Description

This painting started as a vision from a commissioner: she wanted to memorialize her wedding day in her home. Displayed in the nave of the church she got married in was a sweet devotional painting of Mary and the child Jesus, which would have kept her company as she waited to walk down the aisle.

In researching this image, and visiting the church in question, I discovered that the image in her church was in fact a canvas print of a painting that was itself a reproduction of a Carlo Dolci painting where the artist (A. Gay) had changed and adjusted certain elements to make it unique (notably adding the decorative border).

Here is the print that was in the church:

 

But this was hardly the only copy of the Carlo Dolci Madonna and Child. There are (maybe) hundreds of them, made in every century after the original (it was painted in the 1600’s). This partially was a tradition because before the color printer, the only way to get a copy of a painting was to physically repaint it.

As an artist, I love this practice as physical paintings look significantly different than reproductions. I pride myself on making quality scans of all my art, editing out all the dust and latent glare, and choosing accredited companies to make my reproductions, but nothing, and I mean nothing, compares to looking at the original.

Carlo Dolci’s works, in particular, were some of the most widely copied paintings. Even though we now don’t often talk about Carlo Dolci, during his life he was considered to be the best Florentine painter. His detail and beautiful rendering of religious subjects were desired by many, and still are to this day.

 

Among the many copies I found on auction in my search for the original; this is the one I settled on to base my own copy. At the time I thought this was the original, but I looked it up again and I can’t find the actual original Carlo Dolci anywhere. But I liked this one more due to it’s greater details especially in Mary and Jesus’ faces, and the more natural look of the drapery (fabric).

But more than that, I was excited to work on this painting and give my own flare to the original because the commissioners prompt itself was based off a copy of a copy: exactly what you, dear reader, would be purchasing from this very product listing. The tradition continues on.

 

The commissioner had a couple extra prompts for me to work with. First, she wanted the halo’s to be in some way more detailed, and showed me several images, one of which was a renaissance Mary and Jesus with a gold background and halo (shown below), treated in a similar manner to traditional iconography. That is, the artist carved into the panel the painting, forming a decorative design, and then applied gold leaf on top, leaving a shiny, ridged design.

 

 

And lastly, to be more of a nod to the parish she was married in, the commissioner wanted me to incorporate some of the decorative stencil designs that were in the church. And she was not afraid of color and gave me free reign to completely transform the background.

 

And so you have this final painting, the looping stencil work redesigned to trickle down between Mary and Jesus, reflecting with the same gold-like sheen as the halos.

The halos with their “carved in” designs, with “Hail Mary Full of Grace” written in Mary’s. I broke from the traditional latin as the commissioner likely would not have resonated with it, and I wanted anyone who looked at the image to understand what was written, as the painting will end up in the Bible Belt of America.

The original was painted as a 30″x40″ massive canvas, which is the largest I’ve worked on. As such, I included the option to purchase it up to that size as a canvas copy.

 

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Have an idea you want me to paint? Feel free to reach out at outpouringoftrust@gmail.com with your idea! This listing gives an idea as to what works well, feel free to give me all your ideas and variations and I’ll work to make your vision become a reality!

Want a print in a size not listed, material not listed, or assembled with a simple frame? Shoot me an email and I’ll let you know if it’s possible!

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Images subject to copyright, copyright Monica Skrzypczak. Do not reproduce without explicit written permission. To use the image in print at your parish, or any other use, feel free to email me with the project and number of copies estimated for a quote on a temporary license.

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Purchase does not include frame.

Staging photos are not necessarily accurate representations of the size of the image, but simply give an idea of the image in a room. Please measure your actual wall before deciding.

All images except the 30×40 will be cropped.