63 - * Andrea de Leone

* Andrea de Leone (Naples, 1610 - 1685) THE MARTYRDOM OF SAINT STEPHEN BEFORE THE RUINS OF ROME oil on canvas, 101.5x127.5 cm MARTIRIO DI SANTO STEFANO DAVANTI ALLE ROVINE DI ROMA olio su tela, cm 101,5x127,5 Provenance - Naples, Marquis Francesco Taccone di Sitizano. The painting is accompanied by a study by Miriam Di Penta. Unknown to scholarship at the time the monograph was written, the present painting re-emerged in 2017 at Christie’s in London, where it was generically attributed to the Neapolitan school. Although the canvas was covered by a thick layer of grime that compromised its legibility, its high quality and excellent state of preservation were already discernible, as was the identity of its author, subsequently confirmed with certainty following restoration. The sumptuous, antiquarian-inspired composition, the brilliance of the colours, the manner in which the Corinthian colonnade is depicted, as well as the distinctive physiognomies and gestures of the figures, the vegetation and even the streaks of the sky swept by light, fast-moving clouds, are all characteristic of Andrea De Leone’s late period, following the terrible plague of 1656. Multiple comparisons with works from his mature production confirm the attribution beyond doubt. This was the period in which the painter devoted himself more extensively to religious subjects, which he had largely neglected in his youth, when he showed a greater interest in mythological themes and subjects drawn from ancient history, lending his work a somewhat Romanising, fashionable character. Nevertheless, the atmosphere of the present canvas remains that of an elegant Antiquarian Landscape rather than a fully fledged martyrdom scene. This is already apparent, for example, in the elevated and solemn Tobias Burying the Dead, executed on a large copper panel and now in a French private collection, which in a sense inaugurated the artist’s mature phase around 1650. In its didactic and narrative tone, as well as in its distinctive architectural and landscape setting, the Martyrdom of Saint Stephen discussed here is closely related to significant works for understanding the development of De Leone’s art during the 1660s and 1670s. These include the Christ at the Pool of Bethesda in a Roman private collection, the Triumph of David, the Entry of Christ into Jerusalem and Christ and the Adulteress, dated 1667 on the arch. All these paintings were executed in Naples, when Andrea had become an established artist, supported by a long career and an extraordinary lifespan. The lively figures witnessing the martyrdom and animating the scene, characterised by their expressive and descriptive features, are closely related in their vitality, gestures and physiognomies to those accompanying the Messiah’s entry in the Entry into Jerusalem, as well as to the background figures in the large canvas depicting the Pool of Bethesda (Di Penta 2017, cat. Q.74). Strong similarities can also be observed with slightly later works, such as the Vision of Emperor Augustus and, above all, the Adoration of the Shepherds, formerly with Porcini in Naples. In the latter, the middle ground is animated by figures treated pictorially in precisely the same manner as those seen here, introducing anecdotal and narrative episodes that complement the sacred scene unfolding in the foreground. The treatment of the trees and the atmosphere of the sky likewise recall those in the present painting, as they do in many other works throughout the artist’s career, to such an extent that they constitute one of the most characteristic hallmarks of his style. The combination of the elevated, solemn tone conveyed by the grand architectural setting with a more didactic and popular mode of narration is equally consistent with De Leone’s artistic approach, as he frequently employed this dual register as a defining feature of his artistic personality. The composition unfolds within a luminous landscape punctuated by monumental ruins, which lend gravity to the sacred scene. It is set on a plain on the outskirts of an ancient city, as indicated by the imposing columns of a temple with an attic storey and a semicircular structure evoking the Flavian Amphitheatre (the Colosseum). This is Jerusalem, where the deacon Stephen was indeed stoned to death in AD 34. Yet the ruins also allude to the fact that Christianity laid its foundations upon the remnants of the Roman world, indeed bringing the Roman Empire itself to ruin, and that, upon those ruins, in Rome, it subsequently established a new Eternal Kingdom, thanks precisely to the exemplary deeds of its protomartyrs. At the same time, the frenetic activity of the subsidiary figures—mounted soldiers, spectators and bystanders—and their agitated gestures bring the scene closer to the viewer’s own experience, lending it a quality of everyday, almost parodic narration that can be recognised time and again throughout the artist’s oeuvre. The painting should therefore be assigned with confidence to the later phase of Andrea De Leone’s production, dating to circa 1665–1675. * The painting is accompanied by a certificate of free circulation.