One of Leonardo da Vinci’s greatest disciples, Giovanni Pietro Rizzoli, called Giampietrino, here displays the most salient hallmarks of his mentor's style. Giampietrino’s refined, precise technique, discernable in the subtle gradations of light and shade, and the elegant compositional arrangement of the three figures are especially reminiscent of Leonardo. Resonances with Leonardo’s Madonna of the Yarnwinder (fig. 1) and Litta Madonna (fig. 2) are especially apparent. From the former Giampietrino adapts the gentle turn of the Madonna’s head and the protective gesture of her right hand; from the latter he incorporates the energetic pose and outward gaze of the Christ child.

Giampietrino probably executed this panel in the late 1530s, when he had reached his full artistic maturity. Giampietrino’s affinity for luminous colors, complementing his sophisticated use of chiaroscuro, is especially apparent in this composition, in which he achieves a tonal harmony through the careful balance of red, orange, yellow, green, and blue hues. The composition’s success is evident both in Giampietrino’s reuse of the central figurative elements in his Castel Vitoni Madonna (Biblioteca di Castel Vitoni), which omits Saint Anne and instead includes Saint Joseph, and the existence of several contemporaneous copies (one of which, without the figure of Saint Anne, recently sold at Hampel, 9 December 2021, lot 214).¹

Sitting on a stone parapet, the Virgin, in the pose of a Madonna lactans, nurses the infant Jesus as her own mother stands behind. The two women offer contrasting emotional responses to Christ’s ultimate fate: Saint Anne, shown with wizened features, stares stoically into the distance, while the Madonna diverts her tear-filled eyes from the child who lays across her lap. He, in turn, gazes at the viewer with innocent (or is it omniscient?) composure, seemingly content to nurse from his mother’s breast. Yet while his chubby body and energetically infantile pose speak to his childlike nature, the apple in his right hand recalls Eve’s original sin, the root of his own eventual sacrifice.

Professoressa Christina Geddo has examined this painting in person and her study of the work provides the starting point for this catalogue note. She will publish the picture in her catalogue raisonné on Giampietrino as an autograph late work.

¹ On these, see C. Geddo, "La Madonna di Castel Vitoni del Giampietrino," in Achademia Leonardi Vinci 7 (1994), pp. 57-66, reproduced figs. 1, 45.