The Archangel Michael, Guido Reni (Bologna 1575 – 1642) Workshop/Follower of

Archangel Michael

Guido Reni (Bologna 1575 – 1642) Workshop/Follower of

17th-18th century

Oil on canvas (104 x 68 cm. – In frame 109 x 68 cm.)

Full Details (Click HERE)

The proposed painting, of high quality, takes inspiration from the famous Saint Michael the Archangel by Guido Reni, created in 1635 for the Church of the Capuchins in Rome (PHOTO 1), erected thanks to a donation from Cardinal Antonio Barberini (1569-1646), brother of Urban VIII.

After an intense education in Bologna, in 1602, the twenty-seven year old Guido Reni went to Rome, soon becoming a famous interpreter of the taste of the most culturally influential circles, and gaining the protection of great figures such as Popes Paul V, Urban VIII and Scipione Borghese.

The Archangel Michael, here engaged in the fight against Evil, is represented as a young man of rare beauty, strong and delicate at the same time, who, with his sword drawn, pushes back to hell an irritated devil, whose head he tramples with his foot. The soft draperies envelop the body of the angel with an intense classicism, where a balanced composition directs the attention of the observer to his angelic face.

The recognition and esteem of his contemporaries was great, and the painting immediately achieved incredible success, also thanks to the controversy it aroused from the Pamphili family, who had always been at war with the Barberini family, who commissioned the canvas.

In fact, Reni, having learned that Cardinal Giovanni Battista Pamphili, the future Pope Innocent X, had defamed him, took revenge by impersonating the Devil with the face of the same. Guido Reni's cunning was to exploit the historic competition between two of the most influential families in seventeenth-century Rome, the Barberini and the Pamphili, for his own personal revenge, and at the same time giving his works a sudden celebrity.

Reni attempted to execute this subject on several occasions, and it was much appreciated by his clients, thanks to the characteristics of formal cleanliness and overall balance of the composition which still make it one of the cornerstones of Roman classicism.

With the help of his workshop he used to return to the same subjects several times, producing versions of his most successful compositions, which makes it difficult to find one's way among autographed replicas, workshop works, often enriched by his intervention, copies that become autonomous re-readings by some of his best students.

We can affirm that the proposed canvas is the work of an artist from the workshop or a follower of Reni, created after his death.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

The painting is sold complete with a gilded frame and is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity and a descriptive iconographic sheet.

We take care of and organize the transport of the purchased works, both for Italy and abroad, through professional and insured carriers.

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