Thyssen-Bornemisza Museo Nacional Search Ir al contenido principal

Navegación superior (EN)

About Us Support Become Friend Shop Tickets
Español
Visit Collection Exhibitions Activities Education Search
  • Visit
  • Collection
  • Exhibitions
  • Activities
  • Education

Thyssen - Navegación superior (EN)

About Us Support Become Friend Shop Tickets
Español
©
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Carlo Dolci

The Infant Christ with a Floral Wreath

1663
Oil on canvas.
103 x 71 cm
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Inv. no.
129
(
1959.1
)
Not on display
  • Level 2 Permanent Collection
  • Level 1 Permanent Collection
  • Level 0 Carmen Thyssen Collection and Temporary exhibition rooms
  • Level -1 Temporary exhibition rooms, Conference room and EducaThyssen workshop
Level 2
Permanent Collection
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 14 13 15 16 17 18 22 19 20 21 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 Recommended start of the visitClassical rooms
1 14th Century. Early Italian Painting 2 15th Century. German and Spanish Painting 3 15th Century. Early Netherlandish Painting 4 15th Century. Italian Painting 5 15th and 16th Centuries. Renaissance Portraiture 6 16th Century. Villahermosa Gallery 7 16th Century. Italian Painting 8 15th and 16th Centuries. German Painting 9 15th and 16th Centuries. German Painting 10 16th Century. Netherlandish Painting 11 Tiziano, Tintoretto, Bassano and  El Greco 12 17th Century. Caravaggio and Baroque Painting 13 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 14 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 15 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 16 18th Century. Italian Painting 17 18th Century. Italian Painting 18 18th Century. Italian Painting 19 Classical rooms 20 Classical rooms 21 Classical rooms 22 18th Century. Italian Painting 23 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 24 18th Century. French and English Painting 25 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Scenes of Daily Life and Interiors 26 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 27 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Portrait 28 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 29 19th Century. European Painting. Goya and Romanticism  
Level 1
Permanent Collection
30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 Postpop rooms Rodin room
30 18th and 19th Centuries. Transatlantic Relations 31 19th Century. American Landscape and Environmental Awareness 32 19th Century. American Landscape and Urban Life 33 Recovering the ligth. Restoration of Waterloo Bridge, by André Derain 34 20th Century. Expressionist Landscapes 35 20th Century. Expressionist Portraits 36 20th Century. The Language of the Body 37 20th Century. Urban unrest 38 20th Century. Flowers 39 20th Century. Pioneers of abstraction 40 20th Century. Popular flavor 41 20th Century. The Cubist Tradition I 42 20th Century. The Cubist Tradition II 43 20th Century. Abstract Utopias 44 20th Century. Dada and Surrealism 45 20th Century. Interwar Realisms 46 20th Century. American Abstraction I 48 20th Century. Post-ward American Art 49 20th Century. Post-ward European Figurative Art 50 20th Century. Informalisms 51 20th Century. Homo Ludens 52 20th Century. Pop Art 53 Postpop rooms 54 Postpop rooms 55 Postpop rooms 56 Postpop rooms Rodin Exhibition room
Level 0
Carmen Thyssen Collection and Temporary exhibition rooms
A B C D E F G H I J Hall Temporary exhibition rooms Access to Permanent Collection Entrance Access to Carmen Thyssen Collection Paseo del Prado Garden
A 17th and 18th Centuries. Old Masters B 19th Century. North American Landscape C 19th Century. French Naturalist Landscape D 19th Century. Impressionism E 19th Century. Monet and North American Impressionism F 19th Century. Gauguin and Postimpressionism G 19th and 20th Centuries. Neo Impressionism and its Wake H 20th Century. Early Avant-gardes I 20th Century. Between the Wars Painting. Cubism, Abstraction and Surrealism J 20th Century. North American Painting and Others • HALL
Level -1
Temporary exhibition rooms, Conference room and EducaThyssen workshop
Temporary exhibition rooms Conference room EducaThyssen Workshop

Carlo Dolci, who trained with Jacopo Vignali, is generally considered the most important painter in 17th-century Florence. He primarily produced religious paintings, portraits and a number of still lifes. Among the latter genre is a Floral Still Life in the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence that reveals Dolci’s knowledge of Dutch and Flemish art. He may have been familiar with such works through the collections of the Medici, and clearly studied their technique, use of colour and compositions. Among his first works executed as an independent artist are his portraits, a genre in which Dolci worked throughout his career and for which he was particularly esteemed. Among the best examples are the Portrait of a young Man, sometimes thought to depict Stefano della Bella, of 1631 (Galleria Palatina, Florence), and the Self-portrait of 1674 (Galeria degli Uffizi, Florence). However, Dolci produced his finest works in the genre of religious painting and it was compositions of this type that were most in demand from patrons and leading collectors of his day. In addition to works intended as altarpieces, Dolci popularised compositions with half-length figures of the Virgin, saints and other holy figures, painted in a precise, detailed technique that was well received in his day.

The present canvas depicts a new iconographical motif that the artist developed. It depicts the Infant Christ holding a crown or wreath of flowers, evoking the crown of thorns and thus associating the Christ Child with his future suffering. The subject of the young Christ imagining, holding or playing with objects related to the last episodes in his life was a subject that appeared in 16th-century art but which became widespread in the following century. Elements such as the cross, the crown of thorn, the nails and a bunch of grapes were symbols used by artists to associate the Christ Child with the suffering of the Passion.

The present, finely painted canvas is of notable quality. It offers a synthesis of Dolci’s most typical characteristics, presenting the motif in a devotional and markedly spiritual manner. In addition, the artist used a smooth, enamel-like technique with an extremely high finish, as well as a delicacy of mood and a refined sensibility. The detail used in the depiction of the flowers and leaves in the wreath is continued in the rose bushes and wild flowers behind the figure of Christ in the garden, whose careful execution recalls the artist’s still lifes.

