1848 Madonna Adoring The Sleeping Child Painting Oil on Canvas by Adele Pinot

Madonna Adoring the Sleeping Child

Oil on canvas, 97 x 107 cm

Signed lower right “Adele Pinot 1848”

The canvas examined depicts the Madonna and Child, caught in a moment of great tenderness and intimacy. Wrapped in a brilliant luminosity, the little Jesus is depicted in the foreground comfortably lying on some soft drapes. The face appears peacefully asleep and is framed by blond curls; the complexion is white and the legs, just curled up and slightly bent at the knee, help to accentuate the naturalness and sweetness of the composition. Full of tenderness and maternal love, the figure of the Madonna appears, with delicate features and a head covered by a veil, which, placed at three quarters, is totally attracted to the contemplation of her little son. The high quality that can be found in the execution of the figures is also emphasized in the rendering of the soft drapery and in the careful attention to detail.

The work, created in 1848 by the French artist Adele Pinot, re-elaborates the famous Madonna in adoration of the Child by Guido Reni (Bologna, 1575 – 1642) now preserved in the Doria Pamphilj Gallery in Rome. Reni’s oval-shaped painting, probably repeated by the master, was the object of a certain fortune both in painting and engraving. In fact, there is an early and faithful copy made by Giovanni Battista Salvi, known as Sassoferrato (Sassoferrato, 1609 – Rome, 1685), currently preserved in the Galleria Parmeggiani at the Civic Museums of Reggio Emilia. Salvi must have particularly appreciated the Renian iconographic invention, as he subsequently derived many paintings of the same subject and similar composition, as evidenced by his Madonna with sleeping child in the Estense Gallery in Modena. Also dated to the seventeenth century are another pictorial reproduction of the work now preserved at the National Museum of Palazzo Mansi in Lucca and some engravings made, with some variations, by the Dutch Cornelis Bloemaert and the French painter Jean Boulanger both placed in the Cabinet of Drawings and Prints of the National Art Gallery of Bologna. The Bloemaart burin was printed by Giovanni Giacomo De ‘Rossi and features a dedication to the Spanish nobleman Pietro Paolo Avila, «Picturae et liberalium artium Studiosisimo», while that of Jean Boulanger was published by the Parisian Jean Leblond I. by the Dutch Cornelis Bloemaert and the French painter Jean Boulanger both placed in the Cabinet of Drawings and Prints of the National Art Gallery of Bologna. The Bloemaart burin was printed by Giovanni Giacomo De ‘Rossi and features a dedication to the Spanish nobleman Pietro Paolo Avila, «Picturae et liberalium artium Studiosisimo», while that of Jean Boulanger was published by the Parisian Jean Leblond I. by the Dutch Cornelis Bloemaert and the French painter Jean Boulanger both placed in the Cabinet of Drawings and Prints of the National Art Gallery of Bologna. The Bloemaart burin was printed by Giovanni Giacomo De ‘Rossi and features a dedication to the Spanish nobleman Pietro Paolo Avila, «Picturae et liberalium artium Studiosisimo», while that of Jean Boulanger was published by the Parisian Jean Leblond I.

These engravings, the d’après and the canvases by Sassoferrato undoubtedly contributed to the immense fortune of this image by Reni, widespread and appreciated over the centuries above all for its devotional potential and the intense emotionality transmitted.