Lot 948
Continental School, mid-19th c., "A Mother and Her Children in a French Church", oil on canvas, monogrammed "F.L." lower left, "Earles Galleries, Philadelphia" stencil en verso, 22 3/4 in. x 17 3/8 in., original frame. Note: This family portrait is set in either the nave or side aisle of a French church as indicated by the French inscription ?pouvoir ici ? [l?] main...? above the alms box at the far left of the painting. The clustered columns in the background that form the pier that supports the archway are typically found in Gothic architecture. This style of architecture, which replaced the more cumbersome compound pier of its Romanesque predecessor, typifies French Gothic cathedrals, such as Amiens and the Notre Dame of Paris. The painting is an accomplished work of art that combines the religious iconography of the Northern and Italian Renaissance with the realism of Spanish Baroque genre painting. The triangular composition of the figural group, the mother?s blue veil, downturned gaze, and the position of the infant in her arms recalls Italian Renaissance imagery of the Madonna and child, whereas the colossal scale of the mother, relative to the church archway, is distinctly northern. In Northern Renaissance art, scale is rarely determined by ?proper? perspective as symbolic meaning was privileged over verisimilitude. A fine example of this is Van Eyck?s ?Madonna in the Church? (c. 1438), which portrays an immense Mary, incapable of fitting through the archways (arcades) of the church nave. In this painting, the artist masterfully blends symbolism and symmetry, religion and family through the dramatic lighting (chiaroscuro) of Baroque art. The beautiful lighting on the infant?s neck, children?s faces, and edges of the bible and column is offset by the somber background that merges with the mother?s veil. The juxtaposition of light, combined with the scale and position of the figures, transforms a mundane Sunday scene into an ethereal scene of faith and fortitude that was equally influenced by the genre painting of Murillo and Velazquez.
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