Bonifacio Veronese and Madonna and Child with Saints

'Madonna and Child with Saints' (no date found) by Bonifacio Veronese; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

I like adding new names to my list of Italian painters. I never knew that I loved Italian art this much. Today I'm happy to get to know Bonifacio Veronese or Bonifacio de' Pitati (I'm sticking to the Italian spelling of the name), born in 1487 and died on 19 October 1553. He was a contemporary of Titian and Palma Vecchio and was influenced by the style of old Venetian masters like Bellini and Giorgione. In Venice, he was a succesful painter of compositions of Madonna and Child. In the work shown here today, we see the young Christ balancing on his mother's hand. He's holding a blue globe and is blessing the infant John the Baptist who is surrounded by his parents, the saints Elizabeth and Zechariah.  On the other side are the saints Joseph and Catherine of Alexandria. I provided you with the links to the Wikipedia pages in case you want to polish up your biblical knowledge.The colour scheme in this painting of reds, blues and greens is very like early Titian and I think it is beautiful.