Gioacchino Assereto

(Genova, 1600 - Genova, 1649)

and help

Oil on canvas

144x120 cm. Framed

This canvas of remarkable expressive force and marked naturalism constitutes a second autograph version, with possible intervention by helpers, of an entirely similar painting passed in the Porro sale in Milan on November 9, 2005 (lot 163) and now in a private collection in Savona (Zennaro, I, A87, pp. 352-3). The presence of the crosier and mitre, as well as the arrow in the Child's hand, allow identification of the saint in Augustine, bishop of Hippo. Typical of Assereto is the densely textured painting, the plastic layout of the group of three figures, and the favored dark tones that insist on browns and grays, over which the whiteness of the body of the infant Jesus in the foreground has a way of standing out.