View source for Madonna and Child in Glory over the City of Bologna

{{Short description|Painting by Annibale Carracci, c.1593}}
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[[File:Annibale Carracci Madonna in gloria sulla Città di Bologna.jpg|thumb|250px|''Madonna and Child in Glory over the City of Bologna'' (c. 1593)]]
'''''Madonna and Child in Glory over the City of Bologna'''''  is a c.1593 oil on canvas painting by [[Annibale Carracci]], also known as '''''The Virgin and Child in the Clouds''''' or the '''''Madonna of Bologna'''''. It is now in [[Christ Church Picture Gallery]] in Oxford.
==History==
[[File:Madonna del terremoto - Francia.jpg|left|thumb|Francesco Francia, ''Madonna of the Earthquake'', 1505, [[Palazzo d'Accursio]], Bologna]]
It is unanimously identified with the work seen in the private chapel at Palazzo Caprara in [[Bologna]] by [[Giovanni Pietro Bellori]] and entitled "Madonna [and Child] in Glory with Angels over the City of Bologna seen in the distance" in his 1672 ''Vite dei Pittori, Scultori ed Architetti Moderni''.<ref name= PosnerII >Donald Posner, ''Annibale Carracci: A Study in the reform of Italian Painting around 1590'', Londra, 1971, Vol. II, N. 80, pp.  33-34.</ref> The Caprara family was powerful and active in politics, producing several noted soldiers, which probably explains the clear civic symbolism of the work, almost certainly commissioned by them.<ref name="Alessandro Brogi 2006, p. 210">{{in lang|it}} Alessandro Brogi, in Daniele Benati ed Eugenio Riccomini (a cura di), ''Annibale Carracci, Catalogo della mostra Bologna e Roma 2006-2007'', Milano, 2006, p. 258.</ref> Its dating is solely on stylistic grounds, with no documents surviving as to its commissioning and no date painted onto the work itself.
Influenced by [[Correggio]] and Venetian painters like the same artist's 1593 ''[[Madonna and Child with Saints (Annibale Carracci, 1593)|Madonna and Child with Saints]]'',<ref name= PosnerI /> its composition is similar to ''Madonna of the Earthquake'', a [[Francesco Francia]] work commissioned by the city of Bologna just under fifty years earlier as an [[ex voto]] for ending a series of earthquakes that had terrorised the city's inhabitants in 1505.<ref>{{in lang|it}} Gian Carlo Cavalli, ''  Mostra dei Carracci, 1 settembre-25 novembre 1956, Bologna. Palazzo dell'Archiginnasio; Catalogo critico delle opere'', Bologna, 1956, pp. 190-191.</ref> Its balanced composition also suggests influence from Renaissance artists from Florence and the rest of central Italy<ref name= PosnerI >Donald Posner, ''op. cit.'', Vol. I, p.  51.</ref> and from works by [[Raphael]] such as his ''[[Ezekiel's Vision (Raphael)|Ezekiel's Vision]]'', which was for a long time in Bologna - the proportions of the vision's foreground and the far-off bird's eye background landscape both seem to have been a strong influence on the centre of the work now in Oxford.<ref name="Alessandro Brogi 2006, p. 210"/>
A smaller version of the work on card was re-discovered by the American art historian [[John T. Spike]], who published on it in 2002, proposing it was an autograph work by Annibale, possibly a preliminary [[modello]] requested by the painting's commissioner for final approval.<ref>John T. Spike, ''A Rediscovered Modello for the Caprara Altarpiece by Annibale Carracci'', in ''Studi di Storia dell'Arte'', 13, 2002, pp. 251-258.</ref> Alessandro Brogi rejected this as an autograph work, but on its exhibition at a [[Sassoferrato]] exhibition in 2009 Massimo Pulini accepted Spike's attribution.<ref>{{in lang|it}} Massimo Pulini, ''Il Sassoferrato. Un preraffaellita tra i puristi del Seicento'', Milano, 2009, p. 126.</ref> Two preparatory drawings survive in the [[Albertina, Vienna]] and two in the [[Devonshire Collection]] at [[Chatsworth House]] in the UK,<ref name= PosnerII /> though all four differ from the final painted composition.
It is unknown when the work left Italy, but it was already in England by the 17th century, when it was recorded in [[James Thornhill]]'s collections. It passed through a number of other collections before being bequeathed to its present owner by [[John Guise (British Army officer)|John Guise]] in 1765.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/the-virgin-and-child-in-the-clouds-madonna-of-bologna-229182|title=ArtUK entry}}</ref><ref name= PosnerII />
<gallery>
Madonna_in_Gloria_sulla_città_di_Bologna_-_Sassoferrato.jpg|The version on card
Studio per la Madonna in Gloria sulla città di Bologna - Annibale Carracci (3).png|Study for the work, Chatsworth House
Studio per la Madonna in Gloria sulla città di Bologna - Annibale Carracci (4).png|Study for the work, Chatsworth House
Studio per la Madonna in Gloria sulla città di Bologna - Annibale Carracci (2).png|Study for the work, Albertina
Studio per la Madonna in Gloria sulla città di Bologna - Annibale Carracci (1).png|Study for the work, Albertina
</gallery>
==References==
<references/>
{{Annibale Carracci}}
{{Authority control}}
[[Category:1593 paintings]]
[[Category:Paintings of the Madonna and Child]]
[[Category:Paintings by Annibale Carracci]]
[[Category:Paintings in Christ Church Picture Gallery]]