Description

This three-quarter-length portrait of the Christian Holy Family—Mary, Jesus, and Joseph—represents the figures in an undefined, interior space. An idealized landscape can be glimpsed through the window behind Mary’s right shoulder. The iconographic details of the picture are typical of the conventions of such images. Jesus sits on Mary’s lap, his hand raised in a gesture of blessing; the child’s nudity emphasizes his humanity. Mary wears red, a color that was understood to represent her suffering. While she and Jesus have smooth, idealized features and skin tones, Joseph has a more rugged and individualized appearance. Jesus holds a goldfinch, which was a favorite type of pet for children, but also had symbolic meaning and commonly appeared in pictures of Mary and Jesus in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.


Context and Analysis

Antonio Rimpatta trained in Bologna before moving to Naples in the early 1500s. Many artists who worked in Italy during this period journeyed from their northern Italian birthplaces to the Kingdom of Naples, which provided better patronage. In Naples, Rimpatta is best known for a large altarpiece. Not many of his few existing works are located in the United States, although the composition of the Holy Family in the Currier’s picture is strikingly similar to a Rimpatta painting owned by the Art Institute of Chicago.


In the Middle Ages and Renaissance the goldfinch was believed to have the ability to cure those who saw it or owned it. Its healing powers were a Christian allegory for the salvation of mankind by Jesus’s sacrifice. Also, according to legend, a goldfinch flew down over Jesus’s head on the road to Calvary, drew a thorn from his brow, and was splashed by blood as it did so, its good deed forever commemorated on its red breast.


In its iconography, this painting marks a period when Joseph was prominently featured in images of Mary and Jesus. Before the late 1400s, Joseph generally appeared only in images of the birth of Jesus or the flight into Egypt, and he was typically depicted as a white-bearded old man. In the late 1400s a growing cult of St. Joseph brought him increased recognition by the church and prominence in the church calendar as well as in art of the period.


Connections

Joos van Cleve’s Holy Family (Currier, 1956.5) is another example of the growing popularity of Joseph as a saint and surrogate father to Jesus. Like Rimpatta’s painting, that of van Cleve introduces a landscape into the image. A Madonna and Child from 1495 (Currier, 1952.2) shows the more traditional compositional structure of the two figures against a plain background, yet with Mary still clothed in red. Meanwhile, in a much earlier altarpiece, Virgin and Child with a Donor, Saints James and John the Baptist and Saints Nicholas and Anthony Abbott, by Niccolò di Pietro Gerini (1395; Currier, 2012.45 ), Jesus is also shown holding a goldfinch.


Written by Melissa Geisler Trafton


Bibliography

Lloyd, Christopher. Italian Paintings before 1600 in the Art Institute of Chicago. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993.