Period: 17th century
Sold Oil on canvas painting depicting a holy family with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist, measuring 69 x 89 cm without frame and 83 x 103 cm with frame, by the painter Francesco Cozza (Stilo 1605 - Rome 1682). This sacred scene depicts the Madonna holding the Child Jesus standing on her knees, to whom Saint John the Baptist offers the cross, accompanied by Saint Anne and watched from above by two cherubs. The figures are arranged against the background of an architectural interior in front of a large vase with lid on the right and another square pillar surmounted by a pine cone in the center, with a landscape opening on the left in which a woman lying on the ground asleep appears. The domestic familiarity with which this scene is presented is, however, rendered with a severity of language and a calibrated expository cadence, adhering to the Roman classicist current, such as that headed in Rome by Domenichino around the end of the third decade of the seventeenth century, still closed to the already rising openings of the Baroque. This painting is a testimony to the Roman and in particular ecclesiastical artistic development which is linked to a Raphaelesque rigor. Furthermore, observing the characterized physiognomies of the two women and the two children, as well as the two cherubs, we can safely trace them back to the name of Francesco Cozza (Stilo 1605 - Rome 1682), Calabrian by birth but Roman by adoption. In fact, observing both the early works such as those of S. Andrea delle Fratte and more mature ones such as the Madonna and Saints of S. Egidio in Montalcino, we notice the same modus operandi present in this canvas, the same mental approach and that stamp of persistent archaism that will always distinguish his work, placing him as a unique painter in his genre. The work, like all our objects, is sold with a photographic certificate of authenticity; this document identifies the object, adding value to the article. We personally take care of and organize the packaging and shipping of works of art with insurance all over the world. Dr. Riccardo Moneghini Expert in ancient painting - court expert