Description
MICHELE ROCCA (Parma, 1671 - c. 1751) Massacre of the Innocents Oil on canvas, 48X80.3 cm Provenance: Vienna, Dorotheum, April 14, 2005, lot 318 Italy, private collection Rocca, also called Parmigianino the younger or Michele da Parma, carried out much of his activity in Rome, where he is documented from 1691 to 1730. In the city of the popes he frequented the cultured entourage of Cardinal Ottoboni, with Francesco Trevisani and Sebastiano Conca. His production counts mainly easel works depicting delicate mythological and Arcadian scenes, executed with a refined classicist taste influenced by the courtly examples of the Emilian Renaissance and a manifest rocaille sensibility. His decorative and happily salubrious art was well received by collectors of the time, and there are not a few scenes in which sensuality is veiled by literary assumptions, with the figures in languid poses constructed with fluid and rapid drafts. In our case, the painting still dates to the earliest Emilian activity because of the obvious Bolognese suggestions. Reference bibliography: E. Debenedetti, C. Pergoli Campanelli, A Point on Michele Rocca, in Rome the Temple of True Taste. Eighteenth-century Roman painting and its diffusion in Venice and Naples, conference proceedings edited by E. Borsellino and V. Casale, Florence 2001, pp. 59-66 G. Sestieri, Michele Rocca and rococo painting in Rome, Florence 2004, ad vocem
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MICHELE ROCCA (Parma, 1671 - c. 1751) Massacre of the Innocents Oil on canvas, 48X80.3 cm Provenance: Vienna, Dorotheum, April 14, 2005, lot 318 Italy, private collection Rocca, also called Parmigianino the younger or Michele da Parma, carried out much of his activity in Rome, where he is documented from 1691 to 1730. In the city of the popes he frequented the cultured entourage of Cardinal Ottoboni, with Francesco Trevisani and Sebastiano Conca. His production counts mainly easel works depicting delicate mythological and Arcadian scenes, executed with a refined classicist taste influenced by the courtly examples of the Emilian Renaissance and a manifest rocaille sensibility. His decorative and happily salubrious art was well received by collectors of the time, and there are not a few scenes in which sensuality is veiled by literary assumptions, with the figures in languid poses constructed with fluid and rapid drafts. In our case, the painting still dates to the earliest Emilian activity because of the obvious Bolognese suggestions. Reference bibliography: E. Debenedetti, C. Pergoli Campanelli, A Point on Michele Rocca, in Rome the Temple of True Taste. Eighteenth-century Roman painting and its diffusion in Venice and Naples, conference proceedings edited by E. Borsellino and V. Casale, Florence 2001, pp. 59-66 G. Sestieri, Michele Rocca and rococo painting in Rome, Florence 2004, ad vocem
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