Francesco Trevisani
(Koper, 1656 - Rome, 1746)
Saint Mary of Egypt, circa 1710
Oil on canvas,
99 x 72 cm
"The canvas depicts Saint Mary of Egypt in her hermitage in the desert as she contemplates the image of the Crucifix with mystical passion. The saint leans on a flat rock, on which she has placed the sacred book, the three loaves of bread, and the skull, the instruments that help her in her daily meditations. The figure of the young woman is not yet marked by the rigors of ascetic life and fully displays that sensual grace that had led her to fall into sin. The artist lingers, then, in describing her beautiful, suffering face streaked with tears, her long dark hair, and the precious blue robe, which, however, allows a glimpse of the terrible cilice that girds her hips.
The protagonist's physiognomy and the painting's chromatic and compositional characteristics lead to the certain attribution of the work to Francesco Trevisani. The proposed attribution finds confirmation in the significant comparison with a partially varied version of the same subject, painted by the artist from Koper in 1708 for Bishop Johann Philipp Franz von Schönborn and now preserved in Weissenstein Castle in Pommersfelden (Di Federico 1977, cat. 40, pp. 49-50, fig. 32). Trevisani created the two works in Rome, masterfully blending the results of his early Venetian coloristic training, in the workshop of Antonio Zanchi and Giuseppe Heintz, and the subsequent experiences gained in the pontifical capital, in contact with the most advanced intellectual circles of those years."
- Giamblanco Gallery
