MARCANTONIO BASSETTI (Verona, 1586 - 1630) Portrait of a man Oil on canvas, 60X46 cm Provenance: Vienna, Dorotheum, Nov. 10, 2020, lot 189 (as Marcantonio Bassetti) A pupil of Brusasorci, Bassetti first went to Venice, devoting himself to the study of 16th-century masters, and in 1616 he moved to Rome, perhaps in the company of Pasquale Ottino and Alessandro Turchi. His sojourn in the Eternal City induced him, while not detracting from his Venetian nature, to approach naturalist painters especially Orazio Borgianni, who transformed Caravaggism into a fat touch painting, and thus to express results akin to those of Giovanni Serodine and Carlo Saraceni, achieving lumpy impastos and a rougher, but at the same time liquid and flowing brushstroke, with results as close as ever to those of Fetti. These aspects, consequently, would suggest an early Capitoline execution, reasoning that Fetti was in Mantua by 1611. Indeed, the work reveals a grasp of reality whose Lombard-Venetian echoes are modulating on Rubensian and Roman sentiments with sprezzature reminiscent of Carraccian portraiture. The outcome, as we see, exhibits a striking expressive immediacy, typical of works done 'in front of the natural,' with the intention of capturing without intellectualistic mediation or belletries the man. It thus seems clear that this type of portrait will serve as an example for Bernini's spontaneous effigies. Reference bibliography: L. Magagnato, Cinquant'anni di pittura veronese 1580-1630, exhibition catalog, Verona 1974, ad vocem R. Pallucchini, La pittura veneziana del Seicento, Milan 1981, II, p. 124