Andrea Celesti (1637-1712), Attrib. - Circumcision of Jesus

Andrea Celesti (Venice 1637 - Toscolano 1712) attributed - Circumcision of Jesus.

95 x 131 cm without frame, 98 x 135 cm with frame.

Oil on canvas, in a carved and gilded wooden frame.

Provenance: Wannenes 2022, Genoa.

Condition report: Lined canvas. The painted surface is in good condition.

This talented artist's painting style was quite unique. Often, he did not mix colors on the palette as everyone else does; instead, by applying a strip of white lead, a strip of red earth, a strip of yellow earth, and other colors directly onto the canvas, he unified everything in the same painting and created details he had conceived with incredible felicity and a beautiful, tender effect. [...] The contours of Celesti's figures were not the most erudite; but his character was great, his strength beautiful, and the compositions of his works harmonious; so much so that he is rightly considered one of the foremost Masters of that age' (Zanetti 1771). This description of Andrea Celesti's (Venice 1637 - Toscolano ? 1712) painting technique is explanatory, whose modern critical success contrasts with the quality of his works, which display a rich chromatic application of impasto, enlivened by a nervous brushstroke and fluid areas that the artist learned from Sebastiano Mazzoni. Between 1659 and 1669, Celesti secured important commissions in Venice, and the appreciation of these works is evidenced by his knighthood in 1679-80 by Doge Alvise Contarini and his appointment as prior of the College of Venetian Painters in 1687. His subsequent activity was primarily concentrated in Brescia and the Garda area until 1700, when his presence in the lagoon city is again documented. The canvas presented here can be dated to his late maturity, based on its subtle modulations of light and the alternation between naturalistic passages and eighteenth-century refinements.


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