Andrea Bianchi detto il Vespino, (act. Lombardia prima metà XVII ), Attr. - Ritratto di San Carlo Borromeo

Andrea Bianchi known as Vespino, attr. (active in Lombardy during the first half of the 17th century)
Portrait of Saint Charles Borromeo
Oil on slate, 37 x 27 cm
With panel, 50 x 40 cm

Debtor of the tradition inscribed by Giovanni Ambrogio Figino (1548-1608) with his Portrait of Saint Charles (ca. 1600) now kept in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan and defined by Federico Borromeo as the best depiction of his cousin that had ever been made, however, the present painting can be traced back to Andrea Bianchi, better known as Vespino.
The genuinely particular objective re-elaboration of the saint's face is in fact a nod to the iconography commanded by Federico on the occasion of the counter-reformation wave. Pardon and meekness, together with fasting, prayer and the ardor of holiness, must have been the only motives for the depiction of the saint. Nothing could be further from the contemporary historiography which praised his exploits and human courage, as we read in the epic poem in hexameters of the Borromeide composed by the bishop of Vercelli Giovanni Francesco Bonomi in 1589. In anticipation of the solemn canonization of his cousin (1610) , Federico promoted a booklet written by Cesare Bonino and containing a double series of engravings on the life and miracles of Carlo, totaling a sum of 53 tables. The pictorial cycles promoted by Federico himself in the hall of honor of the Collegio Borromeo in Pavia and realized by Cesare Nebbia and Federico Zuccari, together with the chapel of S. Carlo in the Palazzo dell'Arcivescovado of Milan as well as the famous twenty canvases exhibited in the Duomo between 1602 -1604, essentially commanded an impeccably sober restitution of the saint, in composed adoration and, above all, human filiation.
In this sense, the Vespino reconsiders an already tested image of the Saint on an iridescent slate support. Despite the scant biography, the flash note that Vespino was much sought after by Federico Borromeo is of surprising importance: in fact, it was Federico himself who remembered his work in his wake. Interested in the Leonardesque artists, within whose legacy the Vespino is located, the cardinal commissioned the replica of Vinci's cenacle and subsequently of the Virgin of the Rocks and the renowned cartoon of Saint Anne with the Madonna and Child Jesus (both London, National Gallery) . Satisfied with the execution, Borromeo requested from Vespino replicas of a Madonna with Elizabeth by Luini and the group of the three Marys of the Crucifixion in S. Maria degli Angeli in Lugano, as well as a Portrait of a young man by Parmigianino. The present would therefore be placed within the scope of these original inspirations, condensing an already Fijian history in the Vespian language.

The frame is provided free of charge, therefore it cannot be a reason for return or complaint.

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