Saint Margaret of Antioch (Carracci)
Saint Margaret of Antioch is a 1599 oil on canvas painting by Annibale Carracci, showing Margaret of Antioch. It hangs in Santa Caterina dei Funari church in Rome.
History
[edit]It was commissioned by Gabriele Bombasi for the chapel he had acquired at Santa Caterina dei Funari in Rome. He was a scholar from Reggio Emilia who had been tutor to Ranuccio and Odoardo Farnese and had moved to Rome in Odoardo's service.[1] It now hangs in Santa Caterina dei Funari church in Rome. Carracci painted several works in Reggio Emilia, none still in their original locations. According to one theory, Carracci's contact with Bombasi was pivotal for his career and may even have been how he first came to the attention of Odoardo Farnese, who summoned him to Rome in 1595 or 1596 and kept him in his service for the rest of his life.[2] By express wish of the commissioner, the painting reproduces (with slight variations) Saint Catherine of Alexandria in the artist's 1592 San Luca Madonna, produced for Reggio Emilia Cathedral and now in the Louvre.[3][1]
Sources disagree on whether it is a fully autograph work. Giovanni Pietro Bellori's 1672 The Lives of the Artists states the work was copied from the San Luca Madonna by Carracci's pupil as Lucio Massari, with Carracci himself retouching the dragon and the landscape. Giulio Mancini's 1620 Considerazioni sulla pittura instead argued it was a fully autograph work, produced in Bologna before being moved to the Palazzo Farnese and then to Rome, where it was placed in the Bombasi Chapel.
Description and style
[edit]
The canvas is still placed in its original gilded wooden frame, probably designed by Annibale himself, and is surmounted by a cymatium depicting the Coronation of the Virgin.
The cymatium is commonly believed to be the work of Innocenzo Tacconi (another collaborator of Annibale) executed on a design by Carracci and is a derivation of the Coronation by Correggio once in the apse of the church of San Giovanni Evangelista in Parma.[1]
The Saint Margaret of the main canvas – splendidly dressed and wearing princely jewels[4] – is depicted resting her left arm on an ancient pedestal on which appears the inscription "SURSUM CORDA".
In her left hand, Margaret simultaneously holds a holy book and the palm that symbolizes her martyrdom. With her right hand, the martyr points upward toward the cymatium with the coronation of Mary. With her left foot, she crushes the devil, who, consistent with the saint's hagiography, is depicted in the guise of a dragon.
The work is characterised by a strong naturalism[4] also favoured by the careful use of light and chiaroscuro effects – particularly evident on the saint's face – which accentuate the three-dimensionality of the painting.
The wide landscape view recalls the lesson of Titian.[1]
Gallery
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Innocenzo Tacconi and Annibale Carracci, Coronation of the Virgin, cymatium to the Saint Margaret of Antioch altarpiece, circa 1600 ca., Santa Caterina dei Funari church -
Print after the painting by Cornelis Bloemaert
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d (in Italian) Silvia Ginzburg Carignani, Annibale Carracci a Roma, Roma, 2000, pp. 89-92.
- ^ (in Italian) Alessandro Brogi, in Annibale Carracci, Catalogo della mostra Bologna e Roma 2006-2007, Milano, 2006, p. 234.
- ^ "Catalogue entry" (in French). 1592.
- ^ a b Maria Cristina Terzaghi, Caravaggio, Annibale Carracci, Guido Reni tra le ricevi del banco Herrera & Costa, Rome, 2007, p. 208.
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