Virgin and Child with the Young Saint John the Baptist

CC0 Public Domain Designation

1560–65

Jacopo Bassano (Italian, c. 1510-1592)

Throughout most of his working life, Jacopo Bassano remained in his birthplace, the small town of Bassano del Grappa in the mainland territory of the Venetian Republic. The rich colors and textural brushstrokes in his paintings, however, are also characteristic of contemporary painters working in the city of Venice itself. His engagement with the work of two such artists, Titian and Paolo Veronese, is evident in the flickering highlights that here animate the Virgin’s robes and the rich red hanging. The slender proportions of the Madonna’s head and neck, on the other hand, are more characteristic of the highly artificial and refined style known as Mannerism.

Status: On View, Gallery 206
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Jacopo Bassano
Title: Virgin and Child with the Young Saint John the Baptist
Place: Italy (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1560–1565
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: Inscribed top left: IACsA PÔTE. A. POTE / BASS.P (on wall behind the Virgin)
Dimensions: 79.5 × 90.5 cm (31 1/4 × 35 5/8 in.); Framed: 103.2 × 115.3 × 13.7 cm (40 5/8 × 45 3/8 × 5 3/8 in.)
Credit Line: Wilson L. Mead Fund Income
Reference Number: 1968.320
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/109323/manifest.json

Wart Arslan, “Un nuovo dipinto di Jacopo Bassano,” Bollettino d’arte 7 (1929), pp. 407-13, fig. 1.
Wart Arslan, I Bassano, Bologna, 1931, pp. 116-17, 188, fig. 27.
F. M. Godfrey, “Jacopo Bassano in English and Scottish Collections,” The Connoisseur Yearbook, London, 1955, pp. 88, ill., 89.
Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland, Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture, 51st ed., Edinburgh, 1957, vol. 1, p. 19, under no. 1635.
Michelangelo Muraro, “The Jacopo Bassano Exhibition,” Burlington Magazine 99 (1957), p. 292.
Rodolfo Pallucchini, “Commento alla mostra di Jacopo Bassano,” Arte veneta 11 (1957), p. 108.
Edoardo Arslan, I Bassano, Milan, 1960, pp. 108-109, 167, 281-82, figs. 136-37.
Alessandro Ballarin, “Aggiunte al catalogo di Paolo Veronese e di Jacopo Bassano,” Arte veneta 22 (1968), pp. 43-46.
Burlington Magazine 110 (March 1968), p. X (ill.)
Calendar of The Art Institute of Chicago 63, 1 (January 1969), ill., n. p.
Art Institute of Chicago Annual Report 1968-1969, Chicago, 1969, p. 17.
John Maxon, The Art Institute of Chicago, London, 1970, pp. 39-40, ill.
Alessandro Ballarin, “Introduzione a un catalogo dei disegni di Jacopo Bassano – III,” Arte veneta 27 (1973), pp. 95, 108, 110.
K. J. Garlick, “A Catalogue of Pictures at Althorp,” in The Forty-Fifth Volume of the Walpole Society, 1974-1976, London, 1976, p. 4.
Hugh Brigstocke, Italian and Spanish Paintings in the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1978, pp. 16-17, under no. 1635.
Anne-Marie S. Logan, The “Cabinet” of the Brothers Gerard and Ian Reynst, Amsterdam, Oxford, and London, 1979), p. 114, under no. 6.
W.R. Rearick, “Vita ed opere di Jacopo dal Ponte, detto Bassano, c. 1510-1592” in Jacopo Bassano, exh. cat, Museo Civico, Bassano del Grappa and Kimbell art Museum, Fort Worth, 1992-1993, ed. Beverly Louise Brown and Paola Marini, pp. XCVI, XXIX n.186.
Christopher Lloyd, Italian Paintings before 1600 in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Collection, Chicago, 1993), pp. 25-28, ill.
Alessandro Ballarin, Jacopo Bassano, vol. 2 (Padua, 1996), part 1, tome 2, fig. 740; tome 3, pl. 372.

London, The New Gallery, Exhibition of Venetian Art, 1894-95, no. 115.
London, Thomas Agnew and Sons, Ltd, Spring Exhibition, 1944, no cat.
London, Thomas Agnew and Sons, Ltd, Loan Exhibition of Thirty-Nine Masterpieces of Venetian Painting, 1953, cat. 2.
Venice, Palazzo Ducale, Jacopo Bassano, June 29 - Oct. 27, 1957, cat. 52.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Christmas Exhibition, 1968-69, no cat.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Bill Viola: A 25-Year Survey, October 16, 1999 – January 9, 2000, included in the gallery that held Viola’s The Greeting for the Chicago venue.

Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle (died 1825), Castle Howard, Yorkshire by 1812, probably acquired between about 1770 and 1790 [according to email from Christopher Ridgway dated 3 September 2004 in curatorial file]; by descent to George James Howard, 9th Earl of Carlisle (died 1911), Castle Howard, Yorkshire; by descent to his son the Hon. Geoffrey William Algernon Howard (died 1935), Castle Howard, Yorkshire; his estate sale Christie’s, London, 18 February 1944, no. 3, to Agnew’s [according to Agnew’s invoice dated October 9, 1968 in curatorial file]; sold by Thomas Agnew and Sons, London, to Archibald Werner, Newlands, Kent, 17 May 1944 [see letter from Richard Kingzett, 26 April 1989, in curatorial file]; sold Sotheby’s, London, 27 March 1968, no. 27 to Agnew; sold by Thomas Agnew and Sons, London to the Art Institute in 1968.

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Virgin and Child with the Young Saint John the Baptist

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

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