CÍRCULO DE LAVINIA FONTANA (Escuela española, SIGLO XVI)La Virgen del Silencio; Sagrada Familia con San Juanito y Niño Jesús dormido

Oil on panel. 124,5 x 107 cm. With inventory number in the lower left corner: "676". REFERENCE BIBLIOGRAPHY: RUÍZ GÓMEZ, Leticia, Historia de dos pintoras: Sofonisba Anguissola y Lavinia Fontana, Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, exhibition catalog, 2019, pp. 206- 207. In the foreground the Infant Jesus asleep in his cradle, while the Virgin in an act of lifting a transparent veil, with unparalleled closeness and tenderness, covers the Infant Jesus. St. Johnny, a child, holds the index finger of his right hand to his mouth imploring silence so as not to wake the Child, and in his left hand he holds a cross with a phylactery that prefigures the Passion of Christ. In the background, on the right, St. Joseph, with an attentive gaze directed to the Child, holds the croziered staff. The figures are set against a background of green drapery. Work based on the canvas of the Virgin of Silence painted by Lavinia Fontana in 1589 and preserved in Royal Collections, Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo del Escorial, with inventory number "10045145". Lavinia Fontana, takes up the model of the Virgin of the veil by Raphael (1483-1520) as did Sebastiano del Piombo (ca. 1485-1547). The arrival of the painting at the Spanish court of Lavinia Fontana had great repercussion and was a source of inspiration for the painters of the time. As mentioned by Fray José Sigüenza in Fundación del monasterio de El Escorial (1602), Madrid, Turner, 1988, p. 535, several versions are preserved; one of them in embroidered miniature, with inventory number: "10014390", which is kept in the Monastery of El Escorial, can be related compositionally with the work we present here.