Conservation funded by the James R. Dougherty, Jr. Foundation, Inc.

Piero di Cosimo was born in Florence in 1462, and he apprenticed with the painter Cosimo Rosselli, whose name he ended up adopting. This tender painting is from the artist’s late period, dating to circa 1520, and depicts Mary, Joseph, and the Christ Child in the company of the young Saint John the Baptist in a countryside setting. Jesus stands in a contrapposto pose, leaning his weight upon one of his chubby legs, and is notably off center. He points to the heavens with one hand and touches Mary’s open book with the other, as if aware of his destiny, which has already been written among its prophetic pages. Both the Christ Child and St. Joseph — a possible self-portrait of the artist — look out toward the spectator. The young St. John sits in the foreground as he concentrates on tying together a cross made of reeds. It is likely that the work was produced for a Florentine patron, for the Baptist is the city’s patron saint, and contemporary devotion to the young St. John in particular was widespread in Piero di Cosimo’s day.

Conservator Claudia Vittori removed a thick layer of darkened varnish from the surface of the painting, as well as chromatically-altered overpainting from previous conservation treatments. Non-invasive analyses using UV and Infrared photography as well as XRF pigment testing allowed the conservator to identify the artist’s working technique and original pigments. Areas of lifting and flaking paint were consolidated and small losses were inpainted before a final layer of protective varnish was applied.

Prior to conservation, the panel painting had been attached to its frame in a way that created tension for the wooden support structure and the work was suffering from an infestation of wood-boring insects. Panel painting specialist Roberto Saccuman carefully removed the frame and installed a new system on the back of the painting to relieve pressure on the wooden support before re-installing the frame in a more suitable way.

For select projects, conservation dossiers in Italian containing limited textual and photographic documentation may be available for consultation by appointment at the Venice office of Save Venice and the Rosand Library & Study Center. For inquiries, please contact us at venice@savevenice.org.

Piero di Cosimo
Holy Family with the Young Saint John
c. 1520, oil on panel
119 x 87 cm