Catalogue entry
Ludovico Mazzolino Active by 1504, died Ferrara 1528 (?)
NG 82
Holy Family with Saints Elizabeth, Francis and John the Baptist
, , 2016
Extracted from:
Giorgia Mancini and Nicholas Penny, The Sixteenth Century Italian Paintings, Volume III: Bologna and Ferrara (London: National Gallery Company and Yale University Press, 2018).
© The National Gallery, London
c.1514–16
Oil on wood, 53.2 × 39.8 cm
Support
The original support, consisting of a single board of wood (apparently poplar), with the grain horizontal to the image, is 1.2 cm thick. It has an arched top, but the X‐radiograph shows that the paint around the arch is badly chipped, suggesting that if this was the original shape (which seems likely), then it was cut somewhat, presumably when the spandrels were added to make it rectangular and thus better adapted to display in a picture collection, as distinct from serving as a separate devotional image. That the arch was cut seems to be confirmed by the way that the reliefs are terminated, especially on the left, where the head of a prominent figure is missing (fig. 2).
The panel has a marked convex warp, some old splits and worm damage. The back is now covered with canvas impregnated with wax. Balsa wood has been used to fill two vertical channels made for battens and a horizontal split across the centre of the panel. The channels are extended through the spandrels, so the battens were not original but were placed there to strengthen the panel.
Materials and technique
The panel was prepared with a gesso (calcium sulphate) ground, on top of which is a pale yellow priming containing lead white, lead‐tin yellow and colourless powdered glass.1 Infrared reflectography reveals some underdrawing, in the figures and in the frieze, which is related to the final composition (fig. 3). But there are also figures drawn at different scales, and schemes for at least two completely separate architectural settings, so it would seem that the artist was experimenting with various compositional ideas.2
Close surface examination indicates that the Virgin’s cloak is painted with finely ground ultramarine, mixed with red lake in the shadows. The Virgin’s dress is painted with red lake on top of an underlayer containing vermilion. The lake has been mixed with black for the deeper shadows. Where the blue cloak falls from the Virgin’s right knee, below the infant Christ, it runs over red underpaint, so seems originally not to have extended so far over the dress. The brown of the habit worn by Saint Francis is a mixture of lead white, black, and yellow‐brown earth. Saint Elizabeth’s lilac‐coloured right sleeve was painted with an underlayer based on vermilion, over which is modelling in bluish purple in the shadows, with bluer highlights of lead white and ultramarine. Analysis of a sample confirmed the presence of azurite mixed with red lake and lead white in the paint of the monkey’s fur (fig. 1).
The haloes, rendered with fine cross‐hatching in shell gold, are typical of this artist.
Photomicrograph of the monkey. © The National Gallery, London
Detail of NG 82. © The National Gallery, London
Infrared reflectogram of NG 82. © The National Gallery, London
Detail of NG 82. © The National Gallery, London
Conservation
Some flaking paint was secured in 1941. The panel was treated with wax and balsa and the painting cleaned and restored in 1959–60.
Condition
The paint is in good condition, although there are flake losses and some damage associated with old splits in the wood, and there are other scattered flake losses. A fine craquelure, of unusual pattern, is visible on all the main figures.
Subject
The Virgin is seated on a bench, holding the infant Christ in a rather precarious way, with one hand around his waist and the other under his left foot. The child is holding on to his mother’s mantle with his left hand, while he raises his other in blessing Saint Francis, who kneels before the infant with his hands upraised to reveal his stigmata, from which gold lines radiate. Joseph stands on the right, leaning on his stick, with his eyelids lowered or closed (fig. 4). Behind Saint Francis stands Saint Elizabeth, and next to her is John the Baptist as a chubby infant holding a lamb and trying to protect it from the monkey perched on a nearby ledge (fig. 5).
