Giovanni Andrea Sirani

(Bologna, 1610 - Bologna, 1670)

Attributed to

Oil on canvas

cm. 71,5x55. Framed

In this elegant pair of single-figure oval paintings one can easily identify the profound influence of Guido Reni's classicism, known and studied at first hand. Reni's atelier was, after all, an impressive hothouse of some of the brightest talents in seventeenth-century Italian painting, if we think that from it sprang Cantarini and Cagnacci, but also Desubleo, Cittadini, Gessi, Torri and the Sirani: and it is precisely to Sirani senior that our two canvases are proposed to be approached. Relevant clues to this are the fluid and confident graphic stroke, the graceful and melancholy vagueness of the expressions, and the refined color palette, played on a few ranges from brown to gray, on which the lightness of the complexions of the busts and faces stands out. Interesting comparisons can be suggested with, among others, works by Giovanni Andrea Sirani such as the Sybil in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, Bacchus and Ariadne in the two versions in the Corsi Gallery in Florence and in a private collection, and the Apollo offered in the Pandolfini sale on November 26, 2019 (l. 5).