Carlo Maratta, Italian 1625-1713- The Holy Family, with Saint Joseph...

Carlo Maratta,
Italian 1625-1713-

The Holy Family, with Saint Joseph embracing the Christ Child;

red chalk on laid paper, bears initials 'C.M.' (lower right), 24 x 14.4 cm., (unframed).

Provenance:
with Hill-Stone, USA.
Private Collection.

Note:
We are grateful to Dario Beccarini who has kindly confirmed the attribution on the basis of a digital image.

The present work appears to relate to a painting by Maratta which sold at Sotheby's, London, 8 December 2016, lot 162. The striking figures of Saint Joseph and the Christ Child embracing also appear in isolation in a tondo traditionally attributed to Maratta, held at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, New Zealand [no.2-1948], and documented by the 17th-century art historian Gian Pietro Bellori as being painted in 1687 as a gift for Giuseppe Ghezzi, painter and secretary of the Accademia di San Luca, Rome (G.P. Bellori, 'The Lives of the Modern Painters, Sculptors and Architects', A. and H. Wohl and T. Montanari (trans. and ed.), New York, 2005, p.425).