GIOVANNI MARTINELLI (Montevarchi, 1600 - Florence, 1659), ATTRIBUTED TO

Saint Lucy with the symbols of her martyrdom

Oil on canvas, cm. 88x73,5. Framed

This remarkable unpublished canvas is a candidate with convincing arguments as a significant addition to the corpus of Giovanni Martinelli, whose original and absolutely respected position in Tuscan painting of the first half of the seventeenth century has now been clearly highlighted by the studies of the last decades. In this intense representation of Saint Lucia, easily identifiable thanks to the attribute of the eyes on a backsplash and the palm branch in her right hand, she is caught in an attitude of amazement and almost bewilderment, concentrated on a point outside the scene and inaccessible to the spectator, as if in response to a sudden and unexpected divine summoning following his sacrifice. The image is worthily placed within the series of young women so recurrent in the corpus of Martinelli, similar to the Vanitas in the Florentine private collection, to the Sant'Agata nel San Pietro who heals the saint in the collection of the Caripit of Pistoia, to the Sant'Agnese in the Luzzetti collection in Florence and to the Santa Margherita di Antiochia in the Silvano Lodi & Due Gallery in Milan. PROVENANCE: Private collection, Lazio. LITERATURE: Giovanni Martinelli da Montevarchi pittore in FIrenze, a cura di L. Canonici, Firenze 2011; Giovanni Martinelli pittore di Montevarchi. Maestro del Seicento fiorentino, cat. della mostra, a cura di A. Baldinotti, B. Santi, R. Spinelli, Montevarchi, 19 marzo - 19 giugno 2011, Firenze 2011.