The Virgin and Child with St Joseph and St John the Baptist
Pontormo, 1522
This work by Pontormo, dated to around 1522-1523, belongs to the early part of his career. It brings together the Virgin and Child, Saint Joseph and the young Saint John the Baptist, in a scene usually called the Holy Family with the infant Saint John the Baptist. The painting is now in the Hermitage Museum, which acquired it together with the collection of Countess E. I. Mordvinova. A preparatory drawing for the composition survives in the Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe at the Uffizi, which makes it possible to follow part of the artist's working process. On the available evidence, the main interest of the picture lies in how the sacred figures are grouped within an intimate space, and in seeing the young Pontormo work out that arrangement. Any more detailed reading of its symbolism or technique would require direct examination of the painting, since the known documentation does not describe these aspects in greater depth.
- Painter
- Pontormo
- Date
- 1522
- Medium
- oil paint, canvas
- Dimensions
- 120 × 98 cm
- Museum
- Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg
- Genre
- religious art
- Depicts
- Child Saint John, boy, Mary, woman, Christ Child
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