Holy Family

This small canvas, now kept in the gallery's storerooms, shows the Christ Child sprawled asleep on a white cloth over straw, one arm thrown up above his head. Mary joins her hands in prayer, and an old, bearded Joseph leans on his stick behind. The Borghese inventory of 1693 named Annibale Carracci as the painter. In 1833 the family's list switched to Domenico Puligo, a Florentine of the early 1500s, and in 1893 the critic Adolfo Venturi proposed Ludovico Carracci instead. The first name returned in the 20th century, and the museum places the picture around 1598 to 1600, the years Annibale was painting the ceiling of the Palazzo Farnese in Rome. In 2018 the scholar Antonella Mampieri suggested Innocenzo Tacconi, a Bolognese pupil who had followed him to Rome and worked beside him on that ceiling.