The Holy Family with Saints Anne and Catherine of Alexandria

Jusepe de Ribera (called Lo Spagnoletto)

1648 · Oil on canvas · European Paintings

Spanish by birth, Ribera lived all his adult life in Rome and Naples, which was then part of the Spanish Empire. This important composition attests to how Ribera followed Caravaggio’s practice of working directly from posed models, particularly evident in the background figures. He combined the foreground figures’ idealized faces with incidental details of clothing, choosing to omit halos and firmly grounding this Holy Family on earth. The powerful simplicity of colors and forms stems from Ribera’s study of earlier Roman artists, notably Raphael and Guido Reni.

Artist

Jusepe de Ribera (called Lo Spagnoletto)

Date

1648

Medium

Oil on canvas

Department

European Paintings

Credit line

Samuel D. Lee Fund, 1934