Holy Family in a Landscape

Franciabigio painted this Holy Family in a Landscape around 1520, an outdoor devotional composition that combined the sacred family group with the natural setting that was becoming increasingly important in Florentine devotional painting of the early sixteenth century. The landscape Holy Family—the holy figures in an outdoor setting rather than a domestic interior or architectural throne—created a quality of informal family intimacy that contrasted with the formal hierarchies of the sacra conversazione altarpiece. Working alongside Andrea del Sarto, Franciabigio developed landscape backgrounds of considerable naturalistic depth that gave his devotional figures a natural setting of Tuscan warmth. His characteristic combination of Raphaelesque figure clarity and the more atmospheric landscape approach of his Florentine formation gave the landscape Holy Family type a quality of accessible devotional warmth.

The landscape setting provides an atmospheric backdrop for the intimate Holy Family group. Franciabigio's Florentine training is evident in the solid figure construction and the balanced relationship between figures and landscape.