(Genoa 1635–1676 Venice)
Pan playing the bassoon,
oil on canvas, 84 x 63 cm, framed

We are grateful to Anna Orlando for confirming the attribution of the present painting (written communication).

Orlando points out that half length figures depicted against a dark background, as seen in the present composition, are a common feature of Langetti’s artistic production. This model type was used by the painter for the depiction of saints, philosophers and mythological figures.

The present painting of Pan is a recent rediscovery and, according to Anna Orlando, the rapid brushwork and dark, reddish-brown palette are typical of Langetti´s oeuvre. Langetti gained fame as the figurehead of the so-called ‘tenebrosi’. Characteristic of his work are the nudity, chubby bodies and expressivity of his human figures on the one hand, and the vivid and dynamic appearance of his figural compositions on the other, which Langetti usually arranged along a spatial diagonal that seems to virtually catapult his figures to the surface of the canvas – a stylistic feature that also manifests itself in the present painting. In developing these expressive idiosyncrasies further, Langetti, who relied on the art of Ribera and Luca Giordano, became formative for an entire generation of such well-known painters as Johann Carl Loth, Pietro Negri, and Antonio Zanchi.

Langetti grew up in the parish of Santa Sabina in Genoa and became an orphan at a very young age. He soon came into contact with Giovanni Battista Carlone, who was probably his first teacher (cf. M. Stefano Mantovanelli, Giovanni Battista Langetti. Il Principe dei Tenebrosi, Soncino, 2011), and went to Rome at an early age, probably accompanied by Carlone. In Rome he collaborated with Pietro da Cortona. At the age of twenty, Langetti permanently settled in Venice, where he completed his education under Giovanni Francesco Cassana. The years in Venice were the most productive period of the artist’s career.