(Viterbo 1610–1662)
Allegory of Charity,
oil on canvas, 135.5 x 98 cm, framed

Provenance:
possibly collection of Cardinal Angelo Giori (1586–1662), Rome;
sale, Finarte, Rome, 1 December 1998, lot 687 (as Giovanni Francesco Romanelli);
sale, Christie’s, Rome, 4 December 2000, lot 691 (as Giovanni Francesco Romanelli);
Private European collection

Literature:
possibly S. Corradini, La collezione del cardinale Angelo Giori, in: Antologia di Belle Arti, Rome 1997, p. 85, no. 27;
M. Fagiolo dell’Arco, Pietro da Cortona e i ‘cortoneschi’. Gimignani, Romanelli, Baldi, il Borgognone, Ferri, Milan 2001, p. 116, illustrated p. 27, fig. 50 (as Giovanni Francesco Romanelli)

We are grateful to Ursula Verena Fischer Pace for confirming the attribution after examining the present painting in the original.

This allegorical figure of Charity is dressed in blue and yellow robes and is flanked by two putti. The three-quarter length figure and the delicate colouring are typical features of Romanelli’s work and the present figure of Charity is closely comparable to the Romanelli’s Sybil in the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples.

Romanelli reinvigorated the depiction of the half-length figure in allegorical painting with his graceful Raphaelesque female figures, such the present painting which can also be associated with another of his paintings, the Allegory of Fame in a private collection (see Fagiolo dell’Arco in literature, fig. 51). According to Fagiolo dell’Arco, the present painting might be the Allegory of Charity cited in the inventory of Cardinal Angelo Giori, dignitario of Pope Urban VIII (see Corradini in literature. [27. Un altro quadro con la cornice liscia tutta dorata la Carità Romana del Romanelli]).

Romanelli was born in Viterbo but moved to Rome where he belonged to the circle of artists and intellectuals protected by Pope Urban VIII and Cardinal Francesco Barberini. Following a brief formative period with Domenichino, he entered the studio of Pietro da Cortona with whom he collaborated on the fresco decoration of Palazzo Barberini.

With his first public commissions in the Basilica of Saint Peter’s and the Vatican, Romanelli began to develop a significantly personal interpretation of the Baroque style of painting. Finding inspiration in work of Raphael, as well as Francesco Albani and Guido Reni, he formulated a functional, simplified, almost neo-Renaissance manner of painting, with which he distinguished himself within the broader classical movement of the period. He was elected Principe of the Accademia di San Luca in Rome and he was called to the French royal court in 1648 where he was commissioned to decorate the palace of Cardinal Mazarin and four rooms of the summer apartment of the Queen Mother, Anne of Austria.