In the background is the facade of a building with a very unusual portico. Two plain pillars support a detached slab of entablature decorated with a relief depicting battling Amazons (fig. 6). This relief is surmounted by a smaller panel depicting a similar subject. On either side of the upper relief are two scenes of adlocutio, in which military leaders on plinths address groups of soldiers. The trophies in the background seem to be executed either in very high relief or as sculpture in the round. The spatial depth of these unframed scenes is puzzling, and it is not easy to tell what sort of decorative elements they are. Beyond the main slab of the entablature can be seen a wall articulated by pilasters, with an arched opening in its centre.
When the painting was sold in 1812 the compiler of the auction catalogue suggested that the picture ‘was probably painted to oblige a particular religious order, as there is a [page 348] satirical allusion in it to the Monkish dissensions of that day’. As Cecil Gould pointed out, this pun (on monks and monkeys) would not work in Italian, and the monkey was a familiar Christian symbol of evil.3 Since the monkey appears to be threatening the lamb, a common attribute of John the Baptist and a symbol of Christ’s sacrifice, he could be considered as an allusion to the powers of evil. In this case, however, it seems odd that the Baptist seems rather delighted by his antics.
Detail of NG 82. © The National Gallery, London
Monkeys appear in other pictures by Mazzolino, such as the Holy Family with the Infant John the Baptist and Saint Elizabeth in the Bargellesi collection in Milan, and the Dispute in the Temple in Berlin.4 In a Holy Family by Mazzolino in the Louvre the infant Christ holds out cherries for the monkey, which is less easily reconciled with the idea that monkeys embody evil, and may support a less solemn explanation of their presence in these paintings and those by Garofalo.5
Dating and attribution
The painting is very characteristic of Mazzolino and its attribution to him has never been disputed. Zamboni noted stylistic similarities to the Annunciation formerly in the Stroganoff collection, and especially to the Holy Family dated 1516 in Munich.6 A Virgin of a similar type can be found in the Holy Family with Saints Francis and Anne in Lisbon and in the Virgin and Child with Two Angels that was formerly on the Milanese art market.7 A comparison can be drawn between the Saint Francis and the corresponding figure in the Lisbon picture, the pose and facial features of which are similar, although the saint in NG 82 is older.
Similar figures of Joseph, Elizabeth and the infant Baptist appear in the Presentation in the Temple in the Cini collection, Venice.8 Saint Elizabeth’s dress is identical in colour. A date of around 1514–16 seems plausible.
Previous owners
NG 82 was bought by the Revd William Holwell Carr at the sale of John Humble’s pictures on 11 April 1812 (Christie’s, London, lot 58) for 70 guineas (£73 10s).9 Humble was a very active dealer who was involved with the ‘European Museum’, a commercial gallery to which many of his paintings were transferred for private sale.10 The sale of 1812, which included 64 pictures (including some from the Colonna and Borghese collections), was one of the most important of its time. Humble managed to sell all the lots at reasonably high prices. At least half of the items had appeared at a private contract sale held three years earlier by a certain F.C. De Bligny,11 and it is possible that these paintings already belonged to Humble by that time. Considering the high rate of correspondence between the two sales, it is possible to identify the ‘Magalino de Ferrara, Holy Family, from the Gentili collection, Genoa’ in the De Bligny sale (lot 53) with lot 58 of the Humble sale.12 The presence of NG 82 in the Gentile collection has yet to be established, but the inventory of the Holwell Carr collection states that the picture came [page 349] from Palazzo Durazzo, Genoa, so a Genoese provenance is very likely.13
Detail of NG 82. © The National Gallery, London
The Revd William Holwell Carr was one of the finest connoisseurs of Italian painting in late eighteenth‐ and early nineteenth‐century London.14 In 1791 he received the rich benefice of Menheniot in Cornwall from his old college, but he never lived there and employed a curate to fulfill his duties. His salary allowed Holwell Carr to satisfy his lifelong passion for buying paintings and he devoted his energies to improving his collection by trading upwards. In 1805, together with other distinguished collectors such as John Julius Angerstein (1735–1823), Sir George Beaumont (1753–1827), Lord Northwick and Sir Abraham Hume (1749–1838), he was one of the founding subscribers to the British Institution, established at 52 Pall Mall. In 1831, 35 paintings bequeathed by Holwell Carr in the previous year entered the National Gallery collection. In addition to Mazzolino’s Holy Family, these included two other Ferrarese pictures: Garofalo’s Vision of Saint Augustine (NG 81) and the Conversion of Saint Paul (NG 73).
