The Holy Family with Four Saints and a Female Donor

Antonio Rimpatta · c. 1510

Medium

Oil on panel

Original size

125.3 × 120 cm (49 3/8 × 47 1/4 in.); Framed: 147.4 × 141.7 × 10.2 cm (58 × 55 3/4 × 4 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Italian Renaissance

Intimate yet ceremonially composed, this early sixteenth-century altarpiece presents the Holy Family surrounded by saints and a kneeling female donor in the devotional tradition that defined northern Italian piety of the period. Antonio Rimpatta worked within the orbit of the Venetian school, absorbing the soft luminosity and warm flesh tones associated with Giovanni Bellini's workshop. His figures have a quiet dignity — neither stiff nor theatrical — and the arrangement follows the *sacra conversazione* format, where sacred and earthly figures occupy the same pictorial space as though in gentle communion. The donor's inclusion is typical of the era: patrons commissioned such works to place themselves symbolically in the presence of the divine, ensuring the painting served as a perpetual act of prayer. Rimpatta remains a relatively understudied figure, which makes works like this — held in the distinguished permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago — valuable evidence of the breadth of talent working in the Venetian tradition beyond its most celebrated names. Our hand-painted oil reproduction on panel replicates the layered glazing and warm tonal range of the original, giving you a faithful reading of Rimpatta's careful draftsmanship and the devotional gravity that has kept this work resonant for over five hundred years.