(Verona 1578–1649 Rome)
The Communion of the Magdalene,
oil on copper, 55.5 x 43 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private European collection

We are grateful to Vilmos Tatrai for suggesting the attribution on the basis of a high resolution digital photograph.

The present unpublished painting by Alessandro Turchi, called l‘Orbetto, is an important addition to the artist‘s oeuvre. This work is very closely related to another painting of the same subject by Turchi sold at Sotheby´s, London 11th December 2003, lot 18 (oil on copper, 50.5 x 37.3 cm).

Turchi moved to Rome as a young man and quickly absorbed the classical influences of artists such as Domenichino and Annibale Carracci, whilst adopting the dramatic lighting much favoured by Caravaggio: Indeed Turchi‘s style was effectively described by Mancini as being „morbido e caravaggesco insieme“ („soft and Caravaggesque at the same time“). Although a number of large-scale altarpieces by Turchi survive, many of them still in situ in the places for which they were intended. His smooth and careful modelling was particularly apt for hard supports and for paintings on a small scale.Having learnt how to paint on slate from his fellow Veronese painter, Felice Brusasorci, Turchi favoured slate as a support for his nocturnal scenes (see, for example, the paintings in the Galleria Borghese, Rome), but copper also provided a smooth surface on which his sensitive use of colour might be put to maximum effect which is apparent in the present painting.

The angels in the present composition are comparable to those in other paintings executed in Rome around this time, are shown as if suspended on strings and are painted with impressively sharp foreshortenings. The angels in this copper seem more developed than those in Turchi‘s lunette in the church of Santa Anastasia, Verona (circa 1607; see Alessandro Turchi detto l‘Orbetto 1578-1649, exhibition catalogue, Verona, Museo di Castelvecchio, 19th September - 19th December 1999, p. 233, cat. no. 79, reproduced in colour), but they are closer to those in his altarpiece of The Madonna and Child in glory with Saints Francis and Carlo Borromeo in the church of San Salvatore in Lauro, Rome (circa 1617 or slightly earlier; op. cit., pp. 104-5, cat. no. 17, reproduced in colour).

Turchi was elected Principe of the Accademia di San Luca in Rome after Pietro Cortona’s four-year term of office in 1637, which indicates his standing as an artist. On the whole, Turchi adapted his taste for densely figured compositions with rich surface pattern and texture to a simpler, grander style indebted to Bolognese idealism and North Italian realism. However Turchi remained stylistically independent from the mainstream developments in Rome.

Additional image:
Infrared reflectogram of the present painting