Lorenzo Capponi

Italian, born 1733

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Two women stand clasping hands between two seated men, all against a deep landscape with hills and a town in this nearly square painting. Dozens of people are gathered in the town to our right, and several cluster in front of a building to our left. All the people have pale, peachy skin. Close to us, the two women both have translucent, plate-like halos. They stand with their bodies angled toward each other, and they look at each other. The woman to our left, Mary, has smooth skin with a delicate profile. She wears a gold-edged, ultramarine-blue robe lined with forest green over a long-sleeved, ruby-red dress. Sandaled toes peek under the hem. An eggshell-white and gold scarf drapes over her blond hair, which is pulled back, and over her shoulders. Leaning toward her companion, Mary gazes directly into the eyes of the older woman, Elizabeth. They clasp their right hands, and Mary touches Elizabeth’s shoulder. They stand close together, so only a sliver of the background landscape is visible between their cloaks. Elizabeth wears a maroon-red dress mostly covered by a wine-red cloak that wraps around her body. Her opaque, white scarf drapes over her head and ties loosely on her chest. Her free, left hand is raised, the palm facing Mary. The women stand on a slightly raised platform as the elderly men sit on either side, their bodies angled toward the women. Both men have faint, barely visible halos floating over their balding heads. They have fringes of gray hair and long, gray beards. Their foreheads are deeply lined with wrinkles, and they look down long, straight noses at their laps. To our left, the man wears a scarlet-red cloak over a harvest-yellow garment with gray sleeves. He hunches over a book in his lap. Three gold balls lie next to him, near Mary’s feet. On our right, the second man wears black, round spectacles perched on his nose. The hood of his black robe lies across his shoulders, over an olive-green cape. The cape has gold trim, and the underside is scarlet red. He writes on a narrow piece of parchment with a quill on a closed, blue-covered book. He braces the book and an ink pot with one hand, and a leather pouch hangs from a cord in that hand. At his feet lie an iron-colored bell, a wooden cane, and a brown book. A single sprig of garnet-red flowers lies on the stone floor between the two men. Beyond the four people, the sand-colored land dips down between the town to our right and the building to our left. Dozens of women holding babies struggle against men with swords on a platform in the town. Four people look on from windows above, and buildings continue into the distance along high, steep hills. One of the buildings there is topped by a cross, and the side of that structure is painted with a scene showing a kneeling, winged angel holding a white lily toward a woman dressed in green, who kneels and crosses her arms over her chest. To our left and deep in the shadow cast by a tall building there, a woman and several men gather and some kneel around a baby. Beyond, the land extends to body of vivid blue water, which leads back to a pale blue mountain in the deep distance. A few puffy clouds float across the sky above, which deepens from powder blue along the top edge to nearly white along the horizon.
Piero di Cosimo, The Visitation with Saint Nicholas and Saint Anthony Abbot, c. 1489/1490, oil on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1939.1.361

The Visitation with Saint Nicholas and Saint Anthony Abbot

Piero di Cosimo · c. 1489/1490 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1939.1.361

Two women, a man, and two pudgy children create a close-knit group against a dark brown background in this vertical painting. The people all have pale skin with rosy cheeks, blond or copper-colored hair, and delicate gold rings as halos. One child, Jesus, sits on a stone surface at the center of the composition. He leans onto one hip so his feet rest off to our left. His right arm reaches across his chest as he holds up the first two fingers of that hand. He turns his head back to our left to look up at Mary, who stands behind him to our left as she bends down close to the child. She tips her head to our left, and she looks down and off in that direction with brown eyes. A spring-green cloth loops around a white headdress and drapes around her neck. She wears a teal-blue robe over a cranberry-pink dress. In front of her and to our left, Saint Anne, leans toward Jesus from next to the stone. Saint Anne’s skin is notably pale, and wrinkles line her eyes and lips, which are parted. Her face tips up as she gazes heavenward with deep-set eyes. A white cloth drapes over her head and around her shoulders over a lilac-purple garment. She holds a broken staff like walking stick with the hand we see in the lower left corner of the painting. In the lower right and in front of the stone, the second child, Saint John the Baptist, looks at us with wide-set, serious eyes as he points up to Jesus. Saint John has brown curls and pudgy cheeks. A fawn-brown cloth drapes over his far shoulder. Finally, a young man with a wispy beard stands back-to-back with Mary so he fills the upper right corner of the composition. He turns his head to look down over his right shoulder. A gray-blue cloth wraps around his head, and he also holds a broken staff.
Agnolo Bronzino, The Holy Family, c. 1527/1528, oil on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1939.1.387

The Holy Family

Agnolo Bronzino · c. 1527/1528 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1939.1.387