#fa presto

[maertyrer]

Luca Giordano St. Bartholomew

Oil on canvas, 136 x 99,4 cm, 1650-60

[didoofcarthage]

Apollo and Daphne (with detail of Apollo) by Luca Giordano (called Fa Presto)

Italian, possibly 1680s

oil on canvas

private collection

[fablesandgables]

A Wounded Beggar; A Beggar Wrapped in Blankets - Luca Giordano (Fa Presto), c. 1670

Oil on on canvas, each 75 x 102.5 cm.; 29 1/2  x 40 3/8  in.

These two unusual canvases were painted by Luca Giordano, that most chameleon-like of baroque artists, in around 1670. In the first painting we find an injured man, his head revealing a wound around the eye, his legs hurt or broken. In the cap he extends towards us we find a solitary coin, while the child to the right does his best to draw further attention to his companion. In the second painting we also find a figure asking for alms, this time a lady of good birth who has found economic hardship and wears a cape over her face to hide her identity and her shame (the meaning of 'vergogna' in Italian). Beside her a child is also clad in rags, and the two parsnips under the jug seem to be all their next meal will offer them. Lattuada reasonably suggests that the subject of the pictures probably discounts a commission from a private patron. Quoting archival discoveries made by Eduardo Nappi, Lattuada associates the two works with a probable commission by a charitable institution in Naples called the Pio Monte dei Poveri Vergognosi which on 1 February 1670 is listed as paying Giordano 15 ducats and then a further 25 'per li ritratti che doverà fare per servizio de detto Monte'.1 Three weeks later he was paid 5 ducats and 26 grana for the remaining balance and for the frames of the 'due tabbelle del detto Monte'.2 Lattuada convincingly argues that this relatively small sum of money was well below the amount Giordano would normally have charged and that this relative discount would befit work carried out for a charity. He also proposes that the word 'ritratto' be considered in a broader sense, in this case as a depiction of poverty, rather than as a literal portrait of a person. [x]

[maertyrer]

Luca Giordano, called Fa Presto St. Sebastian tended by St. Irene

Oil on canvas, 154 x 129.9 cm,  ca. 1650-53

[didoofcarthage]

Allegory of the Peace Between Fiesole and Florence by Luca Giordano (called Fa Presto), a bozzetto, or preparatory sketch, for a painting commissioned by Cosimo III de’ Medici for the Palazzo Pitti

Italian, 17th century

oil on canvas

private collection

[didoofcarthage]

Picus and Circe (with detail of Circe) by Luca Giordano (called Fa Presto)

Italian, c. 1655-1660

oil on canvas

private collection

[didoofcarthage]

Apollo in the Forge of Vulcan (with detail of Apollo) by Luca Giordano (called Fa Presto)

Italian, after 1675-1676

oil on canvas

private collection

[didoofcarthage]

Detail from The Abduction of Helen by Luca Giordano (called Fa Presto)

Italian, c. 1655-1660

oil on canvas

private collection