The Holy Family

Artist Lorenzo di Ottavio Costa (Italian, ca.1460-1535)

Place of OriginMantua, Italy

Dateabout 1510

DimensionsFrame: 44 1/4 × 37 1/2 × 3 in. (112.4 × 95.3 × 7.6 cm)
Painting: 35 × 25 1/2 in. (88.9 × 64.8 cm)

MediumOil (and perhaps tempera) on wood panel

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1965.174

Not on View

Label TextPainted for one of the most intelligent and powerful women of the Renaissance, this image of a sweet-faced Madonna with Joseph and the infant Jesus creates a serene mood with its charming landscape peopled by music-playing shepherds (paint loss has turned one shepherd, who plays a bagpipe, into a ghost-like outline). Isabella d’Este, wife of the Marquis of Mantua, commissioned the painting from Costa, who was the court painter at Mantua from 1506 till his death in 1535. Highly educated and sophisticated, Isabella was well known for her patronage of music, literature, and art.Published ReferencesBerenson, B., North Italian Painters of the Renaissance, New York, 1907, p. 204.

Gerevich, T., "Lorenzo Costa," Thieme-Becker, Leipzig, 1912, VII, p. 529.

Venturi, A., Storia dell'arte italiana, Milan, 1914, VII, part III, p. 806, fig. 596.

Berenson, B., Italian Pictures of the Renaissance, Oxford, 1932, p. 157.

Berenson, B., Pitture italiane del Rinascimento, Milan, 1936, p. 135.

Varese, R., Lorenzo Costa, Milan, 1967, no. 75, fig. 56 (as in Barberini Collection).

"Quality the criterion," Apollo, vol. 86, no. 70, December 1967, p. 446, 449, repr. (col.) pl. I., p. 414.

Agnew, Geoffry, Agnew's 1817-1967, London, 1967, repr. no page number.

Berenson, B., Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Central Italian and North Italian Schools, London, 1968, I, p. 97.

"La Chronique des Arts," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, vol. 73, no. 238, February 1969, p. 56, repr.

"Treasures for Toledo," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, vol. 12, no. 4, Winter 1969, p. 96 repr.

Fredericksen, Burton B. and Zeri, Federico, Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections, Cambridge, MA, 1972, p. 57, 352.

Toledo Museum of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, European Paintings, Toledo, 1976, p. 41, pl. 11.

Negro, Emilio and Nicosetta Roio, Lorenzo Costa, 1460-1535, Modena [2001], no. 32, p. 107, repr. and pl. XV, p. 63 (col.).

Sgarbi, Vittorio, and Michele Danieli, RINASCIMENTO A FERRARA: Ercole de' Roberti e Lorenzo Costa, Milan, Silvana Editorale, 2023, p. 382, repr. (col.) cat.100, p. 363.

Exhibition HistoryFerrara, Italy, Palazzo dei Diamanti, Ercole De'Roberti e Lorenzo Costa, February 18 - June 19, 2023