Alessandro Rosi

Anonymous sale, London, Christie’s South Kensington, 27 May 1993, lot 8 (as in the manner of Coccapani);
Private collection, Venice.

E. Acanfora, Alessandro Rosi, Florence 1994, p. 94, cat. no. 75, reproduced p. 172, plate 62;
S. Bellesi, Catalogo dei pittori fiorentini del '600 e '700, Florence 2009, vol. I, p. 239;
G. Cantelli, Repertorio della pittura fiorentina del Seicento, Aggiornamento, Pontedera 2009, p. 169;
F. Baldassari, La pittura del Seicento a Firenze, Indice degli artisti e delle loro opere, Turin 2009, p. 627.

This engaging image embodies those qualities of emotional and religious intensity depicted in the sinuous style of the Florentine Seicento for which Alessandro Rosi is admired. The theme of the guardian angel was employed several times by Carlo Dolci, the leading figure in Florence of the generation preceeding Rosi's. Dolci's influence can be felt in the in the use of the half-length figures, the intensity of the relationship between the angel and youth, and in the distinctive profile of the angel. Dolci's use of these motifs are best seen in his oval Guardian Angel, in the Szépművészeti Museum in Budapest (see F. Baldassari, Carlo Dolci, Torino 1995, p. 39, reproduced fig. 7).