Anthony Van Dyck, workshop or follower of
THE HOLY FAMILY WITH THE INFANT SAINT JOHN
Oil on canvas (relined). 119 x 107 cm.
'Holy Family with John the Baptist' is a replica of a painting which has been in the collection of the Genoese noble family Doria for centuries and since 1968 has been part of the Collezioni d'arte della Banca Carige in Genoa. Whilst up until now it had been thought that this Genoese picture was from the hand of van Dyck, Susan J. Barnes had already put forward her reservations and identified the picture as a copy of a lost Titian painting (Susan J. Barnes, Nora de Poorter, Oliver Millar and Horst Vey: Van Dyck. A complete catalogue of the painting, New Haven and London 2004, p. 234, No. II.A2). It remains to be seen if this assessment will assert itself in the research.
The present picture is significantly larger than the Genoese version; it distinguishes itself in a detail of Mary's left hand: whilst in the Genoese painting the forefinger and the second finger are spread apart, in our picture the fore and second finger are close together. The second version had already been illustrated by Gustav Glück in 1931 (loc. cit., p. 152), who however had mixed up the painting with the Genoese version.
In the Genoese picture, Erik Larsen sees the initial version from the hand of Antonis van Dyck. He identifies our painting as an enlarged replica, on which the workshop had perhaps also worked ('perhaps done with workshop help', Larsen 1988, loc. cit.).
One variation of the composition is found in the Rheinisches Landesmuseum in Bonn, in which John the Baptist is replaced by a slightly higher positioned Putto, and whereby the gaze of the Madonna is unfortunately directed towards emptiness.
Provenance
Auction, New York, 15.4.1926. - Dr. Wolfgang Huck Collection, Berlin. - Kunsthandel Julius Boehler, Munich. - Private collection, Germany.
Literature
Gustav Glück: Anton van Dyck (Klassiker der Kunst 13), Stuttgart a. Berlin 1931, p. 536, ill. p. 152 (By mistake referred to as painting of the Doria Collection). - Erik Larsen: The paintings of Anthony van Dyck, 2 Bde., Freren 1988, vol. 2, p. 176, no. 434, illustrated.