Probably by Fra Bartolommeo, 'The Madonna and Child with Saint John', perhaps about 1516

The Madonna and Child with Saint John

Probably by Fra Bartolommeo

Not on display

About the work

Overview

The Virgin is seated simply on the ground in the pose known as ‘the Madonna of Humility’, with the Christ Child on her lap and the infant Saint John the Baptist to her side, forming a broad-based pyramid. The motif of the two holy children embracing derives from a design by Leonardo.

Saint John the Baptist has gathered up red fruit – perhaps cherries (known as the Fruit of Paradise) – in the blue cloth over his lap. He holds his traditional attribute of a simple reed cross, and his baptismal bowl hangs at his side.

In-depth

According to the sixteenth-century art biographer Giorgio Vasari, Fra Bartolommeo earned his living when young by painting Madonnas. During the 1490s, when the preacher Savonarola was at the head of the Florentine Republic, Fra Bartolommeo came under his spiritual influence and ran a large workshop producing important altarpieces. However, after Savonarola’s execution and the return of the Medici to Florence, his name was so associated with Savonarola that almost no one dared risk commissioning altarpieces from him again. It is likely to have been for this reason that Fra Bartolomeo returned to painting images of the Madonna for private devotion, such as this one.

The Virgin is seated simply on the ground in a popular pose known as the Madonna of Humility, with the Christ Child on her lap and the infant Saint John the Baptist to her side. The Virgin and Child with the young Saint John was a common subject in Florence as the city’s cathedral is dedicated to the Virgin and John the Baptist is the city’s patron saint. The figure group forms a compact broad-based pyramid in the centre foreground of the composition with an expansive landscape in the background. The strong pyramidal composition harks back to the works of Leonardo and Raphael in his Florentine period. Fra Bartolommeo’s first idea for the composition came from the mother and child group at the bottom right of his own Madonna della Misericordia of 1515 (Pinacoteca di Villa Guinigi, Lucca).

The Christ Child tips forwards in a dynamic pose to embrace his older cousin, Saint John, his mouth open ready to kiss him on the lips. The motif of the two holy children embracing derives from a design by Leonardo. The Virgin rests her hand on the back of the infant Baptist’s head and holds her son round his chest to prevent him from over-balancing.

Saint John the Baptist carries red fruit – perhaps cherries – gathered up in the blue cloth over his lap and what appear to be olive branches. Cherries are traditionally the Fruit of Paradise in Christian art. He holds his traditional attribute of a simple reed cross and his baptismal bowl hangs at his side. These allude to his Baptism of Christ in the river Jordan and Christ’s future Crucifixion. The town in the left background is repeated in Fra Bartolommeo’s Vision of Saint Bernard (Accademia, Florence). It was common practice to repeat landscape compositions not only in the workshop of Fra Bartolommeo but also in those of his Florentine contemporaries.

The painting is very worn and it is hard to tell how much of it was painted by Fra Bartolommeo and how much by his workshop. There are numerous versions of this composition and two of them, in the Galleria Nazionale in Rome and Kenwood House, London (probably both from the same cartoon reversed), are signed by him and dated 1516. The fact that the Virgin’s hand was changed on the National Gallery’s panel may suggest that Fra Bartolommeo himself painted it, but it is hard to be certain.

There is a studio sketch of this design in the Royal Collection, Windsor, and two drawings related to this composition – though not necessarily by Fra Bartolommeo – are in the Uffizi, Florence.

Key facts

Details

Full title: The Madonna and Child with Saint John
Artist: Probably by Fra Bartolommeo
Artist dates: 1472? - 1517
Date made: perhaps about 1516
Medium and support: oil, originally on wood, transferred to canvas
Dimensions: 88.3 × 71.1 cm
Acquisition credit: Bought, 1900
Inventory number: NG1694
Location: Not on display
Collection: Main Collection

Provenance

Purchased, Lewis Fund, 1900, from Cavaliere Nicola Landolfi, Rome, through Conte Cozza Luzi. The former stated that the picture had been bought by a member of his family around 1820 from the collection of the Duke of Lucca.

Additional information

Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Cecil Gould, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth Century Italian Schools’, London 1987; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.

Bibliography

1901

National Gallery, Descriptive and Historical Catalogue of the Pictures in the National Gallery, London 1901
1901

National Gallery, Report of the Director of the National Gallery for the Year 1900, London 1901
1901

A. Venturi, Storia dell'arte italiana, 11 vols, Milan 1901
1901

E. Jacobsen, 'Italienische Gemälde in der National Galerie zu London: Kritische Notizen zum Katalog von 1898', Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft, XXIV, 1901
1902

C. Phillips, 'Old Masters at the Royal Academy', Daily Telegraph, 1902
1902

J.P. Richter, 'Review: The Old Masters at Burlington House', Art Journal, 1902, pp. 81‑5
1903

J.A. Crowe and G.B. Cavalcaselle, A History of Painting in Italy, Umbria, Florence and Siena, from the Second to the Sixteenth Century, ed. R.L. Douglas, 2nd edn, 6 vols, London 1903
1903

F. Knapp, Fra Bartolommeo della Porta und die schule von San Marco, Halle (Saale) 1903
1909

B. Berenson, The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance, 3rd edn, London 1909
1909

M.W. Brockwell, The National Gallery: Lewis Bequest, London 1909
1913

H.F. Cook (ed.), A Catalogue of the Paintings at Doughty House, Richmond and Elsewhere in the Collection of Sir Frederick Cook, Bt, 3 vols, London 1913
1913

National Gallery, Descriptive and Historical Catalogue of the British and Foreign Pictures, 81st edn, London 1913
1920

National Gallery, National Gallery: Catalogue of the Pictures at Trafalgar Square, London 1920
1922

H. von der Gabelentz, Fra Bartolommeo und die Florentiner Renaissance, Leipzig 1922
1932

B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: A List of the Principal Artists and Their Works, with an Index of Places, Oxford 1932
1962

Gould, Cecil, National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth Century Italian Schools (excluding the Venetian), London 1962
1963

B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: A List of the Principal Artists and Their Work, with an Index of Places: Florentine School, 2 vols, New York 1963
1987

Gould, Cecil, National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth Century Italian Schools, London 1987
1994

C. Fischer, Fra Bartolommeo et son atelier: Dessins et peintures des collections françaises (exh. cat. Musée du Louvre, 17 November 1994 - 13 February 1995), Paris 1994
1995

C.S. Ellis, 'Fra Bartolommeo: A Problematic Landscape Drawing and the Repetition of the Painted Landscape Image', Paragone, 1995, pp. 3‑17
1996

S. Padovani, L'Eta di Savonarola: Fra Bartolomeo e la Scuola di San Marco (exh. cat. Palazzo Pitti, 25 April - 28 July 1996), Florence 1996
2001

C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001

About this record

If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.

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