Bulletin du Musée National de Varsovie (32.1991)

Maria Kluk (M.K.)
Janina Michalkoiva (J.M.)

CATALOGUE OF PAINTINGS

SIMONE CANTARINI (Pesaro 1612 — 1648 Verona) — circle of

A classicist, he was the pupil of Guido Reni and remained under his strong influence. He worked
in Pesaro, then in Romę for a short time and the last years of his life in Bolonia. It was his pro-
lific graphics and drawings that earned him the greatest famę and appreciation.

1. The Holy Family ivith St. John the Baptist

Oil on canvas; 90.5x68 cm; Inv. no.: 181843 (M.Ob. 2375).

Prov.: In the collection of Edward Raczyński and his family in Warsaw. Deposited at the
National Museum in Warsaw in 1941; donated to the museum in 1991.
The Virgin Mary is shown putting the Child to sleep. St. John accompanies her, offering
a basket of fruit (cherries). A littlc to the side stands St. Joseph, deeply immersed in reading.
This is an unusual iconographic feature; as in Poussin's Madonna on the stairs. Joseph looks
more like a thinker or a philosopher than a simple craftsman. Simone Cantarini was fasci-
nated with the subject of the Holy Family, the story of its flight into Egyp t and its everyday
life, ąuiet and filled with love for the Child. He produced over twenty paintings, prints
and sevcral drawings illustrating this theme, with many of the drawings being preparatory
sketches. The first outline of the composition of our Holy Family can be seen in one of his
drawings in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum in Cologne (omitted in the monograph study
by M. Mancigotti, Simone Cantarini U Pesarese, Pesaro, 1975; photo in the Photographic
Archives of the National Gallery in Washington). Here the figurę of the Madonna is shown
bending over the cradle and stretching out her hand, in a pose that is very similar to that
in our painting. The column in the background and the hanging curtain are also very much
alike. The Child, on the other hand, was depictcd differently with St. John placed on the
opposite side. Two other of Cantarini's drawings also display some simjlarities to our pain-
ting. Among his numerous drawings of children, the representation in the Victoria and
Albert Museum in London can be considered as a skctch for the Jesus in our painting. In
the drawing from the Brera in Milan we find a resemblance to the composition of the smali
Christ and St. John and the landscape behind them (Mancigotti 1975, p. 275; P. Bellini,
A. Emiliani, Simone Cantarini, Disegni, incisioni ed operę di reproduzione, S. Severino Marche,
1987, no. 1). It is interesting to note how much in common our painting has with the count-
less representations of the Holy Family by Poussin, e.g. The Holy Family ivith St. John
in a private collection in London, The Holy Family near a column in Karlsruhe or the already
mentioned Madonna on the stairs in the Washington National Gallery of Art (A. Blunt,
The paintings of Nicolas Poussin. A critical catalogue, London, 1966, nos. 48, 49, 53). Canta-
rini lived in Rome in the years 1640—1642, precisely at the time that the art of the great
and generally admired Poussin was enjoying its greatest triumphs in the city. To sum up,
these facts clearly place the painting in the sphere of Simone Cantarini's art. However,
its artistic ąuality does not allow it to be attributed to Cantarini himself, but it is no doubt
a work by an artist active in his circle.
Unpublished.

J.M.

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