Provenance
See above. Probably imported to London from Genoa around 1800. With John Humble perhaps by 1809 and certainly by early 1812, and sold by him at Christie’s, London, 11 April 1812 (lot 58), where bought by Holwell Carr, by whom, in 1830, it was bequeathed to the National Gallery.
Engravings
The painting was engraved in the 1840s for the anthology of reproductions of National Gallery paintings published by Jones and Company.
Framing
The painting is exhibited in a gilt frame with a fluted hollow and acanthus corners press‐moulded in composition. It is not impossible that this was the frame given to the painting when it was in the collection of Holwell Carr; it is more likely to date from the second half of the nineteenth century; and possible that it dates from 1921, when Francis Draper invoiced the Gallery for work on the painting.
Paintings in this catalogue that were sent from the National Gallery on long‐term loan or included in touring exhibitions within the UK
Mazzolino NG 82:
Long‐term loan to Hatton Gallery, Newcastle‐upon‐Tyne, 16 August 1966–5 October 1970
Notes
1 See Spring 2012, pp. 4–26, esp. p. 21. (Back to text.)
2 This very complicated preliminary work will be the subject of a forthcoming article. (Back to text.)
3 Gould 1975 (1987), p. 141. (Back to text.)
4 Ballarin 1994–5, I, pl. CXLIII. (Back to text.)
5 Ibid. , I, figs 77, 88. For Garofalo see p. 211. (Back to text.)
6 Ibid. , II, figs 533(a), 343. (Back to text.)
7 Ibid. , I, pls XCIX (given as IC) and CXLII, presents a convincing argument for dating these paintings to around 1515. (Back to text.)
8 Ibid. , I, pl. XCVII, with the dates 1514–15. (Back to text.)
9 The picture is described as the ‘Virgin, Child and St. Joseph; St. Francis in adoration; St. Elizabeth and infant St. John behind; a background of rich architecture loaded with bas reliefs and figures’. Fredericksen 1993, III, pt 1, p. 615. (Back to text.)
10 The European Museum was established ostensibly to promote the fine arts. This institution, operating at 8 King Street, London, took pictures on consignment and sold them by private contract. See Fredericksen 1988, I, no. 64. (Back to text.)
11 Fredericksen 1990, II, pt 1, p. 55, no. 650. (Back to text.)
12 Ibid. , p. 586. (Back to text.)
13 ‘Inventory of part of the collection contained in Rev. Holwell Carr’s will’ (28 Aug. 1828), p. 2, NG Library. The NG Catalogue of 1929 states that the picture came from the Lercari Palace in Genoa, was imported by Wilson in 1806, and was sold by Coxe in 1807. This provenance also applies to NG 169. (Back to text.)
