Provenance

Niccolò Antinori

Italian, active 16th century

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Two nude young boys and a young woman holding a standing infant are tightly grouped around a table, almost filling this vertical painting. They all have pale skin tinged with pink. The woman is shown from the knees up, and she stands at the front, right corner of the table, which spans most of the composition. Facing our left in profile, her auburn-brown hair is pulled back and wrapped with a slate-blue ribbon, and is wound around the crown of her head. She looks down with dark eyes under thin brows. She has a long nose, and her full, dusty rose-pink lips are closed. Two thin cords hang like necklaces just above the neckline of her carnation-pink gown, which is unbuttoned to reveal one bare breast. The plump infant stands at the center of the group. The woman holds him close to her body, but he turns his face away to look at the young boy on our left. That child faces our right in profile and has wavy, copper-red hair. He is nude except for a blue sash, which is tied once tightly around his waist and then wrapped so a loose hoop hangs down over his belly. His right knee, closer to us, rests on an olive-green cloth crumpled on the table beneath him. He leans back slightly, with his belly pushed forward, and looks down at the infant while pointing to us with his closest hand. A third child, with unruly honey-blond hair, stands facing us from the back of the group, so is seen between the woman and the pointing child. The child at the back of the group touches the woman’s shoulder with one hand, looking straight at us with mouth slightly open. A burgundy-red sash is visible around the waist. Near the bottom edge of the painting, the tabletop is covered with a pumpkin-orange cloth striped with plum-purple and black. A book rests near the baby’s feet and is partially covered by the green cloth to our left. A peacock-blue cloth is bunched on the right half of the table and hangs off that side, obscuring the woman’s knees. The background is painted with broad strokes and swirls of brown and flint blue, with flickers of red and gold in the upper right.
Andrea del Sarto, Charity, before 1530, oil on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1957.14.5

Charity

Andrea del Sarto · before 1530 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1957.14.5