FRANCESCO GRAZIANI

(active in Rome in the second half of the 17th century) Battle between European cavalries Oil on canvas, cm 40X73 Provenance: Private collection On the basis of ancient inventories, Roethlisberger-Bianco informs us of the artist's probable birth in Capua, while in 1808 Luigi Lanzi mentions a 'Graziani' as a pupil in Rome of the famous battler Jacques Courtois, known as the Borgognone (Saint-Hyppolite, 16211 ; Rome, 1676), consequently suggesting an early arrival in the Eternal City (Cf. L. Lanzi, Storia pittorica della Italia (1809), edited by M. Capucci, I, Florence 1968, p. 385). In fact, according to Buchowiecki (Cf. Buchowiecki, Handbuch der Kirchen Roms, I, Wien 1967, pp. 415, 647), Graziani in 1671 made a series of canvases for the nave and chancel of the Basilica of the Holy Apostles depicting Stories from the Old and New Testaments (lost), but certain is his professional achievement in the 1680s, when in 1686 Filippo Titi recalls the canvas with the Preaching of the Baptist made in 1683 for the Cimini chapel in Sant'Antonio dei Portoghesi and a Penitent Magdalene preserved in the church of Santa Croce della Penitenza alla Lungara, now identified with the Crucifixion with Mary Magdalene in the parish church of Ardea, in which, to be fair, southern sensibilities and a gloomy flavor evoking modes of Stanzione and Mattia Preti are felt. That said, in the following years the artist had to devote himself purely to the genre of battle, as the inventories of the Barberini collection and in particular the works in the Spada and Pallavicini collections attest, which allowed Federico Zeri an initial analysis of the author. Returning to the canvas presented here, its high quality is highlighted, the same quality we find in the precious oil on copper in the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore (Cf. F. Zeri, Italian Paintings in the Walters Art Gallery, 1976, p. 472 n. 352) and, above all, in the Scena di Battaglia (Battle Scene) belonging to the Spada Gallery, which is very similar in its scenic construction, quality of execution and a similar chromatic feeling handled at the tip of the brush that precedes in its results the mature work of Francesco Simonini of the Venetian period (fig. 1; cf. F. Zeri, La Galleria Spada in Roma. Catalogo dei dipinti, Florence 1954, p. 145 no. 245). Reference bibliography: F. Zeri, La Galleria Pallavicini in Rome, Florence 1959, p. 145. W. Buchowiecki, Handbuch der Kirchen Roms, I, Wien 1967, pp. 415, 647 L. Salerno, I pittori di paesaggio del Seicento a Roma, Rome 1977-1978, vol. II, pp. 644-654 F. Titi, Studio di pittura, scoltura et architettura nelle chiese di Roma (1674-1763), edited by B. Contardi, S. Romano, Florence 1987, I, pp. 21, 209; II, pp. 57, 386 G. Sestieri, I Pittori di Battaglie, Rome 1999, pp. 360-371