An Intriguing Renaissance Holy Family at Bonhams Paris

Bonhams will hold its Old Master and 19th Century Paintings sale in Paris on 4 November, bringing together a varied selection of European paintings ranging from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century. Among the earlier works is a particularly appealing Holy Family with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist, catalogued as attributed to the Bolognese painter Giovanni Battista Ramenghi (1521–1601), known as Bagnacavallo the Younger, with an estimate of €25,000–35,000.

Painted in oil on panel and measuring 74.3 × 60 cm, the composition brings together five figures in an unusually intimate arrangement. The Virgin, her head gently inclined, presides over the scene as the Christ Child reaches towards the young Saint John, who kneels before him with his hands clasped in devotion. Saint Anne watches from the left, while the shadowed figure of Saint Joseph completes the composition on the right.

There is a remarkable delicacy to the painting, particularly in the treatment of the Virgin's face, the beautifully modelled Christ Child and the subtle interplay of hands through which the composition is brought together. The muted colours, enlivened by the pink of the Virgin's sleeve and the green of her veil, lend the scene a quiet harmony. The figures are tightly grouped, yet the arrangement never feels crowded, the artist achieving a convincing sense of depth and movement within a relatively restricted space.

The painting is unmistakably indebted to Raphael, whose influence on the development of sixteenth-century Bolognese painting was profound. Yet there is something about the quality of the execution, particularly the refined characterisation of the Virgin and the sophisticated relationship between the two children, that makes the attribution especially worthy of consideration.

Bonhams suggests a mature work by Bagnacavallo the Younger, whose father, Bartolomeo Ramenghi, had been among the important interpreters of Raphael's art in Bologna. The younger Ramenghi trained in his father's workshop and subsequently worked with Francesco Primaticcio at Fontainebleau, absorbing the more elaborate Mannerist language that would characterise much of his mature production. The auction house compares the present picture with his Madonna and Child with Saints, dated 1563, in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna.

Interestingly, the painting has already appeared on the market under different attributions. Offered by Pandolfini in Florence on 1 July 2020, as lot 12, it was catalogued as a work by Bagnacavallo the Younger, with an estimate of €20,000–30,000. The catalogue referred to an opinion from the distinguished Italian art historian Mina Gregori, who recognised its Bolognese character and associated it with the artist's mature period.

When the painting subsequently appeared at Lucas Aste in Milan on 10 September 2024, however, an attribution to Innocenzo da Imola (c.1490–1550) was advanced. This alternative is of particular interest. Innocenzo was himself deeply influenced by Raphael and developed a highly accomplished language of devotional painting, in which the classical balance of his compositions was combined with a distinctive softness of modelling and expression.

The earlier attribution is certainly worth revisiting. The present picture possesses an elegance and tenderness which seem closer in spirit to the Raphaelesque painting of the first half of the sixteenth century than to some of the more self-consciously Mannerist works associated with Bagnacavallo's later career. This is not, of course, sufficient to establish an alternative authorship, and the artist's prolonged attachment to earlier models complicates any attempt at dating on stylistic grounds alone. Nevertheless, the quality is sufficiently compelling to invite a closer examination of the painting and its relationship to the wider Bolognese school.

The Bonhams sale contains several other works of interest, including a signed still life by the Neapolitan painter Giuseppe Recco, estimated at €20,000–30,000, and Claude-Joseph Vernet's La Tempête, estimated at €35,000–45,000. Among the nineteenth-century offerings is a group of four works by Maurice Leloir, expected to fetch €60,000–80,000.

Yet the Holy Family is arguably one of the more intriguing opportunities for connoisseurship in the sale. Whatever the eventual resolution of its attribution, it is an accomplished and sensitive example of Renaissance devotional painting, whose evident quality may well encourage collectors to look beyond the cautious designation in the catalogue.

Bonhams, Old Master and 19th Century Paintings, Paris, 4 November 2026, lot 109. Estimate €25,000–35,000.