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Description

Francesco Conti

Francesco Conti (Florence 1681-1760) - Annunciation 88x55 cm in frame 101.5x69 cm Oil on canvas Expert opinion by Professor Claudio Strinati. Annunciation (oil on canvas, cm 101 x 69 in frame) This is a work that, by style (the wavy and animated drafting of the figures and drapery) and iconography the Archangel Gabriel and the Virgin are both standing and of equal stature and presence in space), must be dated to the beginning of the 18th century, reflecting in part the pictorial culture of the Roman school of Carlo Maratta, probably still alive at the time of the creation of our painting under consideration here; in part the legacy of the Florentine Baroque school, less known nowadays but extremely flourishing and rich in personality especially after the passage through the city of Pietro da Cortona and Ciro Ferri who left there distinguished masterpieces whose echo can also be perceived in our painting. For reasons of style, I believe that the author of the beautiful painting under consideration here must be identified in the Florentine Francesco Conti, who as a very young man was in close contact with the Marattesque school in Rome (where he was a pupil of the eminent Giovanni Maria Morandi) but then followed his own path which led him, having returned to Florence in good time, to achieve brilliant results in the sphere of Tuscan Baroque painting marked by those characteristics of wit, formal elegance, and polite dynamism, all of which seem to me to be found in our work. A comparison with one of Conti's early youthful masterpieces, the altarpiece of the Trinity in the Florentine church of San Jacopo sopr' Arno datable by the end of the first decade of the 18th century, leads me to recognize the same hand in our painting. Incidentally, it is curious how the model of the Eternal Father, with a singular baldness and a sparse, nervous beard, would be said to be exactly the same both in the altarpiece mentioned and in our painting where he is canonically depicted sending on the earth the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove. I conclude from this that our painting is an interesting and very beautiful testimony to the beginnings of an artist certainly less celebrated today than some of his other eminent countrymen and contemporaries, but of considerable interest and as such cited with merit both in the writings of the older art historians, as well as in those of some masters of twentieth-century historiography such as Matteo Marangoni, who in one of his important essays Settecentisti (but not too) fiorentini, in his volume Arte barocca, Firenze Vallecchi 1973 (2nd ed.) put well the relevance of Conti with arguments that are still very valid today Work ours, therefore, of remarkable historical significance and fine artistic quality guaranteed moreover by an excellent state of preservation. I therefore believe that the value of the painting under consideration here is, based on the current conditions of the National market as of the date of this appraisal, 25,000 euros In faith, Claudio Strinati

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Francesco Conti

Estimate 3 400 EUR
Starting price 3 400 EUR

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For sale on Thursday 18 Jul : 16:30 (CEST)
catania, Italy
ArtLaRosa
+390957169129
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