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17th Century Portrait of a Woman Painting Oil on Canvas by Monsù Bernardo

About the Item

Bernard Keil known as Monsù Bernardo (Helsingør, 1624 - Rome, 1687) Portrait of a woman Oil on canvas, 67 x 48 cm - frame 78 x 62 cm Identified for the first time only starting from 1938 by Roberto Longhi, who was able, far-sighted, to distinguish the pasty brushstroke from that of Antonio Amorosi, and grasped its affinities with Domenico Fetti, it was then the merit of Federico Zeri to highlight some affinity with Bernardo Strozzi, thanks to the discovery in the Pallavicini Gallery in Rome of a copy of the famous Supper at Emmaus which the Capuchin replicated several times. Keil was a disciple of none other than Rembrandt between 1642 and 1644. Following the brilliant novitiate, the artist opened his own workshop in Amsterdam, then descended to Italy, first staying in Venice (1651-1654). He remained in the territories of the Serenissima, moving to Bergamo and other Lombard centers. In that period Monsù Bernardo painted numerous portraits for local clients and became friends with Evaristo Baschenis; in addition, he went to visit Milan. In the many months (two years, according to Filippo Baldinucci) that he resided in Bergamo, he also painted paintings depicting children and young people. He moved towards Romagna, filling himself up with the colorism of Forlì and Ravenna, but it was only in Rome, where he would have worked for the rest of his life, that he gave the following realism a decisive series of figurative models. Arriving in the capital on March 31, 1656, Keil came into burning contact with the Bamboccianti School set up by fellow countryman Pieter Van Laer, standing out for a certain Caravaggism. In the capital he fortunately met Giovanni Antonio Parravicini, a Milanese nobleman, who appreciated his work so much that he acquired fifty paintings by him, including first hand and replicas, for the rooms of his own Villa Perlasca on Lake Como. Baldinucci, in his News of the professors of drawing from Cimabue in qua (Florence 1728, VI) recalled the exceptional European recognition, destined to influence the future work of Salvator Rosa. His work of him was very intense, he specialized in portraits, religious compositions and very realistic works that describe daily life. He was one of the most original painters of the genre and influenced the art of artists such as Salvator Rosa, Antonio Amorosi and other representatives of 17th and 18th century Italian painting, with visionary and popular subjects. Monsù Bernardo portrayed elderly, young people, farmers and artisans with childish sensitivity, captured in simple gestures, such as portraits of everyday life. The drafting, as in the canvas in question, is soft, but capable of sincerely describing the faces without ever transcending into the raw realism of Caravaggesque or Lombard matrix. This inclination was relevant in the unfolding of the dark Venetian painting and one can imagine a dialogue between the works of Monsù with the Genoese Giovanni Battista Langetti. The painting presented here is part of one of the several works dedicated to the Allegory of Sight, see the book in the hands of the old woman, made by the artist, with a very Rembrandtian flavor who takes the pretext of a tall subject to perform a popular portrait. It is possible to compare this painting with various portraits and genre scenes made by Monsù, both part of private and museum collections. The compositional system, like the realistic portrait, outlined with lyrical vehemence, returns for example in the canvases of the same subject in the Museum of Art and History of Serpukhov or in the Museum of Fine Arts of Cuba. Uffizi in Florence, with the groups of Young and Old from the National Museum of Ljubljana and the Museum of Fine Arts in Nice and finally with the canvas in the same installation of unknown location and cited in the Zeri Photo Library (48459).

Dimensions:

Height: 30.71 in (78 cm)Width: 24.41 in (62 cm)Depth: 1.58 in (4 cm)

Materials and Techniques:

Canvas,Hand-Painted,Oiled,Painted

Place of Origin:

Italy

Period:

17th Century

Date of Manufacture:

17th Century

Condition:

Refinished. Wear consistent with age and use. The painting has been cleaned.