The canvas has been identified with one described by Filippo Baldinucci that was sent to Venice. Various versions of this composition are known, of which the present example is considered to be the prototype. Among other autograph versions is the one in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, dated a year after the present work, and a head of Christ in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich. Among the copies, according to Francesco Baldassari, are the two canvases in the Jack Bolton Museum of Art in Austin, and the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford.

Mar Borobia

17th Century17th Century - Italian paintingPaintingOilcanvas
Listen
Download image Print page

Products and publications

Poster Richard Estes. Telephone Booths, 1967

Poster Richard Estes. Telephone Booths, 1967

12.50 €

Poster Richard Estes: People's Flower

Poster Richard Estes: People's Flower

12.50 €

Arte Americano en la Colección Thyssen (Exhibition catalogue. Spanish)

Arte Americano en la Colección Thyssen (Exhibition catalogue. Spanish)

39.00 € 25.00 €

La máquina Magritte: Exhibition catalog (Spanish w. English texts)

La máquina Magritte: Exhibition catalog (Spanish w. English texts)

29.99 € 20.00 €

Visit online shop

More from the collection

Luca Giordano
Luca Giordano
The Judgement of Solomon
ca. 1665
Giulio Carpioni
Giulio Carpioni
Bacchanal
1660 - 1665
 Francesco Maffei
Francesco Maffei
The Archangel Michael overthrowing Lucifer
ca. 1656
Carlo Maratta
Carlo Maratta
Saint Mark the Evangelist
ca. 1655 - 1660
  • Private and/or didactic use
  • Commercial use
Private and/or didactic use
The Infant Christ with a Floral Wreath. El Niño Jesús con una corona de flores, 1663
The Infant Christ with a Floral Wreath
Carlo Dolci

©

Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Terms of Use

The exploitation rights of the images correspond to the Fundación Coleccion Thyssen-Bornemisza, F.S.P. The Fundación authorizes the downloading of high-resolution images from its website for private use, use for educational and research purposes, and other non-commercial uses.

Use for educational and research purposes is understood as the non-commercial or advertising use of images in presentations, conferences, school or university work, in classes at regulated education institutions, as well as in academic publications, with a circulation of less than 1,000 copies, provided that it is non-profit.

Non-commercial use is understood as the use of the images in a context where no profit, monetary or commercial, is generated, directly or indirectly.

Any use other than those indicated above will require the prior written authorization of the Fundación Any request for educational and research use or for non-commercial use (including academic publications), should be directed by email to the Museum Photo Library through the email address archivo.fotografico@museothyssen.org. This department manages the worldwide distribution of the images of the works of the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza and the management of their reproduction rights for those uses.

The user agrees to use the image of the website solely and exclusively for the purposes described above and in accordance with the following terms of use:

Terms of use

  • If the image is used for reproduction, the work must be reproduced in its entirety. The image may not be manipulated, deformed, modified, or altered in any way. In particular, no superposition (of images or texts) on the reproduction is allowed.
  • The reproduction of a detail or part of the work may only be made with the prior written authorization of the Fundación. In this case, the credit line must include the following mention: “detail”.
  • Any total or partial reproduction of the images authorized by the Fundación must be accompanied by the following mention: Author's name. Title, Date © Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid.
  • The user will send to the Museum Photo Library of the Fundación one (1) free copy of the edition, publication or reproduction to the following address: Archivo Fotográfico, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Paseo del Prado, 8 28014 Madrid, Spain.
Download image
Commercial use
The Infant Christ with a Floral Wreath. El Niño Jesús con una corona de flores, 1663
The Infant Christ with a Floral Wreath
Carlo Dolci

©

Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Terms of Use

The Photographic Archive of the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza offers sale and rental service of photographic material of all the works on its Permanent Collection.

To request images or permits for commercial use in academic or research publications, that is, catalogues of other institutions, monographs and other specialized publications, you should contact the Museum's Commercial Archive by email at the e-mail @email.

To request images or permits for other commercial or advertising uses (general publications, merchandising, exhibitions, audio-visual works, web pages, etc.), you should contact the Museum's Commercial Archive by email at the e-mail @email.

The Photo Library and the Museum's Commercial Archive manage the worldwide distribution of images of the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza works, as well as their reproduction rights. The applicable rates are calculated based on the nature and proposed use of the images, as well as the availability of the requested image.

Requests for scans or new photographs will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Once approved, an additional fee will apply. Re-photographing a work will require a minimum of six weeks to complete.

However, photographed works are protected by copyright. Therefore, regardless of the terms of use of the photographs set out below by the Foundation, it will be necessary to obtain a license from the author or copyright holder known to the Fundacion in order to reproduce or exploit the work.

Download image
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museo Nacional

Navegación secundaria (EN)

  • #Thyssenmultimedia
  • Press
  • Corporate events
  • Tourism
  • Join our team
  • Newsletter
Instagram
Facebook
X
Youtube
TikTok
iVoox
LinkedIn

The Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza would like to thanks for the collaboration of:

Fundación Mutua Madrileña Master Card Comunidad de Madrid
©2025 Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum

Menú al pie (EN)

  • Legal terms and use of images
  • Public tenders
  • Transparency site
  • Accessibility and quality
  • Sustainability & 2030 Agenda
  • Contact
Ministry of Culture España es cultura | Spain is culture. The website promoting Spanish culture Paisaje de la Luz | Paseo del Prado y Buen Retiro. Paisaje de las Artes y las Ciencias
Certificación de Conformidad con el Esquema Nacional de Seguridad. Categoría Media. RD 311/2022