Guido Reni (1575–1642), Scuola di - Santa Teresa d’Avila

GUIDO RENI [school of]
(Bologna, 1575 – 1642)
Saint Teresa of Avila
Oil on canvas, cm. 41 x 33

NOTE: Publication of the catalog of works from the Intermidiart collection. Certificate of Guarantee and Lawful Origin. Work without frame:

The canvas, in good condition, illustrates an episode in which he is the protagonist
Saint Teresa of Avila or Teresa de Jesús, the woman who rose to the pinnacle of world glory for the greatness of her holiness and the splendor of her deeds, also being named, as the first woman, Doctor of the Church, was born in Avila on the 28th March 1515, by Alonso Sánchez de Cepeda and Donna Beatrice de Ahumada. Her childhood was marked by an early love for the Lord, taught to her above all by her mother. His attempt to escape to the land of the Moors, with his little brother Rodrigo, to find martyrdom there, or his building together with him, in his father's garden, hermitages and monasteries, to experience the encounter with the Lord in solitude is famous. Teresa is a little girl who loved to repeat: Always, always! thinking of dying and thus of always living with God.
The work, of rectangular format, represents the half-length figure, silhouetted against an almost monochrome background of dark yellow ocher colour, with the head delicately inclined and the gaze turned upwards: the hands joined in the act of prayer and meditation towards Jesus Christ. The face of the figure is framed by the nun's veil with a white fringe, in contrast in color with the black headdress and the yellow ocher and white robes draped over the shoulders and arms. The woman's gaze competes for supremacy in the formal quality and sweetness of the expression. An attitude that aims at a sentimental involvement of the spectator, attracted by the tone of widespread spirituality emanating from the woman. Furthermore, his face, refined by the light shading, reveals a spiritual grace.
From a stylistic point of view, the material is compact and vibrant, the shapes are idealized, the face appears rounded with the typical eyes circled by thick eyelids. The quality of the work is good and supported by the strength of the colour, used full and pure, but at the same time, it appears somehow softened by the use of ochres and gold.
The painting in question is very similar to the works of Guido Reni's school, especially in the portraits of the Virgin Mary and Magdalene.
Guido Reni was the Carracci's greatest pupil and one of the greatest artists that seventeenth-century Italian art can boast. The particular character of classicism that emerges from our Penitent Magdalene is an integral part of the research of the Bolognese master who, already after Annibale Carracci's departure for the papal capital, had openly and polemically opposed Ludovico's sentimental and dramatic speech, which remained only at the helm of the Bolognese artistic panorama. The link with a fundamental work for the artistic culture of Bologna such as the Ecstasy of St. Cecilia by Raffaello da Urbino (Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale) , of which many Renian saints recall the ecstatic gaze also present within our painting, it then approaches the Emilian mannerist cadences of Correggio and Parmigianino and the elegant and refined echoes of the culture of Denis Calvaert, the Flemish painter who was Guido's teacher as well as many other artists active between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (for example Francesco Albani) : in this regard, it will be enough to note in our canvas the use of particular colors with warm reflections - such as golden and yellow ocher - which definitely recall the teachings of Reni's Roman teacher.
The work - in conclusion - clearly appears to be attributable to an artist of great talent, and the idea of a probable attribution among the works created by one of his students or circle is not surprising.
Regarding its state of conservation, the canvas is in fair general condition considering the age of the painting, the pictorial surface has a patina. We can see - in Wood's light - some small scattered restorations and some light unraveling and oxidation of the pictorial surface. In sunlight, a fine crackle related to the era is visible, while the original canvas has an old relining. The frame may have been replaced at the time of the relining. The measurements of the canvas are cm. 41 x 33. The painting is sold without a frame, although it is embellished with a valuable perforated and gilded wooden frame.

ORIGIN: Coll. Private Sicilian

PUBLICATION:
Unpublished;
THE MYTHS AND THE TERRITORY in Sicily with a thousand cultures. UNPUBLISHED PAINTINGS general catalog of paintings from the collection of the “Myths and the territory” cycle, Publisher Lab_04, Marsala, 2024.

In the case of sales outside Italian territory, the buyer will have to wait for the export procedures to be processed.