Disciple of Orazio Gentileschi

Disciple of ORAZIO GENTILESCHI (Pisa; 1563-London; 1639).
"St. Francis."
Oil on canvas. Relined.
Measurements: 64 x 53 cm; 76,5 x 66 cm (frame).
We are in front of a devotional canvas in which the episode is represented in which San Francisco, being retired in the mountain, had a vision in which Christ appeared to him, of whose wounds rays arose that caused to the saint stigmata in the hands and in the feet, although in this case only the wound of the foot is appreciated. The scene is placed in the foreground, with the saint standing with a forced contraposto that generates a vision of great theatricality. Saint Francis is, as usual, dressed in the Franciscan sackcloth, which is the only attribute used by the artist to identify him. The author has not represented the apparition of Christ, containing all the emotion in the corporal and facial gesture of the saint, who opens his mouth in an attitude of astonishment. It is interesting to point out this characteristic since the mere presence of the saint helps to empathize with the viewer.
Aesthetically the work is close to the painting of Orazio Lomi Gentileschi, an Italian painter born in Tuscany. He began his career in Rome, painting in a mannerist style. Much of his early work in Rome was collaborative in nature. He painted the figures in Agostino Tassi's landscapes in the Rospigliosi palace, and possibly in the great hall of the Quirinal palace. After 1600, he was influenced by the more naturalistic style of Caravaggio and began to have commissions in Fabriano and Genoa before moving to Paris, to the court of Maria de' Medici. He remained there for two years, but only one painting from his stay has been identified, an allegorical figure of Public Happiness, painted for the Luxembourg Palace, and now in the Louvre collection. In 1626, Gentileschi, accompanied by his three sons left France for England, where he joined the household of the king's prime minister, George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham. He was a favorite artist of Queen Henrietta Maria, for whom he painted the ceiling of the Queen's House at Greenwich. The paintings of his English period are more elegant, artificial and sober than his earlier works. They include two versions of The Finding of Moses (1633), one of which was sent to Philip IV of Spain; it was previously supposed to have been a gift from Charles I, but is now known to have been sent on Gentileschi's own initiative.