Francesco Allegrini ( Gubbio 1587 - Roma 1663 )

SOLD I am very pleased to present, make known and have directly appreciated this significant pair of "Scenes of Roman history", oil paintings on canvas, 105 x 130 cm without frame and 125 x 155 cm with an incredible carved and gilded 17th-century frame, both centered on the famous episode of the "Rape of the Sabine Women", the result of course of a single commission. In fact, while in the one with Romulus, which I discussed previously, the "Rape" is depicted in front of the tent, I believe the other refers to the subsequent episode with the Sabines who raided Rome to reclaim their women, who, having now joined the Romans, worked to reconcile the two peoples who then united with Rome as their epicenter. However, they constitute an exceptional new addition to the catalog of Francesco Allegrini (Gubbio 1587 - Rome 1663), especially with regard to his production of cabinet canvases, which he certainly had the opportunity to accompany that so far better known of frescoes in various Roman palaces and his hometown, where he enjoyed the protection and patronage of Bishop Alessandro Sperelli who commissioned him the Chapel of the Sacrament in the Cathedral. Allegrini's work as a fresco artist and decorator of Roman palaces - his active works include the fresco in San Marco in Rome and the cycles in the Colonna, Costaguti and Doria Pamphilj Palaces - has finally been correctly delimited by E. Fumagalli and A.G. De Marchi, distinguishing it from that of the Flemish Vincent Adriaenssen known as the "Mozzo of Antwerp", recently brought back to light, and on which Professor Sestieri has also made a further contribution (Studies on Roman Baroque. Writings in honor of Maurizio Fagiolo dell'Arco, Skira, 2004, pp. 219-229). However, in the face of his public works - those in Gubbio and Genoa have not been mentioned - it may be surprising the difficulty of reconstructing a congruent corpus of paintings on canvas in the classic cabinet formats, such as the significant pair examined here, for which there certainly should have been no lack of opportunities for a successful painter like Allegrini. But in this regard, it should be noted, in my opinion, that this task, in addition to a certain congenital disinterest of contemporary criticism, was intrinsically hampered precisely by the dichotomous aspect of his personality, which evolved first under the influence of Cesari and then opened up to a decisive adherence to the Baroque, without however ever completely deflecting from Mannerist inflections, particularly cultivated in his most fervent graphic activity and clearly emerging in his "belle scene", a vital part of his work, as evidenced by the cycles mentioned above, confirmed to his hand. Evident are the stylistic and figurative correspondences between the versions of the Rape of the Sabine Women and the works of art typically of Allegrini with some similarly posed characters and with a Baroque emphasis, however explicating interpretative and expository differences for a full adherence to the Baroque, but already undermined by classicistic attenuations in giving greater weight to the human figure, with the emerging central group, in both of which very dense and the presentation of the characters, while conceding a due space in the upper half, in one to the depiction of a walled town with square towers diagonally and a landscape background in the right part, and in the other to the depiction of the more seventeenth-century than Roman style tent, as well as the fortified complex with the mighty circular towers. However, in these two paintings, two masterpieces absolutely of the entire curriculum of Allegrini, the painter shows to have fully assimilated the lesson of Berrettini, in whose studio he had moved after the death of Cavalier d'Arpino in 1640, in orchestrating vast masses of characters with a dynamic filling of full Baroque taste, denouncing some Mannerist reminiscences in the scia dell'affresco capitolino of Cesari, such as the group of knights in the painting with the city walls and in which the author's attention is focused on some splendid pairs of characters of more detailed definition and more vivid chromatic ranges, such as the one with the woman with the blue dress on the left and the other with the wounded warrior lying on the ground next to his shield on the right. The work, like all our objects, is sold with a FIMA photographic certificate of authenticity and legal provenance; this document identifies the object bringing added value to the item. We personally handle and organize the packaging and shipping of works of art with insurance worldwide. Dr. Riccardo Moneghini Art historian