Antonio Viviani Il Sordo di Urbino

(Urbino, 1560 - Urbino, 1620)

Attributed to

Oil on canvas

133x98 cm. Lath frame

This is a faithful copy, but smaller than the original (which measures 233x 179 cm.), of Federico Barrocci's Holy Family with Saints Elizabeth, John and Zechariah, known as the Madonna of the Cat (Florence, Uffizi). In the latest edition of his monograph devoted to Barocci (A. Emiliani, Federico Barocci, Recanati, Ars Books, 2008, vol. II, p. 140) Andrea Emiliani thus referred to our painting in the card dedicated to the Madonna della Gatta: "The writer in distant years (circa 1989) purchased in Brescia a copy perhaps by the hand of Sordino," where the "Sordino" is not Alessandro Calvi, a Bolognese painter of the late eighteenth century, but Antonio Viviani, known as the Sordo (1560-1620) among the best and most faithful artists active in Barrocci's workshop.