Within a bower formed by interwoven branches, leaves of fig and climbing jasmine, the Virgin, Saint Joseph and Saint Catherine are bound together in an intense emotional experience centred on the Christ Child—a type of devotional image known as a Holy Conversation. The intensity of the three protagonists as they speculate on the future of the Child is deeply moving. The intimacy of the foreground setting is emphasised against the expanse of the landscape of considerable beauty, with the river winding its way into the distance.

The Virgin, who appears distracted, turns from the open book in her left hand while holding her right hand protectively over the head of the sleeping Infant. The prominent position of Saint Joseph at the centre of the composition is exceptional among images of this type. It is Joseph who performs the principal act of lifting the pure white cloth to show the newborn Infant to Saint Catherine, who is represented with hands held in prayer rather than her traditional gesture towards Christ in Mystic Marriage—the subject of Lorenzo Lotto’s painting of 1523 (cat. 47).

Jasmine flowers appear in the vine above Saint Catherine—a symbol of her virginity. The fig tree under which the Infant sleeps is said to have provided wood for the Cross. Sleep is usually a metaphor for Christ’s future death, which is already in the Virgin’s mind as she looks away. His entombment is also predicted in the sarcophagus form of the parapet on which Lotto has placed his signature and date: ‘Laurentius Lotus 1533’. The location of Lotto’s signature in religious subjects is often close to Christ, as in his Madonna and Child with Saints c.1506,[1] where the Christ Child reads Lotto’s name on a parchment scroll—perhaps assuring the painter of a place in Paradise.[2]

Lotto painted this Holy Conversation in the year he left Venice to spend seven years in the Marches: it is assumed he created the work in the first months of 1533 before travelling to Monte San Giusto and Loreto. There are at least six versions of the composition, testifying to its popularity with both the artist and his patrons. The Bergamo version is judged to be of exceptional quality, and the earliest. It was acquired by Count Guglielmo Lochis in Milan in 1829, but given that there are many versions it is difficult to identify an earlier provenance or patron.[3]

Although Lotto is one of the best documented Italian artists of the sixteenth century, because of his peripatetic career, moving from Venice to Treviso, to Bergamo and to the Marches, he has only recently received the recognition that he deserves—except in Bergamo where he has always been valued.

Jaynie Anderson

[1]National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh.

[2]See Louise C. Matthews, ‘The painter’s presence: Signatures in Venetian Renaissance pictures’, Art Bulletin, vol. 80 (1998), pp. 616–48.

[3]Guglielmo Lochis, La pinacoteca e la villa Lochis alla Crocetta di Mozzo presso Bergamo con notizie biografiche degli autori dei quadri, Bergamo: Tipografia Natali, 1858, pp. 8–10.