The Story of Job, signed at lower left: “F. Rosa”, oil on canvas, 214.5 x 146 cm, framed

Provenance:
Vicenza, Villa da Schio;
European private collection

Literature:
R. Cevese, Ville della provincia di Vicenza, Milano 1971, I, pp. 191, 201;
R. Pallucchini, La pittura veneziana del Seicento, Milan 1981, I, p. 278, II, p. 857, fig. 936;
B. Aikema, Francesco Rosa a Venezia, in: Paragone. Arte, 48.1997, ser. 3, 12, pp. 46, 53, note 22.

Francesco Rosa, an artist that was for a long time confused with a homonymous painter living and working in Rome, originally came from Genoa and he was documented in Venice between 1663 and 1679. There he followed the formal language of the “Tenebrosi”, stylistically his work is close to the work of Giovan Battista Langetti.

The present painting is one of the few confirmed autograph works by the artist. The composition was executed together with a pendant depicting Fame Defeats Father Time (collection Da Schio in Castelgomberto, Vincenza, see R. Pallucchini, La pittura veneziana del Seicento, Milan 1981, I, p. 278, II, p. 857, fig. 936). The painting was also published by Bernard Aikema, author of one the few publications on the artist (see B. Aikema, Francesco Rosa a Venezia, in: Paragone. Arte, 48, 1997, ser. 3, 12, pp. 46, 53, note 22). Aikema believes that the pendant to the present painting was executed by Langetti and he hypotheses a possible collaboration between the artists, both from Genoa and very close in their pictorial modes.

The canvas in fact shows an “accentuate langettismo” from a typological and stylistic point of view. From Langetti he was inspired to paint the biblical scene in a brutally dramatic way, with tightened tones that the painter expresses with his palette of dark and red tones. The cruel naturalism and his strong chiaroscuro go back to his training in Genoa and recall the works of Giovan Battista Carlone; and they are comparable to Langetti’s artistic production, in particular to the Death of Ganymede (Genoa, private collection), The Patient Job (Genoa, private collection), Saint Jerome with an Angel (Genoa, Collection Costa). Pallucchini dates the present painting and its pendant to the moment when Rosa is closest to Langetti, after the execution in 1670 of the large canvas showing the Miracle of Saint Anthony (Venice, the Friari), his first documented work in Venice.

After his sojourn in Venice, Rosa moved to Germany, where he worked as a court painter between circa 1679 and 1699. He painted a series of ceilings in the castle of Lustheim and the residence in Munich. In 1699 he was documented in Brussels and afterwards he probably returned to Italy, where he is he documented for the last time in Venice in 1710.