Francesco Fracanzano (Monopoli, 1612 – Napoli,... Lot n° 111

Francesco Fracanzano moved very early to Naples to join the workshop of one of the most renowned painters of the time-Jusepe de Ribera. Initially the painter adhered to the mellow and chromatically violent style of his master, but in his more mature phase he gradually deviated from it, to embrace a more classicist reading of compositional elements and an increasingly convinced adherence to Flemish proposals; but the painter's real talent was certainly his ability to tie these experiences together, synthesizing them into a unique style. This workshop work depicts an elderly sage who seems to be conversing with someone outside the scene about the fleeting nature of existence: he seems to want to remind his interlocutor of the inevitability of death; the possibility that he was once part of a pendant cannot be ruled out. The extremely close cropping, the all outstretched "off-screen" expressiveness of the man suggest the existence of a painting corresponding to him. Oil on canvas, cm 62x50