Introduzione

Although from Brescia, Santacroce is documented in Venice from 1503 until 1556. His output reveals a clear debt to the work of Giovanni Bellini, both in stylistic and compositional terms. The present work can be compared closely to Santacroce's painting of 1555, showing The Madonna and Child with Saints Nicholas of Bari and John the Baptist, in the transept of the Duomo, Lucera (see B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance, Venetian School, vol. I, London 1957, p. 155, reproduced plate 580), in which the pose of the Madonna and Child is almost identical to that in the present painting.

The inclusion of Saint Dominic and a Dominican nun within the present scene suggests that it was painted for a Dominican Order, perhaps as a small altarpiece or image for private devotion.

fonte: www.sothebys.com