The Artist: For a biography of Orsola Maddalena Caccia, see the Catalogue Entry for
Flowers in a Grotesque Vase (
2020.263.1).
The Painting: Despite the greater fame of her still-life paintings today, Caccia’s figural works served the religious needs of her patrons more explicitly and were the primary means of support for the convent founded by her father, Guglielmo, in 1625. By the early seventeenth century, Guglielmo had already built a healthy reputation in northern Italy. In 1796, Luigi Lanzi insisted that among the erudite travelers to the region, no other name was pronounced with greater frequency.[1] Orsola trained with him and inherited his tools, working drawings, and library, which resulted in her perpetuating his style, particularly early in her career. Reuse of compositional drawings and cartoons for transferring individual heads or hands was entirely typical of early modern painting studios and has often led to confusion regarding attributions. Perhaps as a correction to a gender bias that did not recognize the extent of Orsola’s production, many paintings previously attributed to Guglielmo and his studio are now attributed to Orsola or members of her convent.
Previously attributed to Guglielmo,
Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist carries key features of the figural subjects painted by father and daughter: the Madonna’s body type (including a wide forehead, a long, straight nose, attenuated fingers, and small eyes and mouth), the bulky weight of bodies composed of reduced, geometric forms, and the soft brushwork, particularly in the faces and in the misty, blue Leonardesque landscape. Gugliemo’s earlier
Madonna of the Rosary with Saints (ca. 1615, Regione Ecclesiastica Piemonte Diocesi di Asti; see fig. 1 above) betrays comparable features;
The Martyrdom of Saint Maurice (ca. 1625; Diocesi di Casale Monferrato), a work Caccia is documented as completing when her father died in 1625, includes a Madonna and Child with similar body types.[2]
According to Antonella Chiodo, the present work probably dates to late in Caccia’s career, perhaps the mid-1640s, although it repeats figures and a composition she had used for years before.[3]
Caccia tends to simplify the forms of the figures to a greater degree than her father, resulting in reduced geometries seen here in the Madonna’s head and compact body. Her close attention to still-life elements, including Saint John’s staff, the goldfinch, and the somewhat gratuitous abundance of flowers sprinkled across the foreground, are particularly characteristic of the artist. Her obvious interest in treating these elements in religious compositions can be compared with paintings by Zurbarán (
27.137), whose independent still-life paintings would achieve a profound, meditative quality similar to Caccia’s (see
2020.263.1 and
2020.263.2).
Caccia’s
Saint Luke the Evangelist in this Studio (ca. 1625, Parrocchia Sant’Antonio di Padova, Moncalvo, Asti; fig. 2) provides an insightful context for envisioning the artist at work on The Met’s painting: the seated Madonna and Child are represented both sculpted and painted, putti appear overhead as signs of divine inspiration, a window opens onto a misty landscape, a scattering of flowers have been brought indoors, and a library of books and prints is at readily at hand. This evocative image of Saint Luke, the first icon painter according to Christian tradition, depicts a male saint, of course, but the fact that Caccia is its author suggests the way in which her successful career as a painter helps to rewrite conventional models of artistic invention.
Probably for reasons of economy, Caccia frequently used several pieces of canvas sewn together, even for paintings of medium scale, as here. The right side, approximately to the base of Saint John’s staff, is a separate piece of canvas, but is integral to the composition. The strip along the left side, extending nearly to the Madonna’s knee, may be a later addition. At some point in the painting’s history, for reasons unknown, the right strip was attached to the left side. By the time the work entered The Met's collection, it had returned to is proper location.
David Pullins 2020; updated 2023
[1] Luigi Lanzi,
Storia pittorica della Italia, vol. 3, Bassano, 1796, pp. 241–42.
[2] Antonella Chiodo, “Orsola Maddalena Caccia. Note in margine alla vita e alle opera di una monaca pittrice,”
Archivi e Storia (2003), p. 184.
[3] Conversation with Antonella Chiodo, September 29, 2023.
