Lorenzo Sabatini

This exquisitely finished copper constitutes one of the finest examples of Sabatini’s religious paintings intended for private devotion, and one of the few surviving signed and dated works by the artist. Sabatini depicts a scene of great intimacy, in which the Virgin is looking tenderly at the Christ Child, while Saint Joseph is looking outwards, engaging with the viewer. The sense of intimate religious feeling is heightened by the small scale of the panel and luminous palette, imbuing the work with a gem-like quality.

This informal and familiar approach to a traditional subject like the Holy Family, finds its origins in the work of Raphael, namely his celebrated Madonna di Loreto (Musée Condé, Chantilly), of which numerous copies exist.¹ Raphael’s was an incredibly successful compositional model which was adopted and perpetuated by a number of Sabatini’s contemporaries, such as Orazio Samacchini and Lavinia Fontana. His mature style, exemplified in this work, merges the pervasive influence of rigorous classicism inherited from the study of Raphael with the popular tendency towards Mannerism derived from the likes of Correggio and Parmigianino. This is most apparent in Sabatini’s choice of bright colours and the ornamentation of the Christ Child’s crib.

This work is a masterpiece by Sabatini, an artist who, although successful during his career, was largely overlooked until Jürgen Winkelmann wrote about him in an article published in 1976.² Dated to 1571, the colouring and compact brushstrokes of this work are compared by Balzarotti (see under Literature) to what is considered to be Sabatini’s masterpiece, The Assumption of the Virgin (Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna), originally painted for the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, Bologna, dated a year earlier.³ By comparison however, the picture's feeling of solemn contemplation is closer to that of works of slightly later date, such as the Virgin and Child with Saint Agatha and Saint Lucy, from the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna, dated 1570–72.⁴

¹ Inv. no. PE 40; oil on poplar panel; 120 x 90 cm.;

 https://www.pop.culture.gouv.fr/notice/joconde/00000077327base=%5B%22Collections%20des%20mus%C3%A9es%20de%20France%20%28Joconde%29%22%5D&mainSearch=%22raphael%20chantilly%22&last_view=%22list%22&idQuery=%22a36c7a3-c5ca-334e-cf36-5f3bcffa2e0%22

² J. Winkelmann, 'Sul problema Nosadella–Tibaldi', in Paragone, 27, nos 317–19, July–September 1976, pp. 101–15.

³ Inv. no. 501; oil on canvas; 341 x 226 cm.; https://www.pinacotecabologna.beniculturali.it/it/content_page/item/410-assunzione-della-vergine

⁴ Inv. no. 6331; oil on canvas; 278 x 173 cm.; https://www.storiaememoriadibologna.it/imageserver/gallery_big/files/vecchio_archivio/certosa/s/Sabatini_sante.JPG