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Emilian school, 17th century, St. Francis

$3,898.79
£2,922.39
€3,300
CA$5,356.28
A$5,979.78
CHF 3,133.32
MX$73,198.41
NOK 39,793.15
SEK 37,519.88
DKK 25,120.80
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About the Item

Scuola emiliana, XVII secolo St. Francis Oil on canvas, 73 x 59 cm Framed, 83 x 69 cm Patron saint of Italy, St. Francis (Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone; Assisi, 1181/1182 - 1226) is the saint par excellence in the Western collective imagination. The doctrine tacked on his teachings by the large group of devoted believers who followed him in his wanderings and acts of charity toward the weakest enabled the development of a revolutionary form of asceticism that was more heartfelt and humane. The renunciation of all material goods in the conviction of a full and perfect life if totally dedicated to God, made Franciscanism the expression of the best and fraternal pauperistic spirit then desirable. The present painting depicts the saint in an ecstatic attitude as he raises his eyes to heaven absorbed in an inner prayer. The human skull, a traditional symbol of materiality and temporality of life, manifests here the total poverty to which the saint was dedicated. The book that can be glimpsed below his elbow refers doubly to both the Gospel of Christ, which the saint honored by his behavior, and the generous literary work he handed down to us, within which it is possible to recall the Canticle of the Creatures. The stigmata, on the other hand, according to Catholic mysticism, came to him, the first among the saints to receive them, thanks to the strong spiritual union achieved with Jesus; receiving the signs of suffering was a consequent fact of identification with Him: as Dante recalls (Divine Comedy, Paradise, Canto XI, vv. 106-108: "In the raw stone between Tiber and Arno from Christ took the last seal that his members two years bore." The painting shows several stylistic affinities with the work of Guido Reni, placing it in the fertile Emilian context of the mid-seventeenth century. Although there is no shortage of stringent comparisons with the St. Francis variously adoring the Cross or figured in ecstasy made by the workshop of Annibale Carracci (The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore) or by Bartolomeo Passerotti (Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale), it is with a canvas of the same subject painted by Reni and now housed in the Louvre Museum in Paris that the painting examined weaves convinced formalisms. Correspondingly conceived, the two paintings both show the same, emotional flicker in St. Francis' eyes, turned to God ; the surrounding rocky landscape, punctuated here and there by branches and creepers in the stone, warms the saint's solitude. Guido Reni executed a second version of the painting, changing the position of one of Francesco's arms and setting up the entire composition specularly with respect to the present ones ; this version, executed for the Girolamini church in Naples around 1622, where it is still preserved today, was not placed in the Coppola chapel, already patronized at Sant'Alessio, until 1675.
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 23.23 in (59 cm)Width: 28.75 in (73 cm)Depth: 1.97 in (5 cm)
  • Style:
    Other (In the Style Of)
  • Materials and Techniques:
    Canvas,Oiled
  • Place of Origin:
    Italy
  • Period:
    18th Century and Earlier
  • Date of Manufacture:
    XVII Century
  • Condition:
    Wear consistent with age and use.
  • Seller Location:
    Milan, IT
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU5918245588832

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