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Attributed to FRANCESCO VANNI (Siena, 1563 - 1610). "St. Francis in ecstasy". Oil on copper. Original frame of the period. It presents to the back an illegible inscription in Italian. Measurements: 25 x 19 cm; 36 x 30,5 cm (frame). This painting belongs to the Tuscan mannerist school and is attributed to the painter Francesco Vanni. An etching of this painter with the same subject and compositional treatment, one of whose copies is preserved in the British Museum, may have served as a preliminary study for the oil painting shown here. The high quality of this painting, in accordance with the mastery of the Sienese master, shows St. Francis of Assisi leaning on a rock, with closed eyelids and half-open lips while listening to the celestial music of the violin played by an angel next to his ear. One of the saint's hands begins to bleed, his wound mimicking the stigmata of Christ's Passion. Each of these narrative details faithfully follows the passages described by St. Bonaventure, biographer of the founder of the Franciscan Order: being gravely ill, St. Francis began to hear music so beautiful that he thought he had already crossed the threshold to the eternal kingdom. Subtle gradations of halftones model the angel's infantile body. The seraphic face contrasts with the wiry, angular features of the ecstatic saint. An amber light emerges from the celestial background and outlines the infant's body against the light, giving it a great beauty, in which we identify Vanni's style. The work clearly belongs to the artistic circle of Francesco Vanni, an Italian painter, draughtsman, engraver, publisher and printer active in Rome and in his hometown of Siena. Vanni was part of a family of painters. When he was 16, Vanni moved to Bologna and then to Rome. He was apprenticed to Giovanni de 'Vecchi during 1579-1580, although he was also greatly influenced artistically by other Tuscan painters of his time. In Rome, he worked with Salimbeni, Bartolomeo Passerotti and Andrea Lilio. Pope Clement VIII commissioned him to paint an altarpiece for St. Peter's, later transferred to mosaic, Simon the Magician rebuked by St. Peter. He painted several other pictures for Roman churches; including St. Michael defeats the rebellious angels for the sacristy of S. Gregorio; a Pieta of St. Mary in Vallicella; and the Assumption of St. Lawrence in Miranda. In Siena, he painted a S. Raimondo walking on the Sea for the church of the Dominicans. Vanni painted a Baptism of Constantine (1586-1587) for the church of San Agostino in Siena. He was active as an engraver and engraved three devotional engravings after his own designs. In addition, he was the publisher of a large 4-plate map of Siena that he himself had designed and had engraved by the Flemish engraver Pieter the Elder. He asked Lorenzo Usimbardi in 1595 for help in obtaining financial support for the publication of the map.

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Attributed to FRANCESCO VANNI (Siena, 1563 - 1610). "St. Francis in ecstasy". Oil on copper. Original frame of the period. It presents to the back an illegible inscription in Italian. Measurements: 25 x 19 cm; 36 x 30,5 cm (frame). This painting belongs to the Tuscan mannerist school and is attributed to the painter Francesco Vanni. An etching of this painter with the same subject and compositional treatment, one of whose copies is preserved in the British Museum, may have served as a preliminary study for the oil painting shown here. The high quality of this painting, in accordance with the mastery of the Sienese master, shows St. Francis of Assisi leaning on a rock, with closed eyelids and half-open lips while listening to the celestial music of the violin played by an angel next to his ear. One of the saint's hands begins to bleed, his wound mimicking the stigmata of Christ's Passion. Each of these narrative details faithfully follows the passages described by St. Bonaventure, biographer of the founder of the Franciscan Order: being gravely ill, St. Francis began to hear music so beautiful that he thought he had already crossed the threshold to the eternal kingdom. Subtle gradations of halftones model the angel's infantile body. The seraphic face contrasts with the wiry, angular features of the ecstatic saint. An amber light emerges from the celestial background and outlines the infant's body against the light, giving it a great beauty, in which we identify Vanni's style. The work clearly belongs to the artistic circle of Francesco Vanni, an Italian painter, draughtsman, engraver, publisher and printer active in Rome and in his hometown of Siena. Vanni was part of a family of painters. When he was 16, Vanni moved to Bologna and then to Rome. He was apprenticed to Giovanni de 'Vecchi during 1579-1580, although he was also greatly influenced artistically by other Tuscan painters of his time. In Rome, he worked with Salimbeni, Bartolomeo Passerotti and Andrea Lilio. Pope Clement VIII commissioned him to paint an altarpiece for St. Peter's, later transferred to mosaic, Simon the Magician rebuked by St. Peter. He painted several other pictures for Roman churches; including St. Michael defeats the rebellious angels for the sacristy of S. Gregorio; a Pieta of St. Mary in Vallicella; and the Assumption of St. Lawrence in Miranda. In Siena, he painted a S. Raimondo walking on the Sea for the church of the Dominicans. Vanni painted a Baptism of Constantine (1586-1587) for the church of San Agostino in Siena. He was active as an engraver and engraved three devotional engravings after his own designs. In addition, he was the publisher of a large 4-plate map of Siena that he himself had designed and had engraved by the Flemish engraver Pieter the Elder. He asked Lorenzo Usimbardi in 1595 for help in obtaining financial support for the publication of the map.

Estimate 5 000 - 6 000 EUR
Starting price 4 000 EUR

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Spanish school ca. 1800. "Saint Anthony of Padua with Child". Carved and polychrome wood. Lilies in silver plated metal. Child's dress on canvas, 19th century. It presents faults in the polychromy and slight xylophagous damage. Measurements: 86 x 42 x 33 cm. Sculpture in wood carved in round bulk representing Saint Anthony of Padua with the Child Jesus in his arms. The Saint wears a Franciscan habit and holds a bunch of lilies in silver metal in his right hand. The Child, on the other hand, looks directly at the Saint, and is dressed in 19th-century embroidered cloth. Saint Anthony of Padua is, after Saint Francis of Assisi, the most popular of the Franciscan saints. He is depicted as a beardless youth with a broad monastic tonsure, dressed in the brown habit of the Franciscans. One of his most frequent attributes is the book, which identifies him as a holy writer. Another distinctive iconographic feature is the branch of lily, an element borrowed from his panegyrist Bernardine of Siena. Saint Anthony is often depicted with the Infant Jesus, alluding to an apparition he had in his cell. It became the most popular attribute of this saint from the 16th century onwards, being especially popular in the Baroque art of the Counter-Reformation. He was born in Lisbon in 1195 and only spent the last two years of his life in Padua. After studying at the convent of Santa Cruz in Coimbra, he entered the Order of Friars Minor in 1220, where he changed his Christian name from Fernando to Antonio. After teaching theology in Bologna, he travelled through southern and central France, preaching in Arles, Montpellier, Puy, Limoges and Bourges. In 1227 he took part in the general chapter at Assisi. In 1230 he was involved in the transfer of the remains of St Francis. He preached in Padua and died there at the age of 36 in 1231. He was canonised only a year after his death, in 1232. Until the end of the 15th century, the cult of St. Anthony remained located in Padua. From the following century onwards, he became, at first, the national saint of the Portuguese, who placed the churches they built abroad under his patronage, and then a universal saint.