Catalogue Roberti Fine Art, TEFAF Maastricht 2026 (1) compressed - Flipbook - Page 104
Jesus gives us a languid gaze, his cheeks full, his lips strawberry-like, and his curly hair bathed in
the light that pours from the golden halo on his head. A few colourful geraniums can be glimpsed
in profile on the right; white and pink symbolize innocence and tenderness, with red also peeking
out, a harbinger of the passion that awaits him. Saint John the Baptist is instead depicted in profile,
silhouetted against a dark background from which his forms emerge, gently modeled by the light.
The palette features sophisticated hues, dark mauve for the cloak and ochre brown for the fur
robe, which, like those of the baby Jesus, lend a special preciousness to the two icons. The features
recall a blood bond with Jesus, the slant of the eyes, the dimple of the chin, the softness of the
eyebrow arch. As the Gospel dictates, the Baptist clutches to his chest the slender cross of reeds
around which the scroll that reads "Ecce Agnus Dei" is twisted. The features also recall the SelfPortrait of the young artist (fig. 1; private collection, England), one of the masterpieces in her still
scant œuvre. She seems to draw inspiration from this portrait, as well as from some childhood
drawings in a notebook held at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, where great naturalism is
evident.
The porcelain-like skin, which gives the portraits a sacred dimension, is the result of the mastery of
Carlo Dolci. Indeed, the daughter experiments with models conceived by her father, the Christ Child
with a Garland of Flowers (fig. 2) in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, and the Christ Child
(fig. 3) from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, prototypes of our work dating back to the
1670s. Two versions similar to those examined here but of lower quality and likely attributable to
Dolci's workshop were reported by the author in 2015.¹
Translated from Francesca Baldassari’s original Italian text.
Fig. 2. Carlo Dolci, The Christ Child with a garland of flowers,
1663. oil on canvas, 103 x 71 cm. Museo Nacional
Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid. © Museo Nacional ThyssenBornemisza, Madrid
Fig. 3. Carlo Dolci, The Christ Child with a garland of flowers,
1674. oil on canvas, 96.5 x 76.5 cm. Kunsthistorisches
Museum, Vienna. © Kunsthistorisches Museum, Wien
¹F. Baldassari, Carlo Dolci. Complete Catalogue of the paintings, Florence 2015, pp. 327-329, nn. 6-10.
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