The Madonna and Sleeping Child with the Infant St John the Baptist or Il Silenzio (The Silence) is oil on canvas painting by Annibale Carracci, now in the Royal Collection. It is currently on display in Hampton Court Palace.
It was produced around 1599-1600 whilst he was working on the Palazzo Farnese ceiling paintings in Rome. [1] Intended as a small devotional work, it measures only 51.2 x 68.4 cm. A preparatory sketch for the whole composition survives in black chalk, ink, and pen, whilst John the Baptist's pointing gesture is similar to that of the right-hand putto in the contemporaneous Pietà , with both paintings using a pyramidical composition. Some pentimenti are visible to X-ray, infra-red reflectography, and the naked eye.
The work was much copied and referenced, most notably around 1605 by Domenichino (Louvre). [2] It was recorded in inventories of the Farnese Collection at Palazzo del Giardino in Parma in 1678 and circa 1680 before being acquired in 1766 for George III by Richard Dalton - Dalton then also owned the black chalk, pen and ink sketch for it. The following year Francis Cotes produced a pastel portrait of George's wife Queen Charlotte holding their daughter Charlotte, Princess Royal and making a gesture similar to the Virgin Mary's in tribute to the acquisition of Il Silenzio. [3]
Carracci's work was initially hung at Buckingham House, where Francesco Bartolozzi engraved it in 1768. George's son the Prince Regent had Henry Bone produce an enamel-on-copper copy of the work in 1814, whilst the original was on show at Windsor Castle when Charles Wild produced the illustrations for Henry Pyne's Royal Residences, published in 1819.
Agostino Carracci was an Italian painter, printmaker, tapestry designer, and art teacher. He was, together with his brother, Annibale Carracci, and cousin, Ludovico Carracci, one of the founders of the Accademia degli Incamminati in Bologna. This teaching academy promoted the Carracci emphasized drawing from life. It promoted progressive tendencies in art and was a reaction to the Mannerist distortion of anatomy and space. The academy helped propel painters of the School of Bologna to prominence.
Annibale Carracci was an Italian painter and instructor, active in Bologna and later in Rome. Along with his brother and cousin, Annibale was one of the progenitors, if not founders of a leading strand of the Baroque style, borrowing from styles from both north and south of their native city, and aspiring for a return to classical monumentality, but adding a more vital dynamism. Painters working under Annibale at the gallery of the Palazzo Farnese would be highly influential in Roman painting for decades.
Guido Reni was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, although his works showed a classical manner, similar to Simon Vouet, Nicolas Poussin, and Philippe de Champaigne. He painted primarily religious works, but also mythological and allegorical subjects. Active in Rome, Naples, and his native Bologna, he became the dominant figure in the Bolognese School that emerged under the influence of the Carracci.
LudovicoCarracci was an Italian, early-Baroque painter, etcher, and printmaker born in Bologna. His works are characterized by a strong mood invoked by broad gestures and flickering light that create spiritual emotion and are credited with reinvigorating Italian art, especially fresco art, which was subsumed with formalistic Mannerism. He died in Bologna in 1619.
Domenico Zampieri, known by the diminutive Domenichino after his shortness, was an Italian Baroque painter of the Bolognese School of painters.
Francesco Albani or Albano was an Italian Baroque painter who was active in Bologna (1591–1600), Rome (1600–1609), Bologna (1609), Viterbo (1609–1610), Bologna (1610), Rome (1610–1617), Bologna (1618–1660), Mantova (1621–1622), Roma (1623–1625) and Florence (1633).
Antonio Marziale Carracci was an Italian painter. He was the natural son of Agostino Carracci.
Giovanni Lanfranco was an Italian painter of the Baroque period.
Clovis Whitfield is an art historian and art dealer based in London, where he runs Whitfield Fine Art. He is a member of the Society of London Art Dealers.
Francesco Cozza was an Italian painter of the Baroque period.
Agostino Ciampelli was an Italian painter of the Baroque period. He trained with Santi di Tito in Florence, and painted in Rome under Clement VIII, including a Crucifixion for Santa Prassede and a Saint Giovanni Gualberto in its sacristy; Angels on the walls above the choirstalls in the apse of Santa Maria in Trastevere; frescoes of the Stoning of Saint Vitale in San Vitale and further frescoes in the little church of Santa Bibiena; and The Visitation in Sant Stefano di Pescia. At the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano, Ciampelli frescoed the walls of the canons' sacristy, the "Sala Clementina".
Events from the year 1605 in art.
The Adoration of the Shepherds is an oil on canvas painting by the Italian master Domenichino, executed c. 1607–1610. It has been in the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh since 1971, and was previously in the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London.
Giovanni Battista Agucchi was an Italian churchman, Papal diplomat and writer on art theory. He was the nephew and brother of cardinals, and might have been one himself if he had lived longer. He served as secretary to the Papal Secretary of State, then the Pope himself, on whose death Agucchi was made a titular bishop and appointed as nuncio to Venice. He was an important figure in Roman art circles when he was in the city, promoting fellow-Bolognese artists, and was close to Domenichino in particular. As an art theorist he was rediscovered in the 20th century as having first expressed many of the views better known from the writings of Gian Pietro Bellori a generation later. He was also an amateur astronomer who corresponded with Galileo.
Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist is a painting by Parmigianino, executed c. 1528. It was in the Palazzo Farnese in Rome until 1662, when it moved to Parma. There it hung in the Palazzo del Giardino and later in the Galleria Ducale - the 'Descrizione' of the latter in 1725 called it one of the finest works on display there. It and the rest of the Farnese collection were later moved to Naples and the work was exhibited for a few years in the Palazzo Reale before moving to its present home in the National Museum of Capodimonte. Two early copies remain in the Galleria Nazionale and Palazzo Comunale in Parma.
Pietà is a c. 1600 oil on canvas painting by Annibale Carracci, the earliest surviving work by him on the subject, which was commissioned by Odoardo Farnese. It moved from Rome to Parma to Naples as part of the Farnese collection and is now in the National Museum of Capodimonte in Naples. It is one of many 16th century Bolognese paintings dedicated to the theme of the Pietà, and it is counted among Carracci's masterpieces.
The Death of Saint Francis is the probable subject of two lost paintings by Annibale Carracci, both possibly dating to 1597-1598. One is known solely through a print and the other through a series of painted copies.
Pietà with Saint Francis and Saint Mary Magdalene is a 1602-1607 oil on canvas painting by Annibale Carraci. Now in the Louvre, it was looted from the Mattei family chapel in San Francesco a Ripa in Rome by Napoleon's troops in 1797 and was not returned at the end of the Napoleonic Wars.
Saint Margaret of Antioch is a 1599 oil on canvas painting by Annibale Carracci, showing Margaret of Antioch. It hangs in Santa Caterina dei Funari church in Rome.
Madonna and Child with Saints is a 1586 oil on canvas painting by Agostino Carracci, dated on the lowest step of the Virgin Mary's throne. An example of a sacra conversazione. Long in the Benedictine abbey of San Paolo in Parma, French troops took it to Paris in 1796 and on its return to Italy in 1816 it was moved to the Galleria nazionale di Parma, where it still hangs.