14 See Egerton 1998, pp. 399–405. (Back to text.)
List of references cited
- Ballarin 1994–5
- Ballarin, Alessandro, ed., Dosso Dossi: la pittura a Ferrara negli anni del ducato di Alfonso I, 2 vols, Cittadella, Padua 1994–5
- Egerton 1998
- Egerton, Judy, National Gallery Catalogues: The British School, London 1998
- Fredericksen 1988–96
- Fredericksen, Burton, ed., assisted by Julia I. Armstrong and Doris A. Mendenhall, The Index of Paintings Sold in the British Isles during the Nineteenth Century (I (1801–5), Santa Barbara 1988; II (1806–10), 2 vols, Santa Barbara 1990; III (1811–15), 2 vols, Munich, London, New York and Paris 1993; IV (1816–20), 2 vols, Santa Monica 1996 (revised versions of these volumes can be consulted online)), 4 vols (10 parts), Oxford, Santa Barbara, Munich, London, New York, Paris and Santa Monica 1988–96
- Gould 1975
- Gould, Cecil, National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth‐Century Italian Schools, London 1975 (repr., 1987)
- Spring 2012
- Spring, Marika, ‘Colourless Powdered Glass as an Additive in Fifteenth‐ and Sixteenth‐Century European Paintings’, National Gallery Technical Bulletin, 2012, 33, 4–26
List of exhibitions cited
- Newcastle‐upon‐Tyne 1966–70
- Newcastle‐upon‐Tyne, Hatton Gallery, long‐term loan, 16 August 1966–5 October 1970
A note on authorship
I first began to draft entries on the Ferrarese paintings catalogued here in about 1995. Shortly thereafter Carol Plazzotta, then a new recruit to the curatorial department who was working under my guidance, carried out some research in Italy. By the turn of the century I had decided to concentrate on other areas – Bergamo, Brescia and Cremona and, later, Venice – in the first two National Gallery catalogues of the sixteenth‐century Italian paintings, which were published in 2004 and 2008. I returned to the artists of Ferrara, with the resolution of including Bologna in the same volume, not long before I was appointed Director of the National Gallery in 2008. But as Director I hardly ever found more than an hour on any weekday for pursuing work on the catalogue and, although I found that it was possible to achieve a surprising amount in the evenings and at weekends, I soon realised that I would need a collaborator who would be qualified to work in Italian archives, and to review recent publications – someone also with a keen eye, a lively curiosity – and the ability to read my handwritten notes. Giorgia Mancini was chosen for this task, and her contribution has been substantial, especially, but by no means only, on account of the archival discoveries she made which have transformed our understanding of several of the major paintings catalogued here.
In the majority of cases Giorgia was responsible for the preliminary draft of a catalogue entry, artist’s biography or appendix on a collector, and my contribution has consisted in revising and sometimes reordering her work, sometimes contracting and at other times extending the information, interpretations and arguments she advanced. Those sections written by me both before and after her involvement have all benefited from her critical attention. She alone is responsible for those appendices in the catalogue entries which provide transcriptions of Italian or Latin texts. The only parts of the catalogue of which I am the sole author are the Introduction, most of the entries for Garofalo and the Appendices devoted to the Buonvisi, Lucca and Midleton collections.
As Gabriele Finaldi has emphasised in his Foreword, a work of this kind is collaborative in a broader sense, and very large contributions have been made by Marika Spring, head of the Scientific Department, and Rachel Billinge in the Conservation Department. They undertook the examinations and supplied the text for the technical preliminaries of each entry, and patiently and meticulously reviewed and improved the revisions we sometimes made.
Nicholas Penny
[page 10]
Garofalo, The Holy Family with Saints Elizabeth, Zacharias, John the Baptist (and Francis?) (NG 170), detail (© The National Gallery, London)
Map of North Italy showing places mentioned in the text. Artwork: Martin Lubokowski at ML Designs
Artwork: Martin Lubokowski at ML Designs
Artwork: Martin Lubokowski at ML Designs
The Scope and Presentation of the Catalogue
The majority of the National Gallery’s collection catalogues are devoted to the art of one century and one region. Several artists who were active in the fifteenth century as well as in the sixteenth – notably Costa and Francia – are nevertheless included here. It was tempting to make an exception and to catalogue all the Ferrarese painters of both centuries together, thus including Tura and Cossa, whose work did indeed influence the early paintings of Costa and Francia. However, it would be misleading to break the pattern established for the other catalogues of the collection. Moreover, it was essential to combine entries for artists active in Ferrara with entries for those active in Bologna, given the way that artists moved between these cities. We have added entries on artists working in the Romagna and this makes a book of convenient size. Any future catalogue of the works by Raphael and his followers in the National Gallery will form an instructive parallel to this one.
We could, of course, have legitimately included Correggio and Parmigianino – artists who are extremely well represented in the National Gallery – but their paintings would, together with that by Nicolo dell’Abate, make another, somewhat smaller, volume. No division will ever be perfect and a case could be made for including Boccaccino here – but an even stronger case was made for including him in the catalogue of paintings from Bergamo, Brescia and Cremona (published in 2004).
