The Holy Family

This large painting in ink and colour on paper, likely Chinese mulberry paper or xuān, depicting The Holy Family, was made in China in the last decades of the eighteenth century.

 

Fully Sinicised in their facial features, the painting shows the Christ Child, half-naked and seated on a round table, extending a small loaf of bread to his parents, who lovingly embrace him from both sides, entirely filling the composition. Apart from their facial features, the Holy Family is portrayed as a modest rural European family of the eighteenth-century. The elderly father wears a white linen shirt and layers of loose-fitting over garments (a long-sleeved green jacket and a salmon-coloured nightgown); his sword is set vertically against the wall behind him, with his green and black felt tricorne hat hanging from the sword’s crossguard. The Virgin, much younger, is similarly dressed in everyday indoor attire, wearing a low-neckline frilled shirt (chemise) with its frilled cuffs, a green bodice, and a white petticoat fastened at the waist by a narrow blue sash; over this, she wears a crimson robe de chambre. The Virgin’s hair is covered by a narrow strip of printed white cloth tied with a green ribbon.

 

Only the man’s hat provides sufficient evidence for approximating the date of the painting. A three-cornered hat with a standing brim, the tricorne—then known as a cocked hat—evolved alongside wigs in the late seventeenth century.[1] As wigs grew larger, the brims of the then-fashionable broad-brimmed round hats began to fold upwards. When folded, or ‘cocked’, in three places, it became the tricorne, which was typically worn with one point forward. Made from animal fibre—more expensive versions being made from beaver-hair felt and more economical ones from wool felt—tricornes reached the height of fashion in the mid-eighteenth century. However, they fell out of style by the early 1800s, evolving into bicornes.

 

Likely original in its composition and iconographic details, this Chinese painting appears to have been based on two Italian engravings. One [Fig. 1], produced between 1685 and 1740 by Cosimo Mogalli (1667-1750) after a drawing by Francesco Petrucci (1660-1719), reproduces a painting of The Holy Family by Giulio Romano (1499-1546) at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence. The engraving is part of a series titled Raccolta de’ quadri dipinti dai più famosi pennelli posseduti da S. A. R. Pietro Leopoldi, which reproduces paintings from the gallery of the Grand Duke in Florence. First commissioned by Ferdinando de’ Medici (1663-1713), the series was finally published in 1778 as a set of 148 plates with a title-page. The other [Fig. 2], published before the mid-eighteenth century and created by Giovanni Girolamo Frezza (1671-ca. 1748) after a composition by Carlo Maratti (1625-1713), depicts The Holy Family with the Child St John the Baptist.[2] From the first engraving, the Chinese painter adopted the general pose of the seated Christ Child, differing only in the position of the feet, with the  Child’s hand now holding a small loaf of bread; St Joseph’s hand also closely resembles the Virgin’s hand from the print. From the second engraving, the painter borrowed the general pose of the Virgin, particularly the head and her left hand, which is faithfully copied; the figure’s low neckline seems have influenced the final composition. The figure of St Joseph unusually depicted embracing the Virgin and the Child Christ, along with his sword and tricorne—typical of a man-at-arms from the first half of the eighteenth century—must have been derived from a different visual source, likely non-religious. These added details suggest that while the composition was executed by a Chinese artist, the composition was probably based on an original design conceived by a European artist.

 

The updating of such a significant religious scene into a depiction of a contemporary family aligns with other similar works of the period that emphasise the humble social origins of the Holy Family and the family values underpinning Christian belief. In the context of eighteenth-century missionary work in China, this type of depiction highlighted the virtues of poverty, humility, and familial devotion, reflecting Christian teachings while resonating with Confucian ideals such as simplicity and moral integrity.

 

The bread in the Christ Child’s hand carries rich symbolic significance. In Christian iconography, bread often symbolises the body of Christ, particularly in reference to the Eucharist, where Christ is portrayed as the ‘bread of life’. By including it, the artist may have been foreshadowing Christ’s future role in the sacrament, emphasising his divine nature even in infancy. Additionally, bread is a common symbol of sustenance, both physical and spiritual. Its presence in the child’s hand could symbolise Christ as the provider of spiritual nourishment and the sustainer of life for believers. The act of offering the bread to his parents might evoke Christ’s mission to offer salvation to all, even from an early age. In the Chinese missionary context, the loaf of bread might also serve to bridge cultural and religious meanings, creating a visual link between Christian teachings and local practices of offering food as a gesture of respect, sharing, or devotion. This detail could make the Christian message of Christ as the source of spiritual nourishment more relatable to a Chinese audience. The portrayal of a Sinicised Holy Family thus worked to bridge cultural divides, presenting Christianity as universal while making it accessible and relevant to Chinese viewers.

 

Based on its size, high-quality materials, and the skilful integration of traditional Chinese painting techniques with European aesthetic conventions, this painting was likely produced in Beijing within the context of the work and teachings of Jesuit missionaries, particularly Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1768).[3] Known at the imperial court as Lang Shining, Castiglione served three emperors and trained many local artists in Western painting techniques. While he and other Jesuits were prohibited from painting Christian works at court, they and some converted Chinese artists likely produced religious paintings under their artistic tutelage in Jesuit colleges. This persisted despite the persecutions by Chinese authorities and the suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1759, followed by its abolition in 1773, after which the Jesuits continued their work clandestinely in China.

 

Given its heavily Sinicised features—in format (the hanging scroll, known as guàzhóu, or lizhóu), technique and style—the painting’s author was almost certainly Chinese. However, the complete absence of a known corpus of similar works makes it impossible to attribute this painting to a specific follower of Castiglione or any of his fellow European Jesuit painters active in the Forbidden City. These include the Roman-trained Frenchman Jean-Denis Attiret (1702-1768), who arrived in Beijing in 1738; the German-Bohemian Ignaz Sichelbarth (1708-1780), who joined in 1745; the Italian Giuseppe Panzi (1734-ca. 1812); and the Frenchman Louis Antoine de Poirot (1735-1813) who arrived alongside Panzi at the imperial capital in 1771.[4]