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Jerónimo Vich y Valterra (1459-1535) was Spain’s ambassador to Rome between 1506 and 1521, under the reigns of Ferdinand the Catholic and Charles V. Vich commissioned Sebastiano del Piombo to paint a triptych whose central panel with the Lamentation over the Body of Christ is now at the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. One of its sides bears Christ’s Descent into Limbo and is also at t
Christ´s body is taken from the cross by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. On the ground, Mary Magdalene extends her arms to him while the Virgin weeps sorrowfully. The depiction of these customary figures is rounded out by the presence of a soldier with renaissance armor and two children, one with a handkerchief tied around his head. These realistic details give Machuca´s scene a special charact
When Parmigianino left his native city of Parma to move to Rome in 1524 he took this painting with him and presented it to Pope Clement VII. This is the artist´s first mature work and one that already reveals the grace that Vasari considered the greatest aesthetic quality of any painting: a gift of nature impossible to learn, combining beauty, delicacy and sweetness.
La Sagrada Familia del Prado, quizá una de las últimas obras de Andrea del Sarto, es una réplica de la Sagrada Familia Barberini (Roma, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Palazzo Barberini, inv. 2332). La composición fue transferida mediante un cartón –dibujo a tamaño real– extraído del prototipo por el artista. Su estado inacabado, comparable al de una de las versiones de su Sacrificio de Isaac (T
Leaning on a classical ruin, Saint Joseph looks at the Virgin Mary with the Christ Child in her lap. Jesus, in turn, is receiving a roll with the words Ecce Agnus Dei from Saint John. This Latin inscription meaning Lamb of God refers to the Passion of Christ, who sacrifices himself, just as lambs were sacrified by the Jews, in order to save humanity from sin. The oak tree standing behind the main
Since the moment when it was decided that the present work is by Raphael but that the sitter is not Antonio Granvela, art historians have expended considerable efforts on identifying the sitter.The most credible candidates would seem to be Cardinal Bendinello Suardi (painted by Del Piombo,Washington, National Gallery of Art), and even more probably Cardinal Giovanni Alidosi (depicted on a medal an
Christ´s dead body is taken off the Cross by Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus and Saint John the Evangelist. Among the people at his feet are the Virgin Mary, the mother of Joseph —also called Mary— as well as Salomé and Mary Magdalene, who raises her arms as a sign of her suffering. The good and bad thieves are crucified on trees. This scene follows the New Testament story of the Jesus´ desc
Educated as a young man in France and Florence, in 1527 Pier Maria Rossi (1504-1547), Seventh Count of San Secondo, was in the service of Clement VII but that same year entered the employment of Charles V. Vasari recounts that Parmigianino (to whom this work has been unanimously attributed following its restoration) escaped from Parma to San Secondo in around 1538 in order to avoid problems relati
This scene portrays the moment described in the Old Testament (Genesis 22, 1-19) in which, at the orders of Yahweh, Abraham prepares to sacrifice his son Isaac as an offering. Seeing that Abraham follows his orders with blind faith, Yahweh considers his faithfulness to be proven and sends an angel to save Isaac at the last moment, ordering that a lamb be sacrificed in his place. This Bible passage
Along with its religious emotiveness and the perfect rendering of Christ´s anatomy, the most attractive aspect of this composition is the landscape, which reproduces the view of the via San Giovanni from Barocci´s house in Urbino. In the foreground on the right is the Convent of Santa Caterina and the Ducal Palace with the “mercatale” spreading from its base right up to the Hermitage of San Rocco
This portrait of García de’Medici (1547–1562), third son of Cosimo de’Medici and Leonor de Toledo, is an excellent example of the scant interest in the depiction of children prior to the Enlightenment period. Bronzino offers a faithful rendering of a child’s small, undefined features, but presents him with the same distant, impassive pose used for adult portraits of the Florentine court amb
Outside of Rome and Florence, no painter was as decisive in the formulation of painting´s classical language as Corregio. His youth, before his stay in Rome in 1518 and 1519, cannot be understood without Mantegna and Leonardo da Vinci, whose influence can be seen in the present work, painted in Parma between 1515 and 1517. The classical appearance of the Virgin´s sandals comes from Mantegna, while
This panel was the first painting produced by the artist when he started working for Philip II at the monastery of El Escorial. He had just returned from Italy, and already displayed a remarkable ability to blend the various elements that together shaped his Escorial style: the landscape has Netherlandish echoes, whilst the figures are handled in a Mannerist style reminiscent of Raphael and Michel
In 1504, after training with Perugino, Raphael moved from Perugia to Florence, where he remained for four years to absorb the work of Leonardo and Michelangelo. His gradual mastery of classicism is visible in a series of Madonne that constitute a delicate series of variations on the subject of motherly love. One of these is the Holy Family of the Lamb, which is based on a preparatory drawing by Le
Jacopo Basilio commissioned this painting for the Monastery of Santa Maria dello Spasimo in Palermo, from which it derives its popular name, lo Spasimo di Sicilia (“The Wonder of Sicily”), which reflects Raphael´s interest in the depiction of extreme physical and psychological states. This work´s rhetorical tone and complex yet clear composition around two diagonals that converge on the figure of
The Virgin Mary holds the Christ Child, flanked on the right by an angel and, on the left, by Saint Matthew. The landscape in the background shows a scene from the Apocrypha (Proto-Gospel of Saint James): Saint Elisabeth and Saint John the Baptist fleeing from the Slaughter of the Innocents. The presence of Saint Matthew in this composition is explained by the fact the it was commissioned by a ban
After a documented stay in Rome and a highly probable visit to Parma to study Correggio, Barocci returned to Urbino in 1576. When he painted this work for Francesco Maria II della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, he had a very personal style that merged the Venetian use of color with what has been called mystic naturalism. Barocci was at his best in small compositions like the present one, where his tenden
This Charity, one of the most important works by the Tuscan painter Portelli, derives from a work on the same subject by Francesco Salviati (1510-1563) now in the Uffizi, Florence, emulating its composition, brilliant colours and detailed finish. It was acquired by Charles IV.
