The Annunciation, Girolamo Bonini (circa 1600 - 1680)

Girolamo Bonini, called Anconitano (Ancona, circa 1600 - Bologna 1680)

Annunciation (or Madonna of the Beautiful Angel)

Oil on canvas
115 x 91 cm.
Framed 134 x 108 cm.

Work accompanied by the expertise of Prof. Emilio Negro

The work, undoubtedly commissioned as an object of private devotion, shows the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary, a Gospel episode here set on the two figures portrayed in the foreground, the Archangel Gabriel with outstretched wings, a portrait of supernatural beauty, and the Virgin;

We see her here absorbed in reading a prayer book with her eyes turned humbly downwards as a sign of devotion, while a small cherub hands her white lilies, a symbol of purity and chastity.

In the upper part of the composition is the austere image of God the Father, with the dove radiating with light, emblem of the Holy Spirit, surrounded by a flock of angels fluttering in the clouds charged with intense glow and play of light, in full Baroque style.

It should also be noted that the image of the Saviour's mother in a delicately pious attitude, with her yellow veil, her broad blue mantle and her usual modest red dress from which the edges of her white blouse protrude, is to be interpreted as a kind of tender allegory of sacred love.

The painting in question is an interesting replica with variants of the composition commissioned from Francesco Albani for the Fioravanti chapel in the ancient church of S. Bartolomeo in Bologna, inaugurated in 1632, also known as the 'Madonna of the Beautiful Angel', thanks to the dazzling beauty of the announcing angel.

Returning to our depiction, its authorship is therefore to be attributed to a talented pupil of Albani who was able, like his master, to give us a truly masterful composition, knowing how to mix the naturalistic lesson of the Carracci with the rounded lines and lively movement of Roman Baroque poetics.

Presumably originally commissioned to decorate the walls of an aristocratic chapel, it is possible to identify its author in Girolamo Bonini known as Anconetano, (Ancona c.1600 - Bologna c.1680), a little-known but highly talented artist, active mainly in Bologna, but also in Rome and Venice.

In the City of the Two Towers he participated in the frescoes of the Sala Farnese in the Palazzo Comunale, where under the direction of Carlo Cignani he painted together with the no less talented Lorenzo Pasinelli, Luigi Scaramuccia and Giovanni Maria Bibbiena.

Compositions that, like the painting under examination, are characterised by a bursting and captivating vivacity to the point of achieving a combination of luministic effects and warm hues, inspired by the paintings of the master Albani but already diluted towards softer cadences now tending towards Rococo.