A Soldier Hands The Crown To Saint Joseph Giovanni Molinari ( 1721 - 1793 )

Painting oil on canvas depicting a soldier handing the crown to Saint Joseph, measuring 76 x 61 cm without frame and 95 x 80 cm with frame by the painter Giovanni Domenico Molinari ( Vercelli 1721 - Turin 1793 ).

Molinare was born in Caresana (Vercelli) on 19 July 1721 but after losing both his parents he moved to Turin. Here he became, from 1736, a student at the Academy of Drawing founded by the painter Claudio Francesco Beaumont (Turin, 4 July 1694 - Turin, 21 June 1766) where he remained as a boarder until December 1755. Molinari was immediately involved in translating the master's sketches onto cartoons used for the Royal Tapestry Factory. His early success on the Turin art scene is confirmed by the fact that he joined the Compagnia di San Luca in 1756.

The colours used here, bright but cool with a predilection for blue and pink tones with bright hints of yellow, can be seen in many other works by the master such as the Apparizio della Madonna della Neve in Santa Maria della Neve in Mondelli or the Madonna del Carmine with St Sebastian and St John the Baptist in Rivara. It is above all the pastoral episodes that have passed through the antiques market that are most closely related to the present, as is the Saint Agatha in the Luigi Mallé Museum in Dronero. 

The paintings in question are an important document of Molinari's best vein because they display a luministic impetus of brilliant skill; This is because the best part of our painter's activity is undoubtedly that which concerns portraiture of both people and objects, which he carried forward with constant commitment, achieving a peculiarity of manner that marks a significant phase in the development of the genre, with lucid anticipation of the executive finesse of the neoclassics, also due to a breadth of impasto and a perspicuity of definition that are all typical prerogatives of great Italian painting and of Molinari himself.

We can find the same artistic sense present here in other works by the painter himself, such as the two works on the story of David in the Palazzo Reale in Turin, where a catalogue entitled ‘Exhibition of the Piedmontese Baroque. Painting - Sculpture - Tapestries.