As with the earlier two volumes of sixteenth‐century Italian paintings, the entries are divided into more sections than has previously been the case in the National Gallery’s catalogues. This acknowledges the fact that catalogues are more often consulted than read – and often only consulted for a single, relatively narrow, purpose. It also has the advantage of preparing the text for future incorporation, in one form or another, in the Gallery’s website. A measure of repetition is an unavoidable consequence of this policy, especially in the way that information in the discursive account of previous owners is often reiterated in the succinctly tabulated section on provenance.
Each entry includes some account of the painting’s current frame and, when possible, previous frames are recorded, although fewer have been illustrated than was the case in the previous two catalogues. Priority has been given here to illustrating frames chosen or designed for the paintings by collectors, or by the Gallery itself, in the nineteenth century. Such frames are still neglected, even by experts in this field. We make no apology for attempting to satisfy the curiosity of relatively few scholars – it is indeed our hope that we are of assistance to many minorities in the scholarly world.
It seemed more valuable to collect the exhibition history of these paintings together (p. 517) rather than to list it separately in each entry. The first of two lists records loans made by the Gallery to regional or other national museums either as long‐term loans or as touring exhibitions (both of which were organised after the First World War by the Arts Council). It may be of interest to record the opportunity to see Mazzolino in Bradford in the 1930s but the more obvious value of this list is as a register of those works that were regarded as of secondary significance. (It has always been obvious that both Garofalo and Mazzolino are more than adequately represented in Trafalgar Square.) The second list is of loans made internationally. In these cases catalogues of the exhibitions have contributed to the literature on the paintings and as such are usually acknowledged in the catalogue entries.
A list of changed attributions is also provided (p. 516). It reveals, as usual, that doubt has sometimes been removed and sometimes added, but several changes are we believe decisive – we assign NG 3102 to the young Garofalo; NG 73 to Panizzati; NG 3103 and 3104 to Pisano. And perhaps most importantly, after years of hesitation, we have dismissed the idea that Maineri may have been partly responsible for the Strozzi Altarpiece (NG 1119), as was proposed by one of the greatest connoisseurs this country has ever known.
The techniques of analysis abbreviated by our colleagues in the Scientific and Conservation departments are listed on p. 489 near the abbreviations we have employed for archives. Many references are made to the National Gallery’s own archives which may be consulted in the Gallery’s Research Centre where the dossiers on the paintings are also kept. Conservation dossiers are, however, housed in the Conservation Department.
About this version
Version 2, generated from files GM_NP_2016__16.xml dated 02/03/2025 and database__16.xml dated 02/03/2025 using stylesheet 16_teiToHtml_externalDb.xsl dated 03/01/2025. Structural mark-up applied to skeleton document in full; document updated to use external database of archival and bibliographic references; entries for NG81, NG82, NG179-NG180, NG218, NG669, NG1234, NG1362, NG2083, NG2486, NG3892 and NG4032 prepared for publication, proofread and corrected.
Cite this entry
- Permalink (this version)
- https://data.ng.ac.uk/0DVP-000B-0000-0000
- Permalink (latest version)
- https://data.ng.ac.uk/0DCM-000B-0000-0000
- Chicago style
- Mancini, Giorgia and Nicholas Penny. “NG 82, Holy Family with Saints Elizabeth, Francis and John the Baptist”. 2016, online version 2, March 2, 2025. https://data.ng.ac.uk/0DVP-000B-0000-0000.
- Harvard style
- Mancini, Giorgia and Penny, Nicholas (2016) NG 82, Holy Family with Saints Elizabeth, Francis and John the Baptist. Online version 2, London: National Gallery, 2025. Available at: https://data.ng.ac.uk/0DVP-000B-0000-0000 (Accessed: 19 April 2025).
- MHRA style
- Mancini, Giorgia and Nicholas Penny, NG 82, Holy Family with Saints Elizabeth, Francis and John the Baptist (National Gallery, 2016; online version 2, 2025) <https://data.ng.ac.uk/0DVP-000B-0000-0000> [accessed: 19 April 2025]