Artwork
Heilige Familie
Heilige Familie is an unspecified painting by the High Baroque Italian artist Marcantonio Franceschini. It dates from 1694 and is held in the collection of the Bavarian State Painting Collections.
About this work
Subject & Meaning
The composition features the Virgin Mary, the Christ Child, and Saint Joseph, adhering to traditional Christian iconography of the domestic life of Jesus.
Created in 1688 by Marcantonio Franceschini, this religious painting portrays the Holy Family as its central subject. The composition features the Virgin Mary, the Christ Child, and Saint Joseph, adhering to traditional Christian iconography of the domestic life of Jesus. As a work of religious art, the piece represents the sacred bond and spiritual significance of this familial unit within Catholic devotion.
The depiction focuses on these three specific figures to convey themes of divine lineage and humble earthly existence.
Technique & Style
The work is a painting classified within the religious genre, depicting the Holy Family of Mary, the Christ Child, and Joseph. Its modest scale is recorded at 36 cm in height by 27.5 cm in width, consistent with a small-format devotional cabinet picture typical of late seventeenth-century Bolognese production. Beyond its medium as a painting and its measured dimensions, the available documentation does not specify the support (such as canvas or panel), the pigment medium (oil or otherwise), the handling of brushwork, or the present condition of the surface.
History & Provenance
The Heilige Familie is dated to 1688 by internal documentation, aligning with the artist’s documented activity in Bologna during the late 1680s. The work entered the collection of the Bavarian State Painting Collections, where it has been held continuously. It is listed as part of the holdings of the Alte Pinakothek, Munich, where it remains located.
No record of a specific commission survives in the cited sources; the painting’s presence in a state collection suggests it was acquired through purchase or transfer rather than a direct commissioning record.
The painting Heilige Familie by Marcantonio Franceschini is held within the Bavarian State Painting Collections. It is currently located at the Alte Pinakothek in Munich. The work was created in 1688 and depicts the Holy Family, including Mary, the Christ Child, and Joseph.
No specific inventory or accession number is provided in the available records, nor is there any documented exhibition history for this piece in the supplied sources.
Context
Marcantonio Franceschini painted Heilige Familie in 1688, a religious work now housed in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, where it forms part of the Bavarian State Painting Collections' holdings of 17th-century Italian religious art. The composition depicting Mary, Christ Child, and Joseph reflects the devotional themes characteristic of the period and has been studied within scholarship examining Franceschini's role in Counter-Reformation visual culture, situating the painting within his broader oeuvre of sacred subjects and regional artistic networks in late Baroque Italy.
Overview
Marcantonio Franceschini, a Bolognese painter active in the late seventeenth century, completed the work titled Heilige Familie in 1694. The oil painting presents a domestic scene of the Holy Family, rendered with the restrained elegance typical of his mature Baroque period. It now belongs to the collection of the Alte Pinakothek in Munich.
Artist & collection
Artist
Marcantonio Franceschini (Italian pronunciation:; 1648 – 24 December 1729) was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, active mostly in his native Bologna. He was the father and teacher of Giacomo Franceschini.
