(Genoa 1635–1676 Venice)
Nessus,
oil on canvas, 100 x 81 cm, framed

Provenance:
European private collection

Literature:
M. Stefani Mantovanelli, Giovanni Battista Langetti, in: Saggi e Memorie di Storia dell’arte, 17, 1990, p. 61;
M. Stefani Mantovanelli, Giovanni Battista Langetti. Il Principe dei Tenebrosi, Soncino (CR) 2011, no. 28, fig. 23

Exhibited:
Udine, chiesa di San Francesco, Mostra della pittura del Seicento in Friuli, August - November 1968 (4° Biennale d’Arte Antica), p. 82

We are grateful to Professor Bernard Aikema for confirming the attribution of the present painting after examination in the original.

The present painting is a typical work by Giovanni Battista Langetti, whose artistic style is clearly recognizable in the vibrant brushwork and the dramatic use of light and shade. The composition is also characteristic of the artist, as it shows his interest in human anatomy painted in a naturalistic style, as influenced by Jusepe de Ribera and Luca Giordano, whose works he would have seen in Naples before settling in Venice.

As Stefani Mantovanelli has suggested, the composition is inspired by sculpture, such as the Torso Farnese and by the figure of the Day by Michelangelo in the Cappelle Medicee in Florence. It can also be compared with the academic nude attributed to Gianlorenzo Bernini known as Levantino sdraiato (see Stefani Mantovanelli, p. 151 n. 27), representing a similar nude male painted from behind emerging from a dark background.

The powerful figure of Nessus is depicted half length with broad brushstrokes in a free and painterly manner, with sumptuous red tones on a dark background indebted to Rubens, whose influence had been so important for Genoese painting and there is another almost identical version of the same composition (see Mantovanelli p. 151 no. 27, illustrated fig. 22).

Langetti was trained in Genoa and must have travelled to Rome and afterwards to Naples at a very early age. He settled in Venice and enjoyed a successful career. His naturalistic style, deeply influenced by Neapolitan painting, with the use of strong chiaroscuro, was imitated by a number of painters, including Antonio Zanchi, Johann Carl Loth and Francesco Rosa, who have become known as “tenebrosi” and who were prominent in the development of Venetian art in the second half of the 17th century.