Madonna and Child with Saint Peter

Busi Giovanni called Cariani

(Fuipiano al Brembo c. 1480 - Venice 1547)

The canvas was not attributed to Cariani until the late 19th century. The work was probably executed in the second decade of the 16th century, and shows echoes of influences from Bellini and Titian in the layout of the scene and the figure of the Virgin, respectively. The composition is brought to life by the lively figure of the Child drawn to the goldfinch, depicted in flight and to Mary’s left: because of the red spot on its head, this bird is recognized as a symbol of the Passion. The two pears, classifiable as pomes, allude to original sin, from which humanity is saved.

Object details

Commentary

The earliest mention of the work in documents is in the Inventory of 1693, where it is recorded as “A painting of three palms on canvas, the Madonna, Child and St Peter of No. 98 with gilt frame by Palma the Elder” (Inv. 1693, St.V, no. 29). In the Fideicommissary of 1833, the work is recorded under the name of Giovanni Bellini. The first attribution of the panel to Giovanni Cariani was made by Joseph Archer Crowe and Giovan Battista Cavalcaselle and independently, Otto Mündler. This attribution was later shared by Venturi, Berenson and Longhi. In particular, Crowe and Cavalcaselle demonstrated stylistic and compositional similarities in Cariani’s panel to the work of Palma il Vecchio and Lorenzo Lotto. Scholars particularly emphasized the similarity in the figure of the Virgin with the shape of the faces in Palma il Vecchio’s painting and Lotto’s use of colour for the clothing. These were just a few of Cariani’s early 16th-century figurative models (Crowe-Cavalcaselle 1871, vol. 2, p. 547).

Opinions about the dating of the canvas differ. Baldass, and then Della Pergola (Della Pergola 1955, I, p. 109, no. 196), believed that the painting was executed in the first phase of the artist’s career, mainly due to its similarity to the Madonna and Child with St Sebastian in the Louvre and the Sacred Conversation in the Accademia in Venice (Baldass 1921, p. 91). Alessandro Ballarin places the painting in the artist’s early years, around 1515 (Ballarin 1968, p. 244). Furthermore, Baldass was the first to point out the stylistic similarities between the painting in the collection and Sebastiano del Piombo’s Holy Family with St Sebastian and St Catherine (Baldass 1929, p. 91). Further similarities have been found with the Edinburgh St Agatha, which is dated to around 1510 (https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/artists/cariani-giovanni-busi). The unusual position of the legs reveals a closer reference to that of the Christ in Giovanni Bellini’s San Zaccaria Altarpiece, dated 1505. The latter model was widely imitated and copied in the following decade. The figure of the Child attracted by the goldfinch, depicted in flight and to Mary’s left, adds to the liveliness of the composition. This solution was exemplified by Dürer in the Madonna of the Goldfinch (Berlin Museums) painted in Venice in 1506, but is even more pronounced in Titian’s Madonna of the Cherries of c.1515 (Vienna Kunsthistorisches Museum). The extraordinary role reserved for the marble sill also seems to be derived from the latter, a motif that separates and presents the scene before the viewer and at the same time, alludes to Christ’s tomb. It is an element, finally, that distinguishes the work from the larger work in the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo.

Troche’s position (Troche 1932, p. 1-7) is a dating to the middle of the third decade of the century, as he saw a greater influence by the work of Palma il Vecchio. This was later backed up by Martini in 1978 (Martini 1978, p. 68). In contrast, Anna Coliva considered the painting to be from the early 1520s (Coliva 1994, p. 54, no. 18). Pallucchini shifted the dating to the late 1520s (1528-1530), making it coincide with Cariani’s last years in Bergamo, seeing in it a greater reference to the painting of Titian and Sebastiano del Piombo. The latter opinion is shared by Kristina Herrmann Fiore, according to whom, in addition to these, the artist had also observed the painting by Dürer (Herrmann Fiore 2001, no. V. 38).

Fabrizio Carinci