Neapolitan School, 17th century, Charon Ferrying Souls

Neapolitan school, 17th century

Charon ferries souls

Oil on canvas, 66 x 87 cm

With frame: 83 x 106 cm

The accompanying work, an oil on canvas from the Neapolitan school dating to the late 17th and early 18th centuries, addresses the mythological theme of Charon ferrying souls across the Acheron, the infernal river so well described by Dante in the Divine Comedy. The painting is distinguished by a dynamic and intense interpretation of the subject. In the foreground on the right, Charon dominates, his figure rendered with powerful Michelangelo-like musculature, typical of the physical rendering of Neapolitan Baroque art. He is not a bearded old man here, but a vigorous, winged ferryman, with broad, dark wings that accentuate his otherworldly nature, as he propels the vessel with the aid of a long oar. The souls, crowded onto the vessel, row away from the hellish vision unfolding behind them, made even more stark by the typically rocky and barren landscape: skeletal figures seem to be overturning their own tombstones, further accentuating the tension felt by the protagonists. A man wearing a red headdress looks back in anguish, while a turbaned woman leans exhausted on the edge of the boat. A distinctive detail is the presence of a winged cherub floating above the vessel, one with a fluttering white sash. This inclusion is unusual in a depiction of Hell, suggesting a possible allegorical interpretation. The attribution to the Neapolitan school of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries finds strong support in the work of Luca Giordano (1634–1705), whose dynamic and luminous style dominated the Neapolitan scene and beyond. The work reflects Giordano's mature Baroque style, which abandons Ribera's darker shadows in favor of a bright palette and a swirling composition that breathes life and movement into the scene. The rapid brushstrokes and the careful management of light on the muscular, tense bodies are stylistic hallmarks of Giordano and his students, such as Francesco Solimena and Paolo De Matteis. Giordano himself painted a specific work on this subject, The Boat of Charon and the Rape of Proserpina, now in London (Mahon Collection, post-1685) and later frescoed in Florence's Palazzo Medici Riccardi. Although Giordano's work combines the ferryman with the abduction of Proserpina by Pluto, his tackling this subject confirms how popular it was in his studio or circle, offering a model for later artists. The winged Charon, more reminiscent of a genie or a daimon than Dante's elderly ferryman, fits well with Giordano's visual sensibility, who often reinterpreted classical characters with physical vigor and dramatic theatricality. The coexistence of anguished figures and allegorical putti also hints at the complex staging and rich inventiveness of the Neapolitan master, who blended the sacred, the historical, and the mythological with great ease.

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