"Sacra Conversazione"
Madonna in prayer over the Child between Saints John the Baptist and Catherine of Alexandria
Francesco Rizzo da Santacroce (Bergamo 1485 – Venice, after 1545)
Oil on canvas
16th Century
Canvas: cm. 95 x 73
Frame: cm. 111 x 87
Excellent condition
This elegant 16th-century canvas depicts a typical scene called "Sacra Conversazione" and features the unmistakable characteristics of Venetian Renaissance painting.
The Virgin prays with clasped hands and an adoring gaze directed downwards towards the Child, lying on a white sheet with crossed legs and one hand clenched to his mouth.
On either side of the two protagonists, Saints John the Baptist and Catherine of Alexandria turn towards them, displaying their respective iconographic attributes; the banner with the inscription "Ecce Agnus Dei" and the toothed wheel of martyrdom.
The theme of the Sacred Conversation began to spread in Italian painting around the mid-15th century with the two splendid altarpieces by Beato Angelico and Piero della Francesca, executed around 1440 and 1470 respectively, and gradually replaced the sectional arrangement of the triptych and polyptych of medieval origin.
It represented one of the great innovations of Renaissance sacred art, lending itself to more modern scenographic solutions compared to Gothic canons.
The Virgin and Child are always depicted in the center of a closed or outdoor space, surrounded by a variable number of Saints depicted at their sides.
Our canvas stands out for its remarkable stylistic elegance and the finesse of the characters' faces, the feminine ones being very sweet and the Baptist's face equally severe.
The position of the child, who the author presents identically in other compositions, is particularly successful.
The work is, in fact, one of the most accomplished Sacred Conversations executed by the Bergamasco master Francesco Rizzo da Santacroce, specializing in this type of sacred painting, active mainly in Venice in the first half of the 16th century. He often kept the two central figures of the Virgin and Child unchanged, varying the figures on the sides according to the requests of the patrons.
All details on the private website:
https://www.antichitaischia.it/it/prodotto/-sacra-conversazione--
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