Filippo Vitale

(Napoli, 1585 - Napoli, 1650)

Oil on canvas, 97x72 cm.Within coeval frame. The painting stands as a testimony of Caravaggesque naturalism in Neapolitan territory, a phenomenon led by Battistello Caracciolo that certainly played a key role together with Ribera, in Naples from 1616, for the formation of the style of Vitale, to whose brush you proposes to return the presented work. The greatest difficulty in delineating his artistic career, reconstructed only recently by critics, is due to the existence of very few of his signed works and his stylistic turn after 1630 towards an academic matrix of a classicist style under the influence of Domenichino with outcomes next to his stepson Pacecco de Rosa, making it sometimes difficult to distinguish the correct paternity of their works. The present painting shows tangencies with his numerous works; mention is made of the S. Biagio benedicente (Location Unknown) and the Benediction of Jacob (Rome, private collection).

cm 97x72