Workshop of Antonio Carneo (Italian, 1637-1692) Madonna and Child with Saint Elizabeth and the Infant Saint John the Baptist, circa late 1660s Oil on canvas 26-1/4 x 32 inches (66.7 x 81.3 cm) Inscribed on the reverse: A. Sua C...a / La N[obile]. D[onna]. Widmann Morosini PROVENANCE: Contessa Michele Morosini, née Anna Maria Teresa Widmann (1746-1831) (as Bartolomeo Schedoni); Mrs. Nelson T. Hoadley, née Marguerite Brünnow (1905-1979), Washington, Connecticut, by 1964; Katrina Hoadley DeLude (1936-2023), Neptune Beach, Florida, by descent from the above; Private collection, St. Augustine, Florida, acquired from the estate of the above, 2023. EXHIBITED: (Possibly) Accademia di Belle Arti, Venice; Wykeham Rise School, Washington, Connecticut, 1964 (loaned by Mrs. Nelson T. Hoadley). Antonio Carneo, who was born in Concordia Sagittaria, northeast of Venice, is something of a unicum in the history of seventeenth-century Venetian painting. Documentation for most of his life is scarce. Consequently, conjectures as to his training depend on an analysis of his exuberant, painterly Baroque style, which developed in several directions. An early affinity, for instance, with the intense, caricatural art of Pietro della Vecchia led Rodolfo Pallucchini to propose that Carneo had studied with him sometime in the 1660s.(1) Yet no documentation places him in della Vecchia's home base of Venice; rather, he lived in the village of Cordovado with his wife and children from 1658 to 1665.(2) Later, the influence of the Venetian tenebrists—such as Giovanni Battista Langetti and Antonio Zanchi—characterize his art, as well as the earlier style of Luca Giordano, Bernardo Strozzi, Sebastiano Mazzoni, Francesco Maffei (of Verona) and of a transplanted Danish painter, Eberhard Keilhau, who went by the nickname of Monsù Bernardo. In 1667 Carneo transferred to Udine—the principal city of the region of Friuli—at the request of conte Leonardo Caiselli. The latter and, subsequently, his two sons—conte Leonardo (II) and Giovanni Battista—provided Antonio and his family with lodging and food.(3) During the next twenty years, the Caiselli clan received, in return, some one hundred paintings from the artist.(4) In 1689, Carneo transferred to the town of Portogruaro (south of Cordovado), where he died in 1692. The present work may be compared to two autograph paintings by Carneo executed for the Caiselli family sometime between 1667 to 1676 and now owned by the Credito Romagnolo/Banca del Friuli in Udine.(5) The interface between the profiles of Saint Elizabeth and the Virgin Mary in the present picture is comparable to that in Old Woman with a Distaff and a Young Woman with Wheat-sheaves (fig. 1), as is the treatment of hair in all four figures. In addition, the penumbral background, from which emerge (in the present painting) the lively Christ Child and Saint Elizabeth's haggard face, as well as the reddish tunics are features in common with Arachne and the Figure of Athena in Disguise (the so-called "Indovina" (fig. 2)). Common to all three paintings, lastly, is the artist's tendency to place his vivacious figures right up against the forward picture plane, with almost no suggestion of actual setting. A certain slackness of the paint handling in the present work and the rather mawkish figure of the young Baptist, on the other hand, would suggest that some of the present painting's execution was assigned to an assistant in Carneo's workshop. Whether that person can be equated with Giacomo Carneo, the documented pupil of his father Antonio, cannot be presently confirmed. (For assistance regarding the painting's attribution, thanks are given to the following scholars: Stefano Mason and Caterina Furlan.) In the present work, the figure of the Baptist, facing the viewer as he gestures to the infant Christ, may have been requested for inclusion in the composition by one of Carneo's patrons, conte Giovan Battista Caiselli, whose patron saint was John the Baptist.(6) Paintings of the Madonna and Child with the Baptist are featured in the archival references published by Paolo Goi.(7) In one example, the artist was paid on September 28, 1672: "For the costs...of the Madonna and Saint John the Baptist in the room of signor conte Giovanni Battista [Caiselli]" ("Per spesi...per la Madona [sic] et San Gio. Batta nella camera del signor conte Gio. Batta, l. 8 s. - .").(8) Affixed to the back of the canvas support is an oval-shaped paper label on which is written, in pen: "La Sagra Famiglia // mezza figura per traverso // da Schedone [i.e. the Parma-based painter, Bartolomeo Schedoni]" And below, in black paint, is the following: "A. Sua C[illegible]a // La N[obile]. D[onna]. Widmann Morosini" (fig. 3). Thanks to a Widmann family genealogical chart, this person can now be identified as Anna Maria Teresa Widmann (1746-1831), the daughter of Ludovico Michele Widmann (1719-1763) and Quintilia Rezzonico (1719-1763), who married (1) Vincenzo Barbon and then (2) Michele Morosini. A Widmann ancestor—Giovanni Widmann (1571-1634), from Carinthia in modern-day Austria—had formed a large fortune while in the service of the stupendously rich Fugger banking family. This he bequeathed to his sons who, through a large donation in 1646 in support of Venice's war in Candia, were thereupon admitted to the Venetian Republic's patrician class. The Palazzo Widmann (formerly belonging to the Saviotto family; now the Palazzo Widmann-Foscari), located in the parish of San Canciano, was renowned for its façade by Baldassare Longhena and the high quality of its art collections. Indeed, for what the information is worth, the latter included pictures by several of the Venetian artists that helped form Antonio Carenio's style, masters such as Antonio Zanchi, Giovann Battista Langetti, and Pietro della Vecchia.(9) On the Widmanns as collectors, see F. Magani, Il collezionismo e la committenza artistica della famiglia Widmann, patrizi veneziani, dal Cinquecento all'Ottocento, Venice, 1989 [Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti. Memorie. Classi di Scienze Morali, Lettere ed Arti, XLI, fasc. 3, 1989]; and E.S. Rösch Widmann, I Widmann: le vicende di una famiglia veneziana dal Cinquecento all'Ottocento [Conferenza, Centro Tedesco di Studi Veneziani, February 5, 1980], Venice, 1980 (https://repository.dszv.it/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/dszv_derivate_00000019/Quaderni_15.pdf). NOTES: 1) R. Pallucchini, La pittura veneziana del Seicento, Milan, 1981, I, p. 272. 2) C. Furlan, "Profilo di Antonio Carneo, ‘ingegnoso e nuove ne' partiti delle grand'istorie,"' in idem, ed., Antonio Carneo nella pittura veneziana del Seicento, Milan, 1995, p. 34. 3) Ibid., p. 35. 4) M. Gregori and E. Schleier, eds., La pittura in Italia: il Seicento, Milan, 1988, II, p. 671 (entry by C. Donazzolo Cristante). 5) For these paintings, see C. Furlan, ed., Antonio Carneo nella pittura veneziana del Seicento, Milan, 1995, p. 150, no. 34; illus. p. 151 (color); and ibid., p. 152, no. 35, illus. p. 153 (color) (both entries by Caterina Furlan). 6) For Carneo's likeness of Giovanni Battista Caiselli, now in a private collection, Udine, see ibid., p. 90, no. 5; illus. p. 91 (color). 7) P. Goi, "I documenti," in C. Furlan, 1995 (cited above), pp. 197-199, 202. 8) Ibid., p. 202. 9) S. Mason, "La pittura del Seicento a Venezia," in C. Furlan, ed., Antonio Carneo nella pittura veneziana del seicento, Milan, 1995, p. 24. 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