1628
oil
canvas
From the collection of Art Institute of Chicago
Virgin and Child with Saint Elizabeth and the Infant Saint John the Baptist is a 1628 oil by Jacques Blanchard, a Baroque work, held at Art Institute of Chicago.
This painting shows the Virgin and Child with Saint Elizabeth and the Infant Saint John the Baptist. The scene is tender and intimate, with the figures interacting gently. The artist drew on works he saw in Venice for the dynamic poses and warm light, which adds to the sense of warmth in the scene. Check out the technique of glazing to learn more about how artists like Jacques Blanchard achieved these warm, layered colors.
Like other ambitious painters of his day, Jacques Blanchard began his career with years of travel and study in Italy before establishing himself in Paris. Blanchard's itinerary took him to Rome, Venice, and Turin, before his return to Paris via Lyon. This tender painting of the Christ Child approached by his cousin, Saint John the Baptist, probably belongs to these years of travel. Blanchard drew on works by Titian and Veronese that he had seen in Venice for the dynamic poses and warm light, but he evidently still felt some uncertainty in the placement of the figures in space.
Rosa Maria Brender de Berenbau (of Montvideo, Uruquay), Paris, by 1955/56 [according to a letter of 20 March 1981 from Charles Sterling to Susan Wise in curatorial file]; sold to Sam Salz, New York, probably by 1961 [see Sterling 1961 and letter cited above]; given to the Art Institute, 1963.
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, France in the Golden Age: Seventeenth-Century French Paintings in American Collections, 1982, cat. 9; traveled to the Art Institute of Chicago. Rennes, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Jacques Blanchard 1600-1638, March 5-June 15, 1998, cat. 13.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Jacques Blanchard (1600 – 1638), also known as Jacques Blanchart, was a French baroque painter who was born in Paris.
See the richer artist page
