Since his youth, Gaetano Gandolfi had painted Madonnas and Holy Families, represented according to a carefully composed and sweet sensiblerie, paintings destined for the affluent middle classes, who saw in these sacred themes, a civilising influence focussed on the human aspects of Christ's life and that of his Mother in the role of protector and consoler.
Gaetano painted many variations of this theme exploring the tender relationship between the young Mother and her Son, which were often given an oval format: these range from the Holy Family painted during his early career to the Holy Family with Saint John dating from the 1880s and to the Madonna breastfeeding the Child from Molinari Prandelli Collection , all works characterized by a gentle sentiment in the shapes and by a sophisticated and elegant use of a light-coloured, harmonious palette: this can be seen in the almost iridescent green of the pillow that supports the Child Jesus and the difference between the greyish white of his linen and the ivory of Mary's veil, which displays a texture typical of Bolognese silk weaving.
The intimate dialogue between Mother and Son is conceived in an iconographically traditional composition, examples of which were studied by Gandolfi allowing him to enrich his style and cultural knowledge whilst at the same time reinterpreting these age old themes to both suit contemporary tastes and adding compositions which went against those same tastes. This was typical of Gandolfi’s style which was characterised by its individuality and freedom, consciously closing the era of the Enlightenment which provided the basis of much of the finest painting of the nineteenth century.
