The Madonna and Child with St John the Baptist and St Peter.

Drawing, red chalk, 20,2 x 29,5 cm, laid paper with watermark (not in Briquet nor Heawood), unsigned (lower right corner torn, several sm. creases, some paint marks at lower quarter, some old repairs at the edges on verso, later added letters in red paint "A Nez (?)", some surface dirt).

Under gilt frame (not studied outside frame).

This charming sheet with the Holy Family is most likely the product of the late sixteenth-century Lombardian school. The subtle, soft atmospheric quality of the figures comes close to the rendering style of Carlo Francesco Nuvolone (1608-1661), who may have been influenced by Murillo and Guido Reni. "The prolific Carlo Francesco Nuvolone first studied with his father, a late Mannerist painter of religious works and still lifes, and subsequently at the Accademia Ambrosiana in Milan, where he met Giulio Cesare Procaccini. Nuvolone's early work displays awareness of the latest developments in Milanese art through his stylistic debt to Procaccini. From Procaccini come the sweet facial expressions on Nuvolone's figures and his delicate modulation of light and shade." (The J. Paul Getty Institute). Sometimes assisted by his brother Giuseppe, Nuvolone received many ecclesiastical commissions for easel paintings and frescoes. He was also a gifted portrait painter and ran an active school. His works can be seen in numerous Milanese churches.
Ref. A. Bayer et. al., Painters of reality: the legacy of Leonardo and Caravaggio in Lombardy, in: Metropolitan Museum New York 2004, p. 241.