Carlo Maratta (1625 -1713), Virgin And Child

Carlo Maratta (Camerano 1625 - Rome, 1713)
Virgin and Child

Late 17th - early 18th century

Oil on canvas

49 x 35 cm. - Framed 62 x 48 cm.

Provenance: Hampel Munich, Sep. 28, 2023 (lot 265)

The proposed work, depicting a Madonna and Child in a landscape view through the window on the left, can be attributed to the master Carlo Maratta, one of the greatest exponents of 17th-century classicism, or to an author active in his flourishing workshop;

The composition shows a remarkable quality of execution, and a style that succeeds in balancing a taste for classicism with a baroque style devoid of excess, two contrasting tendencies that, thanks to Maratta, were able to reconcile with surprising results. Despite its illustrative simplicity, we see the emotional and painterly qualities of the master, who devised specific Marian iconographies distinguished by an idealised beauty.

The canvas under scrutiny belongs to this peculiar collector's sphere and the prototype can be recognised in the canvas in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna from the Albani collection, dated around 1660 (Link: https://catalogo.fondazionezeri.unibo.it/scheda/opera/51842/).

Thanks to the exceptional critical and collector's fortune of his works, this one of all, his creations constituted an absolute reference model, a paradigm of a pictorial style that was balanced in all its components (drawing, colour, composition, iconography), making him an undisputed point of reference on the Roman art scene, as well as a source of inspiration for European classicism.

An industrious band of pupils and followers gravitated around the master, making it still very difficult today to distinguish, from an attributive point of view, the compositions replicated by the author from those entrusted instead to his pupils, especially those destined for easy circulation and highly appreciated on the market, such as the beautiful Madonna under examination.

See, for example, the same Virgin and Child from a Private Collection in Rome (Link: http://catalogo.fondazionezeri.unibo.it/scheda/opera/51751/), and the Virgin and Child with Two Angels from the English collection of Stourhead House in Wiltshire(http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/732152), or the Madonna and Child with St. John, which takes up the subject with compositional variations from the National Museum of Fine Arts in Malta (Link: http://catalogo.fondazionezeri.unibo.it/entry/work/51220/)

Originally from Camerano, in the Marche region near Ancona, Carlo Maratti distinguished himself for his precocious talent, moving early on to Rome to Andrea Sacchi's workshop, where he studied all the greatest classicist artists, from Raphael to Bolognese painters. However, he was not immune to the fascination of Baroque art, which, thanks to artists such as Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Giovanni Lanfranco and Pietro da Cortona, was experiencing its zenith.