Barocci, The Madonna of the Cherries

Photogallery

Barocci, The Madonna of the Cherries
Barocci, The Madonna of the Cherries
Pinacoteca

The canvas depicting the Holy Family in a moment of rest during the Flight to Egypt was painted by Federico Barocci for his friend the art collector Simonetto Anastagi di Perugia, to whom he sent the work in 1573. This refined work by the painter from Urbino, although inspired by similar compositions by Correggio, expresses the religious theme with immediate gestures and harmonious simplicity, transferring the divine sphere into a more human context in accordance with the new canons of the Counterreformation. The palm that, with its shadow and fruit would have provided shelter and sustenance to the Virgin Mary and the Baby Jesus, according to the apocryphal Gospel of the the pseudo-Matthew, is here substituted by a cherry tree, whose fruit symbolically allude to the passion of Christ and the sweetness of Paradise. Upon the death of Anastagi in 1602, the work passed to the Jesuits of Perugia where it remained until 1773. Following the suppresion of the order the work reached the Quirinal Palace in Rome, from where it was transferred in 1790 to the old Vatican Pinacoteca. It subsequently passed to the Apostolic Palaces, and finally returned to the Pinacoteca at the time of St. Pius X (1903-1914).