Lubin Baugin, The Holy Family with Saints and Angels

This small picture is crowded with figures arranged within a triangular composition. The Virgin Mary clasps two small children – Christ and John the Baptist – to her lap. Saint Elizabeth, Mary’s cousin and the Baptist’s mother, kneels beside her. In shadow, behind the brightly lit group in the foreground, are Saint Joseph and angels. Joseph’s head is awkwardly positioned and the women’s poses are stiff rather than graceful. Although the characters in this scene are from the Bible, the meeting between the two families isn't recorded there.

An infrared photograph of the painting reveals that the artist changed his mind about the composition: he painted out the head of a donkey behind Elizabeth and another person beside Joseph. The boy in the centre of the picture is only faintly indicated, and perhaps belongs to an earlier original composition. Just visible to the naked eye are several faint lines in the bottom left corner which could be rocks or fragments of ruins. Many areas of Baugin’s picture have been thinly painted. Its sketchy, unfinished appearance is partly due to worn areas of paint, as can be seen the faded colour of the Virgin’s red sleeve and the angel’s wings. There has been little attempt to create perspective in certain areas, such as the trees, which are painted using single lines and dashes of paint. However, the blue of the mountains reflects the way that distance appears to distort the appearance of colours.

Baugin spent most of his career in Paris but was in Italy from 1636 to 1640, and was greatly influenced by Italian painting. The composition, appearance of the figures and bright palette owe something to the work of Raphael and Parmigianino. For the paintings Baugin produced in Paris he used a grey ground layer of paint. This painting has a white ground, suggesting that it was not painted in France. It is possible that the original composition was started elsewhere, perhaps Italy, and the painting was finished in Paris.