Focus on Madonna and Child with Saint George and explain the History.
It was commissioned as an altarpiece for the high altar of the oratory of the confraternity of San Pietro Martire in Modena. It can be definitively dated thanks to the secure dating of the San Sebastiano Madonna to the mid-1520s. It was probably the last religious work he completed, in parallel with his final contributions to the ceiling of Parma Cathedral. Two preparatory sketches survive.Copies of it were made by the painters Girolamo Conti and Bartolomeo Passerotti, whilst Peter Paul Rubens also made a red-chalk sketch of it. Also recorded by Giorgio Vasari, the painting was acquired in 1649 by Francesco I d'Este, who commissioned a copy of it from Guercino to replace it in its original home in the oratory. Just after it entered the d'Este collection it was praised by Padre Ottonelli and Francesco Scannelli.In 1746 Francesco III d'Este sold it and several other paintings to Frederick Augustus II.
Parma Cathedral Giorgio Vasari Peter Paul Rubens Guercino Francesco I d'Este San Sebastiano Madonna Modena Francesco III d'Este Frederick Augustus II