Late 17th century, Venetian school, Allegory

Late 17th century, Venetian school

Allegory

Oil on canvas, 107 x 148 cm

This plastic group of three figures seems to offer a representation of the Allegory of Charity, the main among the theological Virtues. Both the subject and the composition with the young and florid female figure surrounded by children, one of whom with his head near her breast (as if he had fallen asleep after breastfeeding), make us lean towards this identification, even if it is enigmatic. the figure of the small child with his back turned. The iconographic solution corresponds to the most widespread typology of Charity in seventeenth and eighteenth century painting. It derives from Cesare Ripa's Iconology, which prescribes the red dress for the woman and three children held close to her, one of which is attached to her breast.

The painting can be traced back to the late 1632th-century Venetian painting scene, particularly the style known as "teneborsa painting." Established in Venice at the instigation of Neapolitan Luca Giordano and Genoese Giovanni Battista Langetti, the so-called Tenebrosi movement was a reinterpretation of Caravaggism with even greater dramatic force. The Tenebrosi exuded violent contrasts between light and shadow, sharpening formal chiaroscuro through typically Venetian colorism and a newfound predilection for darker, harsher, and wilder themes. The Tenebrosi culture influenced painters such as Bellucci and Sebastiano Ricci, as well as Pietro Negri, Johann Carl Loth, and many others. See for comparison the Challenge of Apollo and Marsyas (Pan) from the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, Venus and Mars from the Buonconsiglio Castle in Trento, and the Flora and Holy Family from the Bavarian State Painting Collections by the German-born painter Johann Carl Loth, also known as Carlotto (Munich, 6 – Venice, 1698 October 1670), whose painting activity took place mainly in Venice. In the lagoon, Loth opened a workshop that was of great importance for the numerous German artists who thus trained in the taste of the Venetian tenebrosi. Other references can be found in paintings such as Nero examining the body of Agrippina, 79-1628, Dresden, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister by Pietro Negri (1679 – 1632) or in the Allegroia dell'amore puro by Antonio Zanchi (1722- XNUMX), also painters who blend the tradition of Venetian painting, made of colour, with the language of the dark made of light and shadow.