The Holy Family at Night

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James McArdell , Irish, c.1729-1765

Title

Datec.1750-1765

MediumMezzotint on paper

Dimensions

34 × 47 cm

Signedlower right: Js. Mc Ardell Fecit

Credit LinePurchased, 2021

Object numberNGI.2021.157

DescriptionKnown as The Holy Family at Night; this atmospheric mezzotint relates to a painting attributed to Circle of Rembrandt in the Rijksmuseum, inv.no. SK-A-4119. It depicts a Dutch interior by candlelight. A young woman, the Virgin Mary perhaps, reads while an older woman (St Anne?) at the centre of the composition holds a rope to rock a sleeping baby (the Christ Child) in a cradle. A figure is visible underneath the staircase, possibly St Joseph getting fuel for the fire. The light from the candle throws dramatic shadows onto the walls of the room yet there is a sense of peace and calm in this domestic scene.

McArdell’s print was based on a drawing (whereabouts now unknown) owned by the English artist and writer Jonathan Richardson Senior in the early eighteenth century. Richardson’s son, wrote of the painting, then in the Duke of Orleans collection, which he saw on his Grand Tour: ‘A Woman reading to her Mother, while the Old Woman nods in, rocking the Cradle where her Grandchild sleeps: The same Size as the finish’d Drawing my father has and exactly the same, as far a Drawing and Picture can be.’ (J. Richardson jr., 'An account of some of the statues, bas-reliefs, drawings, and paintings in Italy', London, 1722, p. 21). The lettering on the print indicates that it was in the portraitist Thomas Hudson’s collection when translated into print by McArdell. Hudson, who was married to Richardson Senior’s daughter, had at least twenty of his portraits engraved by the Dublin mezzotinter.
Inscriptionlower centre: Done from a Capital Drawing of Rembrandt the same size in the collection of Mr Hudson / The Original Picture by Rembrandt is in the Collection of the Duke of Orleans
ProvenancePurchased, 2021