This is “St Joseph the Foster Father of Jesus”, painted in the eighteenth century by Johann Ignaz Cimbal (1722-1795), who seems to have leaned heavily into the brief of “tender paternal scene with bonus cherubs”. I’m not sure that I much like the painting really, the medieval artists painted Jesus looking a bit odd, but by now many artists made him look a little more, well, cute or at least holy. I’m also not quite sure really what the messaging is here. Joseph looks vaguely pleased, perhaps even slightly startled that he’s been entrusted with this holy toddler, while Jesus stares up with the weary wisdom of someone who already knows what’s coming.
Wikipedia notes about the artist:
“In his lifetime, Cimbal was in demand as a painter, and his clients were satisfied with his work. Since his death, however, he has been less adulated: his works have been described as dry and sourced from a limited inventory, and his detailing sometimes clumsy.”
I think that I rather agree with this. It does feel clumsy to me and although he painted hundreds of altarpieces and frescoes, I’m not sure I would have felt inspired by looking at it. But, I don’t know where this altarpiece was displayed, if it was originally in some church in the middle of some village in what is now Slovakia, it might have been rather acceptable. I’m not sure that the denizens of Florence would have looked at it with much delight though.