a) The Nativity; b) Adoration of the Shepherds. Pair of paintings
Oil on canvas
cm. 60x104 each. Framed
This beautiful pair of canvases is an eloquent testimony to the fundamental prerogatives of painting in Rome at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The artist reveals here a refined figurative culture that has its polar star in Carlo Maratti, but which harmoniously incorporates a further web of references: from Pietro da Cortona to Daniel Seyter, passing through Giuseppe Ghezzi, Giacinto Brandi, Giovan Battista Beinaschi and Girolamo Troppa. The painting, however, speaks its own language, in which the contrasting and heated color scheme, the emphatic gestures of the figures as well as an already 18th-century note of decorative grace and gracefulness prevail compared to those models: features that can be likened to the production of Michelangelo Ricciolini (Rome, 1654 - Frascati, 1715), among Maratti's most gifted pupils.