The Guardian Angel in Glory, Italian school of the 17th century

Claudio Ridolfi (Verona, c. 1570 - Corinaldo, 1644) Workshop/circle
The Guardian Angel in Glory

Oil on canvas
124 x 84 cm. - With frame 148 x 110 cm.

It carries with it a great charm this precious canvas, which has as its subject the Archangel Raphael in glory, one of the angels who stand before God singing his praises, here portrayed as a youth of eternal beauty soaring through the air thanks to his large outstretched wings.

The angel is immortalised while symbolically pointing upwards with his hand and carries within himself the meaning of protector and is here portrayed as the emblem of the Guardian Angel. Two angels fly over him, posting the scroll with the inscription 'SIGNATVS NOBIS AD.CVSTODIAM', which refers precisely to prayers to God to assign us a guardian to watch over us.

This is one of the most popular compositions by Claudio Ridolfi (Verona, c. 1570 - Corinaldo, 1644), of which several versions are known, such as those made around 1627 for the altars of the Churches of St. Luke the Evangelist (Imm.1) and St. John in the Forum (Imm.2), both in Verona.

The figure of the angel is striking for its luminosity, beauty and perfection, together with the explicit gestures of his hands to indicate the upper part of the composition, where one can see the figure of the protégé, presumably related to the commissioner, kneeling in the presence of Jesus, the Virgin and St. Peter, protector of the city.

The work is eminently named by the painter and scholar Saverio Dalla Rosa who, in admiring Ridolfi's work, described it in the following words:
"We can see the beautiful winged young man composed in his stance and gracefully suspended in the air, descending from the sky, stopping his flight and lightly resting his foot on the world depicted on the terrestrial globe; a celestial figure moved with grace, truly angelic in its physiognomy, elegant in its forms, and nobly adorned with garments, one could say that they are ruffled and sustained by gentle zephyr. The well-arranged folds, their pink and violet tints well united and iridescent, touched with that happy brush of hers, wonderfully express the appropriate lightness. I do not know if the contours themselves could be more noble and ornate for an angel".

Claudio Ridolfi, an aristocratic painter from a noble Veronese family, moved to Venice in his early twenties as a pupil of Paolo Veronese, then to Rome and Urbino, where we find him in 1590 in Federico Barocci's workshop.

He soon embarked on an independent career, first in Le Marche but later in Verona, which would lead him to great success in the first decades of the 17th century thanks to his delicate and refined style, combined with consistently excellent quality, producing devotional works for local churches.

His fervid artistic activity unfolded between public successes and patronage requests, thanks also to his extraordinary skill and speed of execution in portraying sacred characters imbued with realism, but never dramatic or suffering, as well as a good line-up of pupils, among whom we can remember Giovanbattista Amigazzi, Girolamo Cialdieri and Benedetto Marini.