Lot 178: FRANCESCO MORANDINI, CALLED IL POPPI POPPI 1544 - 1597 FLORENCE

THE HOLY FAMILY WITH THE INFANT SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST

measurements note
35 5/8 by 29 1/8 in.; 90.5 by 74 cm.

inscribed in an old hand on the reverse: Parigi

oil on panel

NOTE

Under the supervision of Giorgio Vasari, Morandini (called 'il Poppi' after his birthplace) was employed along with the best contemporary painters in Florence at that time - Giovanni Battista Naldini, Mirabello Cavalori, Girolamo Macchietti and Jacopo Zucchi amongst them - to decorate the Studiolo built by Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, in 1570-72. Inspired by Pontormo in his use of 'fired' colours, Poppi's style shows a greater affinity with Naldini than Vasari and indeed their works have often been confused. Poppi's figures (like Naldini's) have idealized faces, their noses squared, and the contrapposto pose of so many of his figures is typical of mannerist painting and is a characteristic shared by both artists' works.

This particular painting, with its bright coloring and loose handling, is probably a late work by Poppi. The pentimento in the head of the Infant Saint John the Baptist and the sketchy manner in which Christ's legs have been painted both indicate that the picture may be unfinished, or that it is at least unresolved in parts. The figure of the Madonna and Saint Joseph are complete, however, and they demonstrate all the elegance of Poppi's manner. The painting may be compared to a number of late works of analogous subject matter: The Madonna and Child with Saints Elisabeth, John the Baptist and the Archangel Michael and its variant showing The Madonna and Child with Saints Elisabeth, John the Baptist and a female saint.¹ In both these works, as well as in Poppi's Personification of Charity,² the hair of Christ and John the Baptist is painted in a very similar manner to that in the present painting. The compositions of this and the two aforementioned Madonna and Child paintings are constructed under similar principles: the Madonna placed centrally with the Christ Child before her, subsidiary figures filling in the background and upper corners of the composition (the second figure here is replaced by a hint of architectural setting upper right). The Christ Child is asleep in the foreground and the Madonna is shown covering him with a white cloth; a gesture that is both maternal and symbolic, foreseeing the enveloping of Christ's body in a shroud after His crucifixion.

1 The first formerly in the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara (California), until sold New York, Christie's, January 11, 1991, lot 1; the second formerly with Semenzato, Venice. Both are published in A. Giovannetti, Francesco Morandini detto il Poppi, Florence 1995, pp. 108-9, cat. nos. 64 and 65, reproduced pp. 182-3, figs. 80 and 81.
2 Sold New York, Sotheby's, January 14, 1994, lot 57.