Madonna and Child with Saints Lucy, Dominic, and Louis of France

Executed on a small copper plate, Annibale Carracci’s composition is simultaneously intimate and monumental—an altarpiece in miniature. The Virgin, wrapped in a blue mantle and red dress, is seated on the left. Extending her right arm downward, she holds a book which rests on a basket containing a small white robe—probably intended for the Christ child in her lap. The lively child, balanced precariously on a pillow, clutches onto his mother’s dress with his right arm, while with his left he gestures towards Saint Lucy’s eye, resting on their customary plate. The veiled female saint, wearing a red dress and yellow cloak, kneels in front of him and the Virgin. A book and the palm of martyrdom lay at her feet. Behind this main group, two other saints watch the scene with devotion. A crowned Saint Louis of France, dressed in blue and wearing a golden demask cloak, stands on the left holding a scepter. The fleur-de-lys is discernible at the apex of his scepter and woven throughout the ornament of his cloak. On the right, Saint Dominic, in a black and white habit, holds a lily and a book. The figures, bathed in golden sunlight, are imagined within a classical loggia opening to a landscape. We do not know who commissioned the work, but the three saints likely had relevance to the original patron.