The Holy Family with Saints Anne and Catherine of Alexandria

Ribera signed and dated this in Naples in 1648, a Spanish-ruled city he had lived in for decades. Look at how ordinary he makes it. There are no golden halos, no glow marking these figures as holy. The Virgin, her mother Anne, and old Joseph have the faces and hands of real people, because that is what they were: Ribera followed Caravaggio in painting straight from models he posed in the studio, everyday Neapolitans standing in for the Holy Family. Saint Catherine of Alexandria leans toward the Christ child, who reaches for the ring that marks her legendary marriage to him in a vision. The colours are few and quiet, learned from Ribera's long study of Raphael, and the sacred scene is set down on the same earth as everyone looking at it.