Giovanni Andrea de Ferrari

Anonymous sale, Buenos Aires, Bullrich, Gaona, Wernicke, 25 November 2010, lot 1 (as Italian School, 17th/18th century);

Where acquired by the present collector.

Giovanni Andrea de Ferrari was one of the leading artists of Genoa in the first half of the 17th Century, and through his active studio, a main progenitor of the city’s Baroque style, having been master to some of its greatest painters, including Valerio Castello and Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione.

De Ferrari’s own training began under Bernardo Castello, but soon after he entered the studio of Bernardo Strozzi, whose style made a lasting impression on his art. Indeed, the Risen Christ is an early work of the painter, dateable to circa 1619/20. Anna Orlando has noted the influence of Strozzi in the present canvas, comparing it to the Martyrdom of Saint Lucy of circa 1608-11 (Chiesa della Natività di Maria Vergine, Campo Ligure). The figure of Saint Lucy with outstretched arms and tilted head recalls the figure of Christ in the present painting. In addition, she notes the idiosyncratic treatment of the drapery, with its “zig-zag” folds and the base colors do not display tonal shifts as is the case of Strozzi’s paintings of the 1610’s. For dating, Orlando suggest a comparison with a lunette of the Coronation of the Virgin painted by de’ Ferrari in 1619 for the Conservatorio delle Figlie di San Giuseppe, Genoa.

We are grateful to Dr. Anna Orlando for her help in cataloguing this work.