Maestro Caravaggesco (XVII) - San Simone

Saint Simon the Apostle
Attributed to Pietro Vermiglio (active in Rome and central Italy)
Early Seicento (circa 1605–1625)
Oil on canvas
38 × 47 cm

The figure of Saint Simon the Apostle, recognizable by the attribute of the saw, is depicted bust-length, captured in a moment of intense spiritual concentration. The lifted gaze, charged with inner tension, and the close cropping place the work within a fully Caravaggesque figurative culture, attentive to the psychological rendering of the subject and to the human truth of the face.

The use of the solid dark backdrop, the raking light that models the volumes of the face and hands, and the construction of flesh tones through warm glazes, with touches of light concentrated on the eyes and eyelids, find convincing echoes in Pietro Vermiglio’s language, particularly in his devotional works in small and medium formats. The rendering of the beard in compact masses, the absence of descriptive self-indulgence, and the overall severity of the composition point to a meditated naturalism, updated from Caravaggesque models but devoid of theatricality.

The right hand, sturdy and resolved in terms of light and shadow, and the concrete rendering of the attribute of martyrdom strengthen the attribution to a painter of solid Caravaggesque training, active in the early decades of the seventeenth century and sensitive to austere devotional painting, as documented for Vermiglio.

The work shows a varnish that is heavily oxidized, which today dulls the legibility of the original contrasts; a controlled cleaning would allow it to fully recover its luminous quality and the chromatic depth of the whole.

The work presents partial retouching and re-lining, oxidized varnish, old restorations.