Bernardo Strozzi

(Genova, 1581 - Venezia, 1644)

The work is also accompanied by an Export Licence.

Bernardo Strozzi, a Capuchin priest, repeatedly engaged—through numerous variations—in the representation of Saint Francis, a subject particularly dear to him. The present painting, formerly in the collection of Giovanni Testori, stands out for its intensity and painterly quality within this long series of works, most of which are to be attributed to Strozzi’s early Genoese period, within the second decade of the seventeenth century. Here we perceive the cultured and personal fusion of Tuscan, Lombard, and Venetian elements that characterise his pictorial language, together with his dense brushwork and vigorous use of colour, played out across a limited range of dominant tones and intense chiaroscuro contrasts. The present type of the half-length Saint embracing the cross finds its closest comparison within the painter’s corpus in the version in Palazzo Rosso, Genoa, closely related in iconography, style, and quality. The execution of both versions should be dated around 1610.