Ercole PROCACCINI LE JEUNE (Milan 1605 - Milan... Lot n° 358
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"Sine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus" Allegory with Venus, Ceres, Bacchus and Love
Oil on canvas
70 x 60 cm
Some restorations
Antique carved and gilded wood frame
Private collection, Brescia
Private collection, France
Born into a family of artists, Ercole Procaccini hails from Milan, where his namesake grandfather (1515 - 1595) moved in 1586 to found a painting academy. Ercole worked there with his uncle, Giulio Cesare Procaccini (Bologna, 1574 - Milan, 1625), who gave him a taste for a style inspired by the emotions of Correggio and the grandiloquence of Rubens.
We now know that Ercole the Younger held a position of great importance in the Lombard artistic world of the mid-seventeenth century: thanks to the support of the powerful Arese family and the Spanish governor in Milan, the Marquis of Caracena, he took part in the major artistic projects of the period. His compositions on religious subjects, with their sober style and direct message, had certainly attracted the favor of the protagonists of Milan's Counter-Reformation.
He was also able to excel in paintings with mythological subjects, as is the case with this attractive canvas already attributed to his uncle, which represents a major rediscovery of Lombard pagan painting.
The theme was very dear to the artists of Northern Europe, and it also enjoyed a certain success in Lombardy. Dating back to the Roman playwright Terence, the motto "Sine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus" means that, in order not to lose its strength, love needs food (Ceres) and wine (Bacchus).
In this painting, Ercole opts for the tight composition found particularly in Nordic examples. However, his interpretation is all about bewitching light-and-shadow effects and an amber palette, revealing his affinity with the works of Giovanni Stefano Danedi, known as il Montalto (1612 - 1690). The dense brushwork, the brown and red tones, the figures in the foreground animated by a warm light while Bacchus, in the background, is in twilight: these are all typical characteristics of this admirable creator of bewitching and highly eloquent images.
Bibliography:
F. M. Ferro, Giulio Cesare Procaccini: aggiunte agli ultimi anni milanesi, in "Rivista d'Arte", series V, volume 2, 2012, pp. 279-280, n. 5 (as Giulio Cesare Procaccini; published in black and white)
H. Brigstocke, O. d'Albo, Giulio Cesare Procaccini. Life and Work, 2020, RA11 p. 409, fig. p. 290 (as a follower of Giulio Cesare Procaccini; published in black and white).
H: 70 x W: 60 cm
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