Madonna and Child with Saint John

The tight crop and close-up viewpoint of this painting connect the viewer to the intimate moment between the Virgin Mary, the infant Jesus, and Saint John the Baptist. Mary’s blue robe wraps around all three figures, connecting them together in a familial chain. The robe flows like water across the lap of Mary, perhaps foreshadowing Saint John baptising Jesus in the River Jordan as an adult – an episode which features in the Gospels, in the New Testament of the Bible.  

This painting is a good, early copy of the Italian painter Annibale Carracci’s (1560-1609) original in the Uffizi, Florence, which is of the same size but painted on copper rather than panel. The Carracci family redefined the Bolognese school of painting with their new works and theories which departed from what they saw to be the highly artificial style of Mannerist painters before them. They professed that paintings should be founded upon the study of nature. This resulted in a naturalistic style and clarity of composition that created more accessible religious imagery.