(Rome 1574–1616)
Saint Francis at prayer,
oil on panel, 60 x 45.4 cm, framed

We are grateful to Gianni Papi for confirming the attribution of the present painting and for his help in cataloguing this lot.

This impressive painting representing Saint Francis at prayer, in a state of heightened emotion, with tears running visibly down his cheeks, is a characteristic work of Oriazio Borgianni’s Spanish period. The saint is shown in half-length and the brushwork together with the style of depicting the saint’s features and hands is very close to those in the Saint Francis receiving the stigmata conserved in the Prado, Madrid (inv. no. P006997) and to those in the Crucifixion in the Bishop’s Palace in Toledo (see G. Papi, Orazio Borgianni, Soncino 1993, p. 154, fig. 3).

The artistic, figurative culture prevalent in Emilia in Borgianni’s formative years is evident in the present work, in particular the work of Lelio Orsi and of the young Ludovico Carracci. Elements from Correggio and the influence of Parmigianino are derived from the paintings of Ludovico Carracci, and were sufficiently apparent to lead the scholar, Cesare Brandi, to suggest that Borgianni may have stayed in Parma (see C. Brandi, Disegno della pittura in Italia, Torino 1980, pp. 466–468). These influences intensified as soon as the painter reached Spain due to the influence of the paintings of El Greco and his circle.

The exact date of the artist’s Spanish sojourn cannot yet be defined with certainty, but it can be presumed that he arrived between 1597 and 1598. However, he was in Spain on 9 January 1605 according to his signature in the inventories of the Marquis Poza, and he was back in Rome by 27 June 1606 (for these biographic details, see G. Papi, Orazio Borgianni. Un genio inquieto nella Roma di Caravaggio, exhibition catalogue, Milan 2020, pp. 165–67). In Spain, Borgianni worked for the nobility and court officials in various important localities including Pamplona, Toledo, Madrid and Saragozza (see H. E. Wethey, Orazio Borgianni in Italy and in Spain, in: The Burlington Magazine, vol. 106, no. 733, April 1964, p. 149).

On his return to Italy he was able to create an entirely personal synthesis of the diverse figurative cultures to which he had been exposed, combining the pictorial space of Correggio with Venetian colour filtered through his experience of El Greco and the Spanish tenebrists. It is not incidental that Bellori was to compare him to one of the great masters of Italian painting, Giulio Romano.