Cod: 427814

Author : PIETRO PAOLINI (Lucca, 1603 - 1681)

Period: 17th century

PIETRO PAOLINI (Lucca, 1603 - 1681) Young female figure as Flora Canvas, 50 x 68 cm Within a contemporary frame Notes by Prof. Sandro Bellesi The work, in fair condition, depicts, within an undefined and seemingly impenetrable dark space, the figure of a young woman with an attractive appearance, described, just over half-length, with some flowers held in her right hand, near a small stone shelf on which rests carefully a metal vase overflowing with flowers of various kinds, especially roses, double anemones, fringed tulips, and lilies of the valley. Almost certainly taken from a portrait from life only partially idealized, the painting presents a woman, close to marriage as suggested by the ornament of pearls traditionally associated with young brides-to-be as a symbol of virginity, dressed as Flora, as indicated by the abundance of flowers, attributes of fertility, perfectly suited to the depiction of a future mother. The comparison of young women close to marriage with Flora, a classical deity associated with spring and the regeneration of the earth, was very frequent in European painting, especially in the 17th and 18th centuries, in relation to paintings executed, especially, in anticipation of weddings. Based on the descriptive characteristics of the figure and the stylistic data, it is possible to refer the canvas to the catalog of Pietro Paolini, a 17th-century painter of undoubted historical and artistic interest, author of many works, often executed with the help of his most talented collaborators. A leader among the most acclaimed of Tuscan painting of the 17th century, Paolini, born in Lucca in 1603, moved to Rome at a young age, where, according to ancient sources, he was educated in the study of figurative arts in the school of Angelo Caroselli. Through the lesson of this master, the young artist was directed towards painting linked to the context of the manfrediana methodus, which, heir to the teachings of Caravaggio and his most faithful followers, favored him, above all, the deepening of studies on the effects of chiaroscuro and on the strongly realistic interpretation of the themes treated. Returning to Lucca in 1629 or shortly thereafter, Paolini began within a short time a close autonomous activity, which led him to hold a prominent position among the local painters of his time. An appreciated author of church paintings and canvases intended for private collections, the artist, to fulfill numerous commissions, often availed himself, over the years, of the help of his closest collaborators, some of whom, now largely unknown, passed on his style until the end of the century. After years of professional success, witnessed by critics and numerous commissions, Pietro Paolini died at an old age in his native city in 1681 (for the artist, see especially P. Giusti Maccari, Pietro Paolini pittore lucchese, Lucca, 1987). Like most of Paolini's works known today, an author of paintings of greater or lesser executive effort, even in the case of the canvas in question, it is not easy to define, at the current state of historical and documentary knowledge, the time of its realization. The almost total lack of typological and lexical changes, for over fifty years of activity, does not allow, in effect, to be able to affirm, with absolute certainty, whether the work can refer to the initial, mature or late catalog of the painter, even if the descriptive characteristics of the dress and hairstyle of the woman would seem to refer to the first decades of the seventeenth century, more precisely to the twenties or thirties. Deferential to post-Caravaggesque experiences based primarily on contrasting effects of light and shadow, with enveloping chiaroscuro a "lume di notte", the figure in the painting finds adequate comparisons in various works by Pietro Paolini, among which deserve to be mentioned, for greater physiognomic and lexical relevance, the Two Musicians formerly at Weinmüller in Munich of Bavaria (A. Ottani, Per un caravaggesco toscano: Pietro Paolini (1603-1681) in “Arte Antica e Moderna”, 21, 1963, p. 35), the Young Page of unknown current location (P. Giusti Maccari, op. cit., pp. 130-131 n. 47) and, again, the Madonna with Child and Saint Rosalia in the parish church of Tereglio (P. Giusti Maccari, op. cit., pp. 142-144 n. 64). With the main figures present in these works, in particular the altarpiece of Tereglio documentable to 1632, the canvas finds adequate matches, especially in the definition of the face, defined with elongated and perfectly regular features, in the smoothness of the flesh caressed by diffused and enveloping lights and in the care of the hairstyle, divided in the center of the forehead, adorned with a circular headdress.