Giovanni Cariani (San Giovanni Bianco, near Fuipiano al Brembo c. 1485-after 1547 Venice)

First published by Professor Alessandro Ballarin as a youthful work by Cariani, during his stay in Venice where he had moved with his family around 1505, and where he is first recorded as an artist in 1509 (loc. cit.). We are grateful to Professor Ballarin for subsequently confirming the attribution after inspection of the original. He compares it in particular to the Madonna and Child with Saint Peter, in the Galleria Borghese, Rome. Compositionally it also bears comparison with another work from the artist's Venetian period, The Holy Family with a shepherd, in Abano Terme, Villa Zasio (see R. Pallucchini and F. Rossi, Giovanni Cariani, Milan, 1983, p. 101, no. 1, pl. IXL, fig. 99).