Antonio Cifrondi (1665 - 1730), attr.

Antonio Cifrondi (1665 - 1730), attr.

Man with stick - Saint Joseph 

Oil on canvas, Cm 115 x 79 - With frame, cm 139 x 103

This canvas is, for stylistic and compositional reasons, comparable to the works of the Bergamo painter Antonio Cifrondi (1665 - 1730).

Antonio Cifrondi is without any doubt one of the most important protagonists of Lombard painting between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; for Abbot Lanzi, Cifrondi was "the last of the Bergamasco of some merit in composing".  Born in Clusone in the seventeenth century in the Seriana valley in the province of Bergamo, Antonio Cifrondi painted a large number of works alternating the sacred with the profane, with a late-baroque style. According to sources (Tassi, 1793) he was put in the workshop of the mediocre painter Cavalier del Negro from Cluson, of which nothing is known. He then received a scholarship made available every year for three young poor Clusonesi who wanted to continue their studies in the liberal arts (Belotti, 1959). In Bologna he would have been a pupil of Marcantonio Franceschini: an echo of this attendance can be recognized in the David and Golia of the Chamber of Deputies; in 1679 his presence is documented in Rome, then perhaps in Naples, Turin and France between Grenoble and Paris, coming into contact with the painting of the great masters of the past, but also with the experiences of contemporaries. Back home around 1686, he worked feverishly until the end of his days in the Bergamo area, with a style recognizable for the lively use of color, the rapidity of brushstroke, the marked and almost macchiettistic characters of the characters while in the second part of his activity, starting from the early eighteenth century, the palette becomes poorer and the painting dedicated especially to depicting python, according to models very close to those of the young Todeschini.

A peculiarity of his modus operandi was the speed of execution, made possible thanks to the naturalness and ease with which he performed the works. This allowed the execution of a large number of paintings, scattered in the provinces of Bergamo and Brescia.

The landscape and nature are almost absent in his painting while the focus is on the figure, which emerges from the neutral and dark background: large isolated figures occupy all the space (very often they are represented only three quarters of the figure); apostles or saints or popular characters stand on dark or reddish bottoms. Few are the colors used according to the predilection of Cifrondi for almost monochrome effects.

The man with the stick here portrayed, who could be read as a Saint Joseph, can be related to the paintings of popular characters preserved in the Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo but the less caricatural character brings it closer to the figures of saints made by the painter such as Saint Paul of the Parish of Clusone or Saint Joseph in the Flight to Egypt and Saint Anthony the Abbot. 

With Ars Antiqua you can defer all amounts up to € 7,500 at ZERO RATE, for a total of 15 INSTALLMENTS.

Ex. Tot. € 4,500 = Monthly installment € 300 for 15 months.

Ex. Tot. € 3,600 = Monthly installment € 720 for 5 months.

For amounts over €7,500 or for a longer grace period (over 15 installments), we can provide a custom payment.

Contact us directly to get the best quote.

LIVE TV

- SUNDAY 17.00 - 21.00 Dig.terr. 126 + 813 SKY

- Streaming on our website www.arsantiquasrl.com and on our social networks Facebook and Youtube

All the works proposed by Ars Antiqua are sold accompanied by a certificate of authenticity in accordance with the law and accurate fact sheet.

You can see the works directly at the showroom gallery in Milan, in via Pisacane 55 and 57.

We personally organize transport and deliveries of the works, both for Italy and abroad.