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Premium GIOVANNI BATTISTA MANNA? (Catania, c. 1570 - Rome, 1640)
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GIOVANNI BATTISTA MANNA? (Catania, c. 1570 - Rome, 1640)
See original version (Italian)
Lot no. 68
Description
GIOVANNI BATTISTA MANNA?
(Catania, c. 1570 - Rome, 1640)
Saint Catherine of Alexandria
Oil on canvas, 143.5X110 cm
Provenance:
Genoa, private collection
By virtue of the cogwheel and the sword, one can recognise the figure of Saint Catherine of Alexandria here gathered in adoration and distinguished by a refined gilded embroidered robe. This 'sartorial' elegance leads to comparisons with the works of Orazio Gentileschi, suggesting a Capitoline genesis of the work, also reiterated by the pose reminiscent of the painting of St. Cecilia, St. Valerian and St. Tiburtius Visited by the Angel in the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Brera, which was painted in 1607 and placed in the church of Santa Cecilia in Rome (cf. R. Ward Bissell, Orazio Gentileschi and the Poetic Tradition in Caravaggesque Painting, Pennsylvania State University Press 1981, pp. 170-172). This last clue therefore reveals a direct knowledge of Gentileschi's works, not forgetting the Caravaggesque evidence of the cogwheel taken from the Saint Catherine today in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, allowing us to recognise an author with a 16th century education, but active during the early 17th century and paying attention to the artistic developments of his time. Having said this, the typology of the face, the neo-15th-century precision grafted into a package of Baroque luminescence, the mixture of a Gentilesque elegance and the archaism of the Marian image evokes the name of Giovanni Battista Manna, a master of Sicilian origin active in Rome. The canvas under examination finds interesting points of comparison with the altarpiece signed and dated 1618, depicting the Madonna of the Girdle and kept in the church of San Giovanni Battista in San Gemini (cf. Pittura del '600 e '700. Ricerche in Umbria 1, Treviso 1976, p. 66, table III).
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