(Genoa 1667–1749)
Saint Francis in Ecstasy,
oil on canvas, 174 x 124.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
sale, Finarte Milan, 13 May 1998, lot 179;
Private collection, Italy;sale, Dorotheum, Vienna, 15 December 2009, lot 303;
where purchased by the present owner

Literature:
B. Geiger, Magnasco, Bergamo 1949, p. 116, pl. 293 (with incorrect measurements 184 x 125 cm);
C. Marcenaro (ed.), Pittori genovesi a Genova nel ’600 e nel ’700, exhibition catalogue, Genoa 1969, p. 332, mentioned under cat. no. 138; L. Muti/D. De Sarno Prignano, Magnasco, Faenza 1994, p. 311, cat. no. R. 286 (with incorrect measurements 184 x 125 cm, as ‘non attribuibile al Magnasco’)

We are grateful to Professor Fausta Franchini for confirming the attribution. She considers the present work to be an early composition by Magnasco, comparable to the picture in the Galleria di Palazzo Bianco in Genoa.

The present painting was first published as an autograph work by Benno Geiger (see literature), but it was no longer attributed to the artist by Laura Muti and Daniele De Sarno Prignano in their monograph of 1994 (see literature). This latter judgement, however, was made on the basis of an unsatisfactory reproduction in Geiger and was revised after the examination of the original.