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ASTOLFO PETRAZZI Siena (1580 / 1653) "Musician angels" Pair of oil paintings on canvas Origin: Madrid, private collection. This pair of large canvases are a good example of Sienese baroque painting. Coming from the Italian antique market and acquired as works by Astolfo Petrazzi, they represent a pair of musical angels, one of them playing the serpent and the other a lute. Their monumental tone stands out, as they are figures that slightly exceed life size and both are inside a pair of architectural niches made of white stone, topped with semicircular arches. Knowing Roman naturalism, Petrazzi plays with the contrasts of light and shadow to give his compositions greater depth and works with perspective so that the angels seem to escape from the architectural frames that enclose them, giving both compositions great movement. Nothing is known about their remote origin, although, due to the substance of the paintings, it is easy to assume that they must have been part of a commission of great importance carried out in Siena, Spoleto or Rome; cities in which he developed his activity. From the testimony of sources we know that Petrazzi produced countless public works and that he also took on many private commissions, creating elegant works intended for domestic devotion. Within this last group, the genre paintings stand out in which the artist resorted on more than one occasion to painting kitchen interiors and series dedicated to the seasons. Measurements: 230 x 94 cm

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ASTOLFO PETRAZZI Siena (1580 / 1653) "Musician angels" Pair of oil paintings on canvas Origin: Madrid, private collection. This pair of large canvases are a good example of Sienese baroque painting. Coming from the Italian antique market and acquired as works by Astolfo Petrazzi, they represent a pair of musical angels, one of them playing the serpent and the other a lute. Their monumental tone stands out, as they are figures that slightly exceed life size and both are inside a pair of architectural niches made of white stone, topped with semicircular arches. Knowing Roman naturalism, Petrazzi plays with the contrasts of light and shadow to give his compositions greater depth and works with perspective so that the angels seem to escape from the architectural frames that enclose them, giving both compositions great movement. Nothing is known about their remote origin, although, due to the substance of the paintings, it is easy to assume that they must have been part of a commission of great importance carried out in Siena, Spoleto or Rome; cities in which he developed his activity. From the testimony of sources we know that Petrazzi produced countless public works and that he also took on many private commissions, creating elegant works intended for domestic devotion. Within this last group, the genre paintings stand out in which the artist resorted on more than one occasion to painting kitchen interiors and series dedicated to the seasons. Measurements: 230 x 94 cm

Estimate 27 000 - 36 000 EUR
Starting price 18 000 EUR

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For sale on Monday 22 Jul : 17:00 (CEST) , resuming at 17:00
madrid, Spain
Ansorena
+34915328515
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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.