Holy Family with Saint Anne

Many features of this beautifully preserved painting make it exceptional: the smooth, reductive geometry of the Virgin’s face, the dangling pair of cherries, and Christ’s foreshortened face and outstretched arms. It may record a lost work by the painter and printmaker Jacques Bellange (ca. 1575–1616), a still poorly understood artist who worked for the Dukes of Lorraine in northeast France, where Georges de La Tour (1593–1652) also made his career. Compressed compositions and the unusual treatment of traditional themes, as found here, are typical of Bellange’s ingenuity and engagement with Northern European mannerism.