XVII-xviii Century, Circle Of Carlo Cignani (1628 - 1718), Madonna With Child And Saint John

XVII-XVIII century, Circle of Carlo Cignani (Bologna, 1628 - Forlì, 1718)

Madonna with Child and Saint John

Oil on canvas, 63 x 78 cm

With frame, cm 81,5 x 97,5

An expression of the sweetest Emilian classicism, the present painting contains the pictorial heritage of Carlo Cignani. The authorship of the canvas, to be ascribed to the close circle of the master, insists on the pivotal points of the poetics for Bolognese images: the tenderness of the flesh of the Child, softly illuminated by a tactile light that also bounces on the face of the Virgin, as well as the shaded chiaroscuro tending to reddish that also characterizes the shady areas. Saint John, in respectful detachment, is however approached by the hand of Our Lady, who welcomes his presence caressing his cheeks.

Trained with Giovanni Battista of Cairo and Francesco Albani, Cignani was strongly influenced by Annibale Carracci, Correggio and the works of Melozzo da Forlì. The historian Zanelli, compiler of a biography of the artist, recalls his work on commission for the jurisconsult Ponti and the decoration of a gallery in the senatorial palace of Virgilio Davia. Also operating in the hall of the City Council thanks to the direct interest of Gerolamo Farnese, Cignani enriched his palette when he came into contact with the school of Forlì, to whose development he contributed his work. In this temporal circumstance the artist executed the famous Assumption of the Virgin within the chapel of the Madonna dei Fuoco in the cathedral of Forlì, which consecrated it to feverish compositions now baroque. Having become prince of the Accademia di San Luca in 1710, Cignani worked for a long time in the eternal city, alternating stays in Bologna and Parma (1678-1681).
Zanelli thus describes his meticulousness: "it is his insatiable desire never to remove... the brush, until he sees that he has expressed it perfectly". Sought after by the senatorial families, whether they were Bolognese (Davia, Albergati and Sampieri), Parma (Farnese) or Roman (Pallavicini), the artist also knew the patrician families of northern Europe, composing for the elector of Bavaria, Prince Schönborn, the King of Poland and Prince Johann Adam von Liechtenstein various mythological subjects, sublimated expression of the power of the patrons. 

Proponent, among others, of the Accademia Clementina, known for being the first art academy in Bologna, Cignani began to surround himself with help, discovering valuable collaborators for the execution of the frescoes. This painting is accompanied by some of the most valuable swanky examples, conforming to it by treatment of the surfaces and the representative choice of the participants. In particular, it is possible to consider the paintings in the private collection the Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, offering the same Child stretched, and the Madonna and Child. Charity (Verona, Castelvecchio Museum), Joseph and Putifarre’s wife with the Holy Family (both at the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen) and the Allegory of the Five Senses, (Collection N. Shanks, Andalusia, Alabama) On the contrary, they express the same clarity in the definition of the faces and specifically in that of the Virgin, icastic in the recurrent perfection of the cut of the nose and eyes, particularly outlined also in this painting

The object is in good condition


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