Jacopo Negretti, Palma il Giovane (Venice circa 1548-1628)

A study, with differences, for the picture now at the Gemäldegalerie, Dresden (S.M. Rinaldi, op. cit., 1984, no. 91, fig. 57). The painting was previously in the Church of Santa Maria dell'Umiltà in Venice, whose name until 1615 was the Church of the preti di Gesù. It can be identified as one of the ‘quattro historie in due Cappelle della Vita della Madonna’ in that church, described by Borghini in his Il Riposo from 1584 (R. Borghini, Il Riposo, Florence, 1584, p. 559). Based on Borghini’s text, Rinaldi has suggested that the paintings and related drawings were executed in the summer of 1582 (see S.M. Rinaldi, op. cit., no. 91, p. 84).