Virgin and Child with Saints

1592 · Private collection

religious

Denys Calvaert focused almost exclusively on religious scenes and while he produced some excellent life-size altarpieces, he was arguably at his best when working on a smaller format, particularly on copper. This signed and dated example depicts the Virgin and Child with Sts Catherine, Dominic and the Infant St John the Baptist, a landscape beyond. It is from the artist's most successful period and includes all his most admired features: vibrant colours, movement and pathos in the figures, sharp foreshortening, and the landscape upper right, which extends all the way to the horizon.

About the Artist

Denys Calvaert

1540 – 1619

Flemish painter from Antwerp who emigrated to Italy in about 1562 and remained there for the rest of his life. (In Italy he was called Dionisio Fiammingo.) He settled in Bologna, and although his work is in an undistinguished Mannerist style, he played an important role as a teacher. He established an academy in 1572 and had more than 100 pupils, among whom were some of the most distinguished artists of the Bolognese School - Albani, Domenichino and Reni. The more celebrated academy of the Carracci was probably inspired by Calvaert's.

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