Museum of Art
Madonna and Child with Saint John
Artist: Cristoforo Roncalli (Italian, ca. 1553-1626)
Medium: red chalk on paper
Dimensions: 5 9/16 in. x 4 5/8 in. (14.1 cm. x 11.8 cm.)
Credit Line: Bequest of the Honorable James Bowdoin III
Accession Number: 1811.99
- James Bowdoin III( Collector, Boston) - 1811.
- Bowdoin College Museum of Art( Museum, Brunswick, Maine) 1811- . Bequest
- Old Master Drawings at Bowdoin College
- Bowdoin College Museum of Art. ( 5/17/1985 - 7/7/1985)
- Clark Art Institute. ( 9/14/1985 - 10/27/1985)
- University of Kansas. ( 1/19/1986 - 3/2/1986)
- Art Gallery of Ontario. ( 5/17/1986 - 6/29/1986)
Type: catalogue Author: Henry Johnson Document Title: Catalogue of the Bowdoin College Art Collections Publ. Place: Brunswick, Maine Reference: no. 82 Remarks: (as Unknown) Section Title: Pt. I, The Bowdoin Drawings Date: 1885 Type: catalogue Author: Bowdoin College Museum of Art Document Title: Bowdoin Museum of Fine Arts, Walker Art Building Edition: 4th Publ. Place: Brunswick, Maine Reference: no. 82 Remarks: (as Unknown) Publisher: Bowdoin College Section Title: Descriptive Catalogue of the . . . Date: 1930 Type: exhibition catalogue Author: David P. Becker Document Title: Old Master Drawings at Bowdoin College Publ. Place: Brunswick, Maine Location: pp. 96-97 Reference: no. 44 (illus.) Publisher: Bowdoin College Date: 1985 Type: paper Author: Susan E. Wegner Document Title: Images of the Madonna and Child by Three Artists of the Early Seicento Publ. Place: Brunswick, Maine Location: pp. 21-29, 38-40 Reference: fig. 15 Publisher: Bowdoin College Section Title: Vanni, Roncalli, and Manetti Date: 1986
Roncalli's early artistic training is obscure; he moved to Siena in the mid-1570s and to Rome by 1578. There he received many commissions for palace decorations and altarpieces. Pope Clement VIII chose Roncalli to supervise the decoration of his chapel in St. Peter's from 1599 to 1604. He worked often for the Oratory of Filippo Neri. In 1606 he traveled through Europe as far as London, and from 1605 to 1615 he was engaged in Loreto painting frescoes for the Santa Casa there. A member of the Accademia di San Luca in Rome from 1588, Roncalli was a leading exponent of the Counter-Maniera of the 1580s and 1590s.
After tentative attributions had been made to Vanni and Salimbeni, Susan Wegner recognized this sheet as Roncalli's work, citing the more finished version of the same composition in the Uffizi.1 In that drawing, the forms are fully developed, and the figure of the young St. John at the lower left is not present. Otherwise, the two drawings are identical. Kirwin dates the Uffizi sheet stylistically to 1578-81, soon after Roncalli moved to Rome, when he was feeling the particular influence of his contemporary, Raffaellino da Reggio.2 Kirwin was not able to connect the Uffizi study to a specific painting but did note two panel paintings, one in the Borghese Gallery, Rome, and the other in a private collection.3 In both these works, the child to the right of the Madonna and Child in the drawing has been replaced with Joseph. Further, the panel in the private collection also includes the young St. John at the lower left pointing toward the Holy Family — as in the Bowdoin study. Therefore, the latter drawing seems to be a transitional study that Roncalli made while deciding where to place St. John. Indeed, two St. Johns are included: the fact that both the attendant children can be identified with St. John is confirmed by the attributes, the cross held by the left child and the staff with serpent held by the right child. The Uffizi drawing was probably traced to transfer the outlines for the Bowdoin version; the Bowdoin St. John is obviously drawn over the previously traced lower portion of the Uffizi composition. Another instance of Roncalli's use of this outline method of transfer can be seen in a drawing of Charity in the Uffizi.4
1. Inv. no. 1008 1 F, repr. in Uffizi, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampi, Disegni dei Toscani a Roma (1580-1620) (exh. cat.) (Florence, 1979), cat. no. 3, fig. 6.
2. Ibid. A lengthy study of Roncalli's drawings was published by Kirwin in "The Life and Drawing Style of Cristofano Roncalli," Paragone, no. 335 (1978), pp. 18-62, figs. 28-60.
3. Ibid.; the two paintings are repr. in C. Volpe, "Una precisazione sul Roncalli," Paragone, no. 335 (1978), pp. 87— 89, figs. 88, 89a.
4. Inv. no. 10015 (Gemsheim 19615).
Commentary credited to David P. Becker (or not otherwise captioned) appeared in his catalogue Old Master Drawings at Bowdoin College (Brunswick: Bowdoin College Museum of Art, 1985).