Holy Family with the Infant Saint John and an Angel

The Holy Family is joined here by the young John the Baptist, who kneels in reverence before his infant cousin, the Christ. The Madonna and two children are strongly illuminated for emphasis while Joseph and the angel in the background are veiled in shadow. The combination of curving draperies and closely juxtaposed heads produces a compressed tension that is typical of the early Milanese Baroque, but the mystical emotion of the faces and the highly charged hair patterns recall the more artificial Mannerist taste of the previous century. Procaccini's explosive energy, however, is chiefly inspired by the early work of Rubens.