work, but on its exhibition at a Sassoferrato exhibition in 2009 Massimo Pulini accepted Spike's attribution.[6] Two preparatory drawings survive in the Albertina, Vienna and two in the Devonshire Collection at Chatsworth House in the UK,[1] though all four differ from the final painted composition.
It is unknown when the work left Italy, but it was already in England by the 17th century, when it was recorded in James Thornhill's collections. It passed through a number of other collections before being bequeathed to its present owner by John Guise in 1765.[7][1]
- The version on card
- Study for the work, Chatsworth House
- Study for the work, Chatsworth House
- Study for the work, Albertina
- Study for the work, Albertina
References
- ^ a b c Donald Posner, Annibale Carracci: A Study in the reform of Italian Painting around 1590, Londra, 1971, Vol. II, N. 80, pp. 33-34.
- ^ a b (in Italian) Alessandro Brogi, in Daniele Benati ed Eugenio Riccomini (a cura di), Annibale Carracci, Catalogo della mostra Bologna e Roma 2006-2007, Milano, 2006, p. 258.
- ^ a b Donald Posner, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 51.
- ^ (in Italian) Gian Carlo Cavalli, Mostra dei Carracci, 1 settembre-25 novembre 1956, Bologna. Palazzo dell'Archiginnasio; Catalogo critico delle opere, Bologna, 1956, pp. 190-191.
- ^ John T. Spike, A Rediscovered Modello for the Caprara Altarpiece by Annibale Carracci, in Studi di Storia dell'Arte, 13, 2002, pp. 251-258.
- ^ (in Italian) Massimo Pulini, Il Sassoferrato. Un preraffaellita tra i puristi del Seicento, Milano, 2009, p. 126.
- ^ "ArtUK entry".
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- List of paintings
- The Laughing Youth (1580s)
- The Beaneater (1580–1590)
- Butcher's Shop (1583)
- Crucifixion with Saints (1583)
- Corpse of Christ (1583–1585)
- An Allegory of Truth and Time (1584–1585)
- Baptism of Christ (1585)
- Pietà with Saints Clare, Francis and Mary Magdalene (1585)
- The Mystic Marriage of St Catherine (c. 1585)
- The Vision of Saint Eustace (1585–1586)
- Two Children Teasing a Cat (1587–1588)
- Madonna and Child with Saints (1588)
- Venus with a Satyr and Two Cupids (1588–1590)
- Lamentation (1587–1590)
- Self-Portrait in Profile (1590s)
- Assumption of the Virgin (Madrid; 1590)
- The Virgin Appears to Saint Luke and Saint Catherine (1592)
- Self-Portrait (1593)
- Madonna and Child with Saints (1593)
- Resurrection (1593)
- Madonna and Child in Glory over the City of Bologna (c. 1593)
- Christ and the Samaritan Woman (1593–1594)
- Saint Roch Giving Alms (1587–1595)
- Fishing (before 1595)
- Hunting (before 1595)
- River Landscape (c. 1590)
- Christ and the Canaanite Woman (1594–1595)
- Entombment of Christ (c. 1595)
- Venus, Adonis and Cupid (c. 1595)
- Camerino Farnese
- The Choice of Hercules (1596)
- Christ in Glory with Saints and Odoardo Farnese (c. 1597–1598)
- The Death of Saint Francis (1597–1598)
- Saint Margaret of Antioch (1599)
- Christ Appearing to Saint Anthony Abbot (1598–1600)
- Christ Crowned with Thorns (1598–1600)
- Christ Crowned with Thorns (Bologna) (c. 1598–1600)
- The Madonna and Sleeping Child with the Infant St John the Baptist (c. 1599–1600)
- Pietà (c. 1600)
- The Three Marys at the Tomb (c. 1600)
- Rinaldo and Armida (c. 1601)
- Assumption of the Virgin (Rome; 1600–1601)
- Saint Gregory at Prayer (c. 1600–1602)
- Domine quo vadis? (c. 1602)
- Portable Altarpiece with Pietà and Saints (1603)
- Pietà with Two Angels (c. 1603)
- Sleeping Venus (c. 1603)
- Self-Portrait on an Easel (1603–1604)
- The Martyrdom of St Stephen (c. 1603–1604)
- Portrait of Monsignor Giovanni Battista Agucchi (1604) (disputed)
- Landscape with the Flight into Egypt (c. 1604)
- The Dead Christ Mourned (c. 1604)
- Rest on the Flight into Egypt (c. 1604)
- Danaë (1600–1605)
- Saint Didacus of Alcalá Presenting Juan de Herrera's Son to Christ (c. 1606)
- Pietà with Saint Francis and Saint Mary Magdalene (1602–1607)
- The Loves of the Gods (1608)
- The Birth of the Virgin (1605–1609)