The Holy Family with Saint John the Baptist
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) in 1909.
For another red chalk drawing of the same subject (albeit different in composition), see Teylers Museum, Haarlem, inv. C 045.
The influence of Titian and Pordenone, although perhaps above all of Pordenone, is apparent in the monumentality of the figures in the present sheet, one of only a handful of drawings by Domenico Campagnola that is in red chalk rather than pen and ink. Thought to date from the middle of the artist’s career, the Library’s Holy Family with Saint John the Baptist presumably was made in preparation for a painting, and not as an independent work of art. There is a painting by Domenico of this subject, generally dated 1533-35, in the Collezioni Comunali d’Arte of Bologna (inv. A 6303; Saccomani 1980, 67, 76, note 35, no. 4). According to Tietze and Tieze-Conrat (1944, 130), the Morgan Library drawing is also related to a Sacra Conversazione in the Papafava collection (Venturi 9, III, no. 347).
Morgan, J. Pierpont (John Pierpont), 1837-1913, former owner.
Collection J. Pierpont Morgan : Drawings by the Old Masters Formed by C. Fairfax Murray. London : Privately printed, 1905-1912, IV, 68, repr.