CANTARINI, SIMONE, called PESARESE

THE HOLY FAMILY WITH THE INFANT JOHN THE BAPTIST AND SAINT ELISABETH

One of the finest works by this master, the most talented of Guido Reni's pupils. An old copy in Bologna's municipal museum, assumed to have been made by the painters in his workshop, was long held to be the original. There is another in the Berlin State Museums. A preliminary drawing executed in sanguine is in the collection of the Brera Pinacoteca in Milan (unlike the painting in the Pushkin Museum, the composition is presented in oval form).

Provenance: acquired for the Hermitage from the collection of Lord Walpole (Houghton Hall estate, England) in 1779; in the Pushkin Museum since 1924.