The Expulsion Of Hagar

Ciro Ferri (Rome, 1634 - 1689)

The Expulsion of Hagar

Oil on canvas, cm 69 x 58.5

With frame, cm 81 x 70

The subject of the work belongs to the stories of the Old Testament: Hagar was the Egyptian slave of Sarah, barren wife of Abraham, who, not being able to have children with his wife, begot with Hagar his firstborn, Ishmael. And Sarah gave birth to Isaac, the legitimate son of Abraham, and commanded him to cast out Hagar and Ishmael. The divine rescue of the mother and son, condemned to wander in the desert, highlights God’s attention for individuals that the current mentality considers inferior in the social hierarchy. Returning to the artist, we can consider a prominent exponent of the Roman baroque so much to be first student and then collaborator of Pietro da Cortona, with whom he frescoed the Palazzo del Quirinale in Rome and Palazzo Pitti in Florence, and under whose direction he worked on the conception of the eighteen prints of the Messale of Alessandro VII Chigi, published in Rome in 1662. In addition to his collaborations with the great master from Cortona, Ferri is remembered for the magnificent frescoes in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo, as well as for a series of altarpieces made for the churches of the city of Rome and surrounding territories. The dynamic of the scene, which is structured around the central figures, the heart of the story and the composition, then finds a continuation on the sides with the figure of Sara looking out of a window in the background and the wild landscape on the right, where Abraham leads the two wretched. The neo-Venetian tonalism, diffused in Rome during the seventeenth century, reverberates in the rich and bright colors of the clothes and also in the natural elements of the panoramic view: Stormy clouds, tree-leaves and blue mountains on the horizon are composed of vibrant and iridescent colors depending on the different degree of illumination while the contours fade into intense and full-bodied velours. Although the major works of Ferri are related to the technique of the fresco, he gives here an essay of pictorial skill on a different material, memorising religious paintings, historical or mythological made during the career, many of which are now on display in prestigious museums around the world: Moses defends the daughters of Jethro at the Art Museum of San Paolo, the Wedding at the Capitoline Gallery, the Vestals at Palazzo Spada, also in Rome, the Alexander the Great of the Uffizi, where is also his self-portrait, and the Miracle of Saint Martin in Vienna.