The Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist

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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