| Francesco di Cristofano, known as Franciabigio addressed the popular Renaissance motif of the "Madonna dell’Umiltà" in several paintings. The picture of the "Madonna with Child and the Young St John", is a late work dated between c. 1518 and 1524. It might be intended to represent a particular event in the life of Jesus: on their return from Egypt, the Holy Family meets the boy John, who has withdrawn to live in the wilderness. The man in the background is probably St Joseph, approaching the gate of a medieval town. The treatment of the theme is related to Raphael’s "Madonna in the Countryside" (1505–06, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna). Franciabigio borrowed even more directly from Raphael’s "Madonna dell’Impannata", from which he took John’s pose. This explains why in 1805 the work in the Princely Collections was still thought to be by Raphael before Franciabigio’s monogram was discovered on the hem of Mary’s robe, permitting attribution to the Florentine painter. Franciabigio had his own particular way of integrating Christ’s future suffering and death into his image: the Christ Child’s strangely unstable pose is explained by a dark fissure in the ground at his feet, a subtle allusion to his rocky tomb. The lettering on the banderole in his hand, “ECCE AG(NUS DEI)” (Behold the Lamb of God; John 1,19) also points to his sacrificial death. |
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