The Holy Family with Four Saints and a Female Donor

c. 1510

Antonio Rimpatta (Italian, documented from 1509–died 1531/32)

Here, the infant Jesus sits in a central position on the lap of his mother, Mary, with Saint John the Evangelist nearby, holding a golden chalice. The half-length representation of a kneeling woman at the bottom right represents the donor who commissioned the painting, likely for a small church or private chapel. This type of composition, with several figures grouped around the Holy Family and a donor present, is known as a sacra conversazione (sacred conversation) and was popular in 16th-century Italy.

Antonio Rimpatta was probably born in Bologna before relocating to Naples. He traveled frequently throughout central Italy, where he absorbed the characteristics of a variety of painters, resulting in an eclectic style.

Status: On View, Gallery 205
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Antonio Rimpatta
Title: The Holy Family with Four Saints and a Female Donor
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.: 1505–1515
Medium: Oil on panel
Inscriptions: Inscribed in gold pigment: [SVM VE]R[A] LVX [MVNDI] EGO (on the Christ Child's halo)
Dimensions: 125.3 × 120 cm (49 3/8 × 47 1/4 in.); Framed: 147.4 × 141.7 × 10.2 cm (58 × 55 3/4 × 4 in.)
Credit Line: Clyde M. Carr Fund
Reference Number: 1963.209
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/111250/manifest.json

A Catalogue of Paintings, Statues, Busts, etc. at Marbury Hall, the Seat of John Smith Barry, Esq., in the County of Chester (London, 1814), p. 9, no. 225; 2nd ed. (Warrington, 1819), p. 9, no. 225.
Gustav Friedrich Waagen, Galleries and Cabinets of Art in Great Britain (London, 1857), p. 409.
Gustav Friedrich Waagen, Galleries and Cabinets of Art in Great Britain: Being an Account of More than Forty Collections of Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, MSS. (London, 1957), vol. 4 (supplemental), p. 409.
Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti, “I falsi artistici,” Critica d’arte 8 (1961), pp. 16–17, fig. 16.
John Maxon, The Art Institute of Chicago (London, 1970), p. 251, ill.
Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1972), pp. 136, 571.
Anchise Tempestini, “Antonio da Bologna: Uno o due?” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 25 (1981), pp. 344–52, fig. 6.
Christopher Lloyd, Italian Paintings before 1600 in the Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Collection (Chicago, 1993), pp. 206–09, ill.
Maria Teresa Fiorio, Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio: un pittore milanese nel lume di Leonardo (Milan, 2000), p. 182, ill.

Manchester, Art Treasures of the United Kingdom, 1857, no. 92, as Beltraffio [sic].
London, Royal Academy of Arts, Works by the Old Masters, 1879, no. 175, as Boltraffio.

Acquired either by James Hughes Smith-Barry (1746?–1801) or by his eldest son John Smith-Barry (b. 1793), both of Marbury Hall, near Northwich, Cheshire, and Fota Island, County Cork, Ireland; by descent to Arthur Hugh Smith-Barry (d. 1925), first and last Lord Barrymore; by descent to his daughter the Honorable Mrs. Dorothy Elizabeth Bell of Fota Island, County Cork, Ireland; sold Sotheby’s, London, June 21, 1933, no. 44 (ill.), as Boltraffio. Sold Sotheby’s, London, March 23, 1960, no. 116 (ill.), as Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio, to H. M. Calmann [according to annotated sale catalogue, Ryerson Library, the Art Institute of Chicago]. H. M. Calmann, London, 1960–63; sold by Calmann to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1963.

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The Holy Family with Four Saints and a Female Donor

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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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