PELLEGRINO TIBALDI, workshop of
Puria di Valsoda, 1527 – Milan, 1596
Holy Family with the Infant St. John and an angel
oil on canvas, cm 111×95
Inscription: “P.T. F. 1570”
As pointed out by Anna Tambini, whom we thank for having assisted us with the study of the work in question, the rediscovery of this interesting painting confirms the existence of a Tibaldesque prototype, something Michele Danieli recently suggested with reference to a painting at the National Picture Gallery of Bologna which is closely related to the canvas presented here.
In his description of the work to be found in the Emilian museum the scholar suggests that one should give credit to the Nineteenth-century testimonial of Gaetano Giordani who identified this prototype as a painting by Tibaldi, a testimonial considered plausible given the vicinity of two paintings, of inferior quality just as the work held by the Bolognese Picture Gallery, which were found in local churches and which had been attributed to the master active in Milan by Malvasia.
In fact, the canvas we are presenting, which is clearly of a higher quality than the mediocre specimen at the National Picture Gallery, but which is closely related to the latter in terms of composition, carries the inscription “P.T. F. 1570” which may be deciphered as “Pellegrino Tibaldi fecit 1570”, something which corroborates Danieli’s intuition.
While Anna Tambini does not exclude with certainty that the painting may have been executed by the author as indicated by the original inscription – which is quite rare for a copy – she points out that the quality of the work is somewhat inferior to the standard of the master, something which would suggest a derivation, perhaps by a workshop painter. Moreover, the scholar has observed the presence of elements in this work – which as to general layout proves to be modelled on Raphael’s late ‘Madonna of the Oak’ (Prado Museum) – that are linked to the milieu of Parma or perhaps Lombardy; this which would suggest an idea of Tibaldi’s which dates from the master’s Milanese period; this hypothesis would be confirmed by the year “1570” impressed on the disc hanging from the shoulder of the Infant St. John.