Provenance
Col. Henry Edward Burney [d. 1929], London; (his sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 29 June 1928, no. 126, as by Titian); purchased by Max Rothschild, owner of the Sackville Gallery, London. (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris); purchased February 1930 by Andrew W. Mellon, Pittsburgh;[1] deeded 28 December 1934 to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh;[2] gift 1937 to NGA.
[1] According to Fern Rusk Shapley, _Catalogue of the Italian Paintings_, 2 vols., Washington, 1979: 1:249-250.
[2] Mellon/Mellon Trust purchase date and/or date deeded to Mellon Trust is according to Mellon collection files in NGA curatorial records and David Finley's notebook (donated to the National Gallery of Art in 1977, now in the Gallery Archives).
Accession Number
1937.1.36
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 27.7 x 58 cm (10 7/8 x 22 13/16 in.) | framed: 39.05 x 69.21 x 4.44 cm (15 3/8 x 27 1/4 x 1 3/4 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Andrew W. Mellon Collection
Tags
Painting Renaissance (1400–1599) Oil Painting Canvas Italian
Background & Context
Background Story
Polidoro Lanzani (c. 1515-1565) was a Venetian painter known for the elegantly composed religious paintings that make him one of the accomplished painters of the Venetian Renaissance. Madonna and Child and the Infant Saint John in a Landscape from 1540/1550 depicts the Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John in the elegantly composed, richly colored manner of the Venetian Renaissance that distinguishes Lanzani's best work from the more general painting of his contemporaries. The 1540/1550 date places this in the period when Venetian Renaissance painting was producing some of its most accomplished religious works, and the Madonna and Child subject shows Lanzani's talent for elegantly composed religious narrative.
Cultural Impact
Madonna and Child and the Infant Saint John in a Landscape is important in the history of Venetian painting because it demonstrates the elegantly composed, richly colored manner that Lanzani brought to religious subjects as one of the accomplished painters of the Venetian Renaissance. Lanzani's elegantly composed religious paintings—combining the rich color of the Venetian tradition with the elegant composition that is his most distinctive contribution—represent one of the accomplished traditions in Venetian Renaissance painting, and the 1540/1550 painting shows this tradition at its most elegantly composed.
Why It Matters
Madonna and Child and the Infant Saint John is Lanzani's Venetian Renaissance religious painting: the Madonna and Child rendered in the elegantly composed, richly colored manner of one of the accomplished painters of the Venetian Renaissance. The 1540/1550 painting shows the combination of rich color with elegant composition that makes Lanzani an accomplished Venetian painter.
![Saint Bernard and Saint Catherine of Alexandria with the Virgin of the Annunciation [right panel]](https://api.nga.gov/iiif/e6890364-4d99-4684-a62b-5060ee3c3446/full/400,/0/default.jpg)
