FABRIZIO CHIARI | THE DEATH OF SAINT ANNE

Presumably commissioned from the artist along with another painting of the Assumption of the Virgin by Anna Colonna, wife of Principe Taddeo Barberini, the founder of the Church of Regina Coeli, Rome (see catalogue note).

F. Titi, B. Contardi and S. Romano (eds.), Studio di Pittura, Scoltura et Architettura, nelle Chiese di Roma, Florence 1987, vol. 1, p. 21 ("Il Transito di S. Anna con quantità di Figure nel Quadro dell'Altare incontro è bella e diligente opera di Fabrito Chiari").

We are grateful to Professor Claudio Strinati for attributing this altarpiece to Fabrizio Chiari and identifying it as the one recorded in the Church of Regina Coeli. The church and attached convent were destroyed circa 1880 in order to make way for a large prison. The works housed in the church, including other pictures by Chiari, appear to have been dispersed at that time.

Fabrizio Chiari was an artist of some note in Rome in the 17th century, although he has been relatively overlooked by modern scholars. He was allegedly an autodidact, though his early style certainly shows the influence of Poussin. He was awarded a number of important fresco commissions and painted the Reconciliation of Jacob and Esau while working under Pietro da Cortona on the cycle of frescoes decorating the Sala Gialla in the Palazzo del Quirinale. Later in his career he painted a Chariot of Apollo for the ceiling of the Sala dei Specchi in the Palazzo Altieri, Rome.