Luca PENNI Florence, c. 1500 - Paris, 1556 The Virgin and Child and Little John the Baptist Oil on panel, lined (Restorations) The Virgin and Child with the little saint John the Baptist, oil on panel, by L. Penni 74,50 x 59,50 cm (29,33 x 23,43 in.) Provenance: Anonymous sale; Paris, Brissonneau, 4 July 2018, no. 118 (as Tuscan school, 16th century); Acquired at this sale by the current owner; Private collection, Paris Bibliography: Dominique Cordellier, 'Luca Penni. Un disciple de Primatice à Fontainebleau', cat. exp. Paris, Musée du Louvre, 2012-2013, p. 16 and repr. p. 22, fig. 10 and p. 190, cat. 89 Dominique Cordellier, "De Gênes à Paris : Luca Penni, dit le Romain, peintre", in F. Elsig (ed.), 'Peindre en France à la Renaissance II. Fontainebleau et son rayonnement', Milan, 2012, p. 39, fig. 14 Comment: Luca Penni is one of those artists whom recent art history has patiently brought to the fore, step by step, from articles to catalogues, from comparisons to attributions, gradually bringing to light the figure of an accomplished painter and draughtsman, trained in Rome at the school of Raphael before moving to France to work on the Château de Fontainebleau and its decorations, and ending his career in Paris1. When he appeared in the accounts of the king's buildings in 1538-1540, his salary was equivalent to that of Primaticcio, a sign of the recognition he was receiving at the time. However, his work as a decorator has disappeared, as have his easel paintings mentioned in the sources. If a body of work has gradually been assembled under his name, it is partly thanks to his engraved and drawn work, which is better known. In 2004, Sylvie Béguin published an article on the "Strange Madonna", a Virgin and Child with Little Saint John and a donor that belonged to Sir Robert Strange in the eighteenth century, long given to Raphael and returned to Luca Penni by Everett Fahy2. Very similar to what was done in Raphael's workshop - a half-body composition, figures with smooth, full faces, the play between the two children while the Virgin gently turns towards a third party - this Madonna can be considered a youthful work, probably produced in the second half of the 1520s and before Penni's arrival at Fontainebleau. The attribution of this composition to Luca Penni enabled Dominique Cordellier to also return to him the Madonna and Child presented here, of which there was a black and white photograph classified as Bacchiacca in the documentation of the Musée du Louvre. Here, too, it bears witness to Luca Penni's debt to Raphael and Giulio Romano, particularly visible if we compare it with the 'Madonna of the Rose' conserved in Madrid at the Prado Museum (fig. 1). A drawing of the same subject by Luca Penni held at the Art Institute of Chicago also bears similarities to our painting (fig. 2), also attesting to the artist's research into this subject3. The rediscovery of this Madonna and Child with Little Saint John allows us to appreciate the colours, alternating between old pink, electric blue and Veronese green, brought to life by the golden cushion on which Christ is seated. This more varied and more acidic palette than that of the Madonna Strange brings our painting closer to the Bellifontaine productions, although it is not clear whether it should be dated to the end of the Italian period or very soon after Penni's arrival in France. Like a work by Raphael, there is a great gentleness about this composition, in which the Virgin, her eyes half closed, leans towards the little Saint John the Baptist, already wearing his camel skin and carrying his preacher's staff adorned with a phylactery reading 'Ecce Agnus Dei', who in turn looks at the infant Jesus who is blessing him. The frankness of the gaze and smile exchanged by the two children, whose attributes herald the mission and sacrifice to come, is very intelligently rendered here. The painter's Mannerist refinement also contributes to the beauty of the work, with the delicate gesture of the Virgin protecting her Son with her transparent veil, the fine curls of the two children's hair and the lily motif adorning Christ's nimbus. At the crossroads of different paths and influences, this Madonna by Luca Penni offers us new evidence of this bubbling European Renaissance and its artistic laboratory, freeing itself from frontiers through travel and printmaking, capable of producing in the viewer, through the refinement and delicacy of its works, a feeling of fragility and transience that would never be equalled, while at the same time creating canons that would never cease to inspire the artists of subsequent centuries. 1. For an overview of research into the artist, see the foreword by D. Cordellier in cat. exp. 'Luca Penni, op. cit.', p. 11. 2. S. Béguin, "La Madone Strange de Luca Penni", in 'Arte Collezionismo Conservazione: Scritti in onore di Marco Chiarini', Florence, 2004, p. 188 ff. The painting, now in a private collection, was presented for sale in London at Christie's on 8 July 2005, no. 14. 3. Inv. 1922.933.