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Giuseppe Roncelli
Rest during the flight into Egypt Oil painting on canvas Giuseppe Roncelli

About the Item

Giuseppe Roncelli (Candia, 1663 - Bergamo, 1729) Rest on the Flight into Egypt Oil on canvas, 55 x 45.5 cm With Frame, 65 x 77 cm The painting under consideration, by Giuseppe Roncelli (Candia, 1663 - Bergamo, 1729), depicts the scene of the Flight into Egypt within a gentle landscape: in the foreground, a river flows slowly between tree-lined banks while some goats drink from it. On its shore a shepherdess gives directions to the Holy Family headed for Egypt; Mary and the Child are seated on the back of a donkey while following is Joseph. In the background, dominated by an intensely blue sky crossed by pinkish clouds, reliefs and architecture appear. The artist here plays with contrasts of light and color ' dark in the foreground, light in the background ' to represent twilight, with a language that seems to anticipate Romantic solutions. Joseph was born in Candia in 1661; his father, originally from Stezzano, had gone in search of better opportunities in Crete, but in 1669 the invasion of the Turks caused him to return to his homeland. Joseph was raised by his uncle Bartholomew, who had his nephew study first in the Misericordia schools and then in the seminary. It is here that his interest in the art of painting emerges, fueled by his frequentation of the painter Antonio Cifrondi, defined by Mazzoleni as his first master (A. Mazzoleni, Vita de' servi di Dio G. R. e Giovanmaria Acerbis sacerdoti bergamaschi, Milan 1767, pp. 5-9, 32;). Joseph then continued his studies, attaining the priesthood, and with the help of the Counts Moroni he donned the clerical habit and went to Milan to the Jesuits, where he earned a degree in theology; in 1682 he was ordained a subdeacon in Bergamo and the following year he received the diaconate. Despite his ordination, he devoted his entire life to art, worldliness and pageantry, frequenting not only the nobility of Bergamo, but also those of Padua and Venice. Various commissions took him first to Verona, where he frescoed a room in the mansion of the Counts Turchi, now lost, and then he stayed in Brescia for a long time, staying in the Luzzago house, where he made many paintings. Here he came into contact with the art of Pieter Mulier known as Cavalier Tempesta; this encounter influenced Roncelli's painting especially with regard to the search for the effect of changing atmospheric phenomena and to the preference for landscapes of bucolic and classical nature. After a probable move to Rome and a trip to Germany, Roncelli was still in Venice, and in 1710 after another brief Brescian stay he returned to his now elderly uncle in Stezzano. Here, as the sources attest, he produced a number of works for the Counts Moroni of Stezzano and in Bergamo for the Beltramelli family, for the Carrara family near S. Maria, for the Carrara family in Rocca, and for the Quarenghi family in Borgo Canale (however, the evidence did not allow these works to be identified). Then he moved to Bergamo, as spiritual director of the seminary; at this stage pastoral and ecclesiastical commitments took him away from painting, to which he could rarely devote himself. He remained in Bergamo until his death, which seized him on March 20, 1729. There are no known signed works by Roncelli, and even more complex is their dating that could provide useful footholds in reconstructing the artist's pictorial evolution. The only testimony is that left by Francesco Maria Tassi in 1793 ( F.M. Tassi, Vite de' pittori, scultori e architetti bergamaschi, Bergamo 1793) who distinguishes his production into two ways of painting: the first characterized by soft, harmonious tontines drawn from Flemish taste, and a second more lively, characterized by bold tones tending toward yellows and oranges. His works are often occupied by characters almost always of a sacred character, usually placed in the background to make room for the landscape, the real protagonist of his canvases. Among the works that have come down to us today, in addition to the many belonging to private collections, are the nine canvases from the Sanctuary of the Madonna dei Campi in Stezzano, probably made free of charge to decorate its walls; two landscapes visible to the public are preserved in the Diocesan Museum of Bergamo and represent Tobiolo and the Archangel Raphael and The Vocation of the Sons of Zebedee: works characterized by golden skies with the hues of dusk; the Immaculate Madonna and 'angel comforting s. Francis in the parish church of Stezzano. The present work can be correlated with the five canvases in the nave of the Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Fields characterized by strong color contrasts that see sunsets with intense yellows juxtaposed with soft pearly clouds in turquoise skies, according to the mature pictorial phase well described by Tassi.
  • Creator:
    Giuseppe Roncelli (1663 - 1729, Italian)
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 25.6 in (65 cm)Width: 30.32 in (77 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Period:
    Late 17th Century
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    Milan, IT
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU2639213032802
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