The Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist
Denys Calvaert, Flemish, about 1540 - 1619
about 1570-1573
Oil on canvas
Overall: 34 3/4 × 25 1/2 in. (88.3 × 64.8 cm)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Purchased through the Mrs. Harvey P. Hood W'18 Fund
P.994.3
Geography
Place Made: Belgium, Europe
Period
1400-1600
Object Name
Painting
Research Area
Nazi-Era Provenance Research
Painting
Not on view
Inscriptions
Signed, top center: Dionisio Calvaert de Antversa; inscribed, top right, on scroll: Ecce Angnus [Dei]
Label
With their elongated bodies, the Holy Family in this painting responded to contemporary tastes for exaggerated forms. Denys Calvaert’s work was distinguished by his bright color palette and pastel tones. The purple and pinks of John the Baptist’s attire and Mary’s dress were formed by layering thin glazes of red lakes, a type of translucent pigment derived from the textile dyeing process. Cochineal beetles, imported from Mexico, were the single common source of these red lake pigments.
Born in Antwerp, artist Denys Calvaert relocated to Bologna, where he remained throughout his life. He specialized in religious paintings for Catholic private devotion, demand for which rose on the Italian peninsula in the late 16th century in the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation.
From the 2025 exhibition Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: Making Colors in Europe, 1400–1800, curated by Elizabeth Rice Mattison, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Academic Programming and Curator of European Art
Course History
ITAL 3, Introductory Italian III, Anna Minardi, Fall 2013
ITAL 3, Introductory Italian III, Jonathan Mullins, Fall 2013
ITAL 22, Humanism and Renaissance, Courtney Quaintance, Spring 2014
FRIT 34, Sex and Gender in the Italian Renaissance, Courtney Quaintance, Spring 2015
ITAL 7, Women in Renaissance Venice, Courtney Quaintance, Spring 2015
HIST 43.2, European Intellectual and Cultural History 1400-1800, Darrin McMahon, Fall 2015
ARTH 2, Introduction to the History of Art II, Mary Coffey, Joy Kenseth, Winter 2019
ITAL 1.01, Introductory Italian I, Giorgio Alberti, Fall 2022
ITAL 1.02, Introductory Italian I, Andrea Zoller, Fall 2022
ITAL 1.03, Introductory Italian I, Andrea Zoller, Fall 2022
Italian 1.02, Introductory Italian I, Andrea Zoller, Winter 2023
Italian 1.01, Introductory Italian I, Giorgio Alberti, Winter 2023
Italian 11.01, Intensive Italian, Giorgio Alberti, Winter 2023
Art History 7.05, Pompeii: Antique & Modern, Ada Cohen, Winter 2023
Italian 2.01, Introductory Italian II, Andrea Zoller, Winter 2023
Italian 2.02, Introductory Italian II, Matteo Gilebbi, Winter 2023
Italian 1.01, Introductory Italian 1, Giorgio Alberti, Fall 2023
Italian 1.02, Introductory Italian 1, Marco D'Angelo, Fall 2023
Italian 1.03, Introductory Italian 1, Floriana Ciniglia, Fall 2023
Italian 1.04, Introductory Italian 1, Noemi Perego, Fall 2023
Italian 2.01, Introductory Italian II, Marco D'Angelo, Fall 2023
Italian 1.01, Introductory Italian 1, Giorgio Alberti, Winter 2024
Italian 1.02, Introductory Italian 1, Floriana Ciniglia, Winter 2024
Italian 2.01, Introductory Italian II, Giorgio Alberti, Winter 2024
Italian 2.02, Introductory Italian II, Noemi Perego, Winter 2024
Studio Art 17.08, Digital Drawing, Karol Kawiaka, Winter 2024
Studio Art 17.08, Digital Drawing, Karol Kawiaka, Winter 2024
Geography 29.01, Global Cities, Erin Collins, Spring 2024
Geography 29.01, Global Cities, Erin Collins, Spring 2024
Italian 1.01, Introductory Italian I, Noemi Perego, Spring 2024
Italian 11.01, Intensive Italian, Floriana Ciniglia, Spring 2024
Italian 2.01, Introductory Italian II, Floriana Ciniglia, Spring 2024
Italian 3.01, Introductory Italian III, Tania Convertini, Spring 2024
Italian 3.02, Introductory Italian III, Giorgio Alberti, Spring 2024
Italian 1.02, Introductory Italian I, Floriana Ciniglia, Fall 2024
Italian 1.03, Introductory Italian I, Floriana Ciniglia, Fall 2024
Italian 1.01, Introductory Italian I, Floriana Ciniglia, Fall 2024
Italian 11.01, Intensive Italian, Matteo Gilebbi, Fall 2024
Italian 3.01, Introductory Italian III, Giorgio Alberti, Fall 2024
Italian 3.02, Introductory Italian III, Matteo Gilebbi, Fall 2024
Exhibition History
Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: Making Colors in Europe, 1400–1800, Harrington Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 6 - Fall 2026.
European Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Churchill P. Lathrop Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, August 30, 2008-March 8, 2009.
From Altarpiece to Portrait: Assembling a European Collection, Harrington Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 26, 2019-September 6, 2020.
Ivan Albright Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, April 20, 2009-August 2013.
Ivan Albright Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, February 4, 1994-June 22, 1997.
Ivan Albright Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 16, 1997-January 14, 2008.
Ivan Albright Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 19, 2013-present.
Publication History
Leo Steinberg, The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion, 2nd edition, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
Suzanne Folds McCullagh and Laura M. Giles, Italian Drawings before 1600 in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Collection, Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1997, ill. p.400, fig. 13
Veronique Sulzer, sub-editor, Chronique des Arts, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Paris: Les Beaux-Arts, 1995
Celide Masini, Gli splendori della Vergogna: La collezione dei dipinti dell'Opera Pia dei Poveri Vergognosi, Bologna: Nuova Alfa Editoriale, 1995, p. 21, p. 211, ill. p. 23
Upper Valley Magazine Preview of the Arts, Upper Valley Magazine, West Lebanon: Van Etten, Inc, 1994, ill. p. 65
T. Barton Thurber, Twenty Years of Building a Collection: The Hood Museum of Art, Apollo (Vol. 162, no. 526), December 2005, London: Apollo Magazine, 2005, pp. 46-53, ill. p.49.
T. Barton Thurber, European Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2008, pp. 40, ill., no. 8.
John R. Stomberg, The Hood Now: Art and Inquiry at Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2019, p. 87, ill. plate no. 18.
Provenance
Galerie Gismondi, Paris, 1988; Private collection, France, date unknown; Sotheby's, sale no. 18, January 14, 1994; sold to Robert Dance, Inc., New York, New York; sold to present collection, 1994.
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