Offered by Antichità Castelbarco
Luigi Garzi (Pistoia, 1638 - Rome, 1721)
The Annunciation
Oil on canvas
cm. 130 x 114
Framed cm. 142 x 126
Work with expertise by Prof. Emilio Negro
The work, certainly 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, portrayed with a supernatural beauty, who with an imperious air delivers the supreme announcement to the Virgin.
We see her here absorbed in the reading of a prayer book with her eyes turned humbly downwards as a sign of devotion to the divine will, while she is handed white lilies, the symbol of purity and chastity, by the angel.
In the upper part of the composition is the austere image of God the Father, with the dove radiating with light, the emblem of the Holy Spirit, supported by two angels amidst clouds charged with intense glow and play of light, in full Baroque style.
The painting can be traced back to the hand of Luigi Garzi (Pistoia 1638 - Rome 1721), a painter with an erudite artistic personality, who was an essential linking figure between the 17th and 18th century within the complex Roman artistic scene.
His painting, light and refined, reveals a pleasant accord of pictorial accents derived from the works of the best contemporary masters working in Rome in those same years, that is to say, an education in drawing of Tuscan and Roman matrix that lingers pleasantly on frivolous Rococo cadences.
A Tuscan by origin, Luigi Garzi went to Rome at a very young age to the workshop of Andrea Sacchi, who directed his studies towards classicism, comparing himself with the works of Raphael, Domenichino and Nicolas Poussin; but mainly he followed Emilian examples, particularly favouring Giovani Lanfranco, Guido Reni and Pietro da Cortona.
He is therefore an author with a composite figurative culture, a character of style that is manifested in the warm luminosity, glazed colours and lightness of the delicate forms of the figures.
The painting shown here expresses this particular training of the painter, celebrated by historiography for his industrious artistic activity under the banner of grace, formal elegance, creative originality and fine chromatic elaboration, all characteristics that we find in our canvas.
The peculiar drafting and the sculptural classicism of the figures enveloped in a soft light lead us to date the canvas to the phase of his early artistic maturity, around 1680-90, when Garzi was able to open up to new figurative experiences that gave him the opportunity to create important cycles of frescoes and altarpieces, a numerous series of works executed with the usual rich and warm chromatic range typical of his best painting.
Delevery information :
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Should you have the desire to see this or other works in person, we would be happy to welcome you to our gallery in Riva del Garda, Viale Giuseppe Canella 18, we are always open by appointment only.
