St. Joseph with the Christ Child

These two pictures come from the Capuchin friars’ convent in Faenza (although we do not know whether that was their original destination). Clearly companion pieces, they were initially attributed to Giovan Andrea Sirani, before Fiorella Frisoni (1978) correctly reassigned them to his daughter Elisabetta. On closer inspection, however, in Malvasia’s Nota delle pitture (1678) the Madonna of the Pear is mentioned by the artist herself when she writes “a Virgin, half-figure, with the Christ Child seated on her arm, showing her the apple with his right hand, his left resting on her own hands: I know not for whom ec.” These few words tell us that she either did not know or could not remember who had commissioned from her this work which she signed on the Virgin’s left sleeve. Here the Christ Child appears to be bent on escaping from his mother’s embrace, while holding the fruit that Sirani calls an apple but that is in fact the pear after which the picture is named, a symbol of original sin and of Jesus’s role in redeeming mankind. Our attention is caught by the exchange of gazes, a silent dialogue between the eyes of the Virgin and those of the Christ Child. Chiaroscuro modulates the silhouettes of the figures, softening them and creating an unstable and restless balance that is unusual in this painter’s work. In the picture with St. Joseph, on the other hand, the composition is more static – among other reasons, because the baby Jesus is asleep in St. Joseph’s arms, while clutching his index finger in his tiny hand. As in its companion piece, so here too, the atmosphere is skilfully modulated by the light that turns certain areas into expanses of colour, softening the figures’ silhouettes and imparting the tender elegance that was one of Sirani’s hallmarks to the composition as a whole. The picture also hints at the inspiration sought by the artist in Guido Reni’s numerous renditions of the same theme. Frisoni (2004) suggests that the picture may be slightly later than its probable companion piece. In any event, the two paintings sit perfectly within the trend in small devotional works in a Counter-Reformation vein which were found by the dozen in the homes of Bolognese families and which had been one of the first kinds of painting to mark Sirani’s early career.