Holy Family

Around 1500 something shifted in the way Venetian painters handled a subject as familiar as the Holy Family. Alongside the grand altar images, they began making small, quiet panels for a private room, where oil paint could soften the light almost to dusk. This is one of those, barely larger than a sheet of paper. Mary holds the child close, the aged Joseph leans on his staff and watches, and behind them the land opens into distance. It was made to hang in a bedroom or study and be prayed to alone, not seen across a church. The picture goes by the name Madonna Benson, after an English banker who owned it four centuries later. Who actually painted it is still argued over. It has been given to Giorgione, and also to the young Titian and to Sebastiano, all trained in the same Venetian workshops within a few years of one another.