(Genoa 1635–1676 Venice)
Archimedes,
oil on canvas, 92.5 x 72.5 cm, framed

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

This as yet unpublished work displays all of Giovanni Battista Langetti’s typical stylistic features. The figure is portrayed with quick impasto brushstrokes, the colour palette is predominantly dark. The focus lies on the expression of the face and the gesture. Depictions of philosophers and Christian heroes recur throughout Langetti’s entire oeuvre. The majority of them are depicted in expressive realism before a dark background, accompanied by scientific instruments such as globes, armillary spheres, books or a compass. Anna Orlando classifies the present painting as belonging to the artist’s late period, characterised by strong moral and symbolic content. With the face streaked with deep wrinkles, the painter emphasises the age of the philosopher – an echo of the “Age” of classical antiquity, with which wisdom, science and intellectual dignity are associated. Comparable paintings are, for instance, the figure with an armillary sphere in a private collection in Genoa, the Philosopher and Diogenes in the Zerbone Collection in Genoa, Female figure with a globe in an Italian private collection, the Figure with an armillary sphere in the Koelliker Collection in Milan and the image of Archimedes in the Ludwigsburg Palace near Stuttgart. Giovanni Battista Langetti, originally from Genoa, travelled to Rome, and probably also to Naples, in his youth, finally settling in Venice in the second half of the 1650s, which became his main place of activity. Langetti’s works enjoyed great success thanks to their realism, their theatrical use of light derived from Neapolitan painting, and their free pictorial treatment of surfaces inspired by Jacopo Tintoretto and Bernardo Strozzi. His works influenced painters such as Antonio Zanchi, Johann Carl Loth, Pietro Negri and Francesco Rosa, who became known as “tenebrists”, and were important for the development of Venetian art in the second half of the 17th century.