POLIDORO DE RENZI, CALLED POLIDORO DA LANCIANO | HOLY FAMILY WITH SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST IN A LANDSCAPE

A native of Abruzzi, Polidoro worked primarily in Venice, where he is documented by the mid-1530s and where he came under the influence of artists such as Titian and Bonifazio de’ Pitati. He specialized in renderings of the Holy Family in a landscape, such as the present panel. Here, the figure of the young Saint John recalls a detail from Titian’s Virgin and Child with Saint Agnes and Saint John the Baptist in Dijon,¹ and the composition compares closely to other works by Polidoro, such as his Holy Family with Saint Catherine,²  his Holy Family with Saint John the Baptist and an Angel,³ and his Holy Family with an Angel.⁴

1. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon, oil on canvas, 156 by 159 cm. H.E. Wethey, The Paintings of Titian: The Religious Paintings, London 1969, p. 103, cat. no. 57, reproduced plate 42.

2. Private collection, Pennsylvania,oil on panel, 57 by 67.5 cm. V. Mancini, Polidoro da Lanciano, Lanciano 2001, pp. 136-137, cat. no. 34, reproduced p. 189, fig. 51.

3. Strossmayer Gallery, Zagreb, oil on canvas, 69 by 84 cm. Mancini 2001, p. 132, cat. no. 25, reproduced p. 180, fig. 35. 

4. Private collection, Rome, oil on canvas, 69.8 by 83.8 cm. Mancini 2001, p. 123, cat. no. 2, reproduced p. 166, fig. 3.