Holy Family with St. John the Baptist

The Holy Family with St. John the Baptist, dated 1600 and in the Eva Klabin House Museum in Rio de Janeiro, is among the earliest dated works attributed to Strozzi — placing him in his late teens if he was born c.1581-82. The work's presence in Brazil reflects the dispersal of Italian Baroque painting through international trade and collecting, eventually reaching South American collections. The Holy Family with the infant Baptist was a subject made famous in the High Renaissance by Leonardo's Burlington House cartoon and Raphael's multiple Madonnas, and young Strozzi would have been expected to engage with that tradition while establishing his individual voice. The Eva Klabin collection, a significant private museum in Rio de Janeiro, holds European works of considerable quality.

Canvas with the relatively smooth, careful technique of a young painter demonstrating mastery before developing his mature broad brushwork. Figure groupings follow the triangular compositional conventions of High Renaissance Holy Family pictures — stability of form as theological statement. The Christ child and infant Baptist interact in ways that foreshadow their adult relationship.