Cesare Fracanzano (Bisceglie, 1605 - Barletta, 1651)
The Repentance of Saint Peter
Oil on canvas, 112 x 128 cm
With frame, 159 x 184.5 cm
The strong stylistic and formal consonances allow us to identify the hand of Cesare Fracanzano in this canvas. Fracanzano was born in Bisceglie in 1605, son of Alessandro, a painter originally from Verona, who had married Elisabetta Milazzo from Barletta. He received his first rudiments of painting from his father, following him, together with his brother Francesco (1612 – 1656), also a painter, in his travels. Fundamental for his training and pictorial maturation was the decision to move to Naples around 1616 and enter the workshop of Jusepe de Ribera (1596 – 1652). Quoted by De Domenici in his “Lives of Neapolitan Painters, Sculptors and Architects”, Fracanzano finds in Naples an environment in great ferment, where some of the most important artists of the century are operating and where the multiple pictorial directions of the time meet and clash at the same time. Naturalism and Caravaggism move together with classicist instances, sometimes creating solutions that seem to proceed in parallel. Having returned to Barletta, the city where he would marry and where he would fulfill many commissions, he would continue to travel for work. In particular, he would always be sought after in Naples, a city where many of his works are preserved, cited in numerous archival documents, which also emphasize the high price that was necessary to pay for his works. A painter strongly influenced by Ribera and the great Caravaggesque current, nevertheless capable of assimilating and uniting other currents (for example, from the 1940s the painting of Giovanni Lanfranco, active in Naples in that period), expresses in this subject, recurring in his work, all his quality and the very strong emotional charge inherent in his work. The repentance of Saint Peter, a moment of great emotional impact and profound religious meaning, occurs shortly after the arrest of Christ, as told by the Synoptic Gospels. Jesus, shortly before, predicted the disarray of his apostles and replied to Peter, who rose up at these words, that that very night he would deny him three times before the rooster crowed. After the arrest of the Master, Peter was recognized as a disciple but denied three times, before hearing the crowing of a rooster, repenting and weeping bitterly. The encounter with Ribera is evident in Fracanzano's iconographic choice to represent Saint Peter in half-length, slightly three-quarters with tunic and mantle characterized by ample folds, with strong contrasts of light and shadow. The expression of pain on the face is underlined by the expressiveness of the eyes, characterized by a strong shine and the transparency of the tear that furrows the face. The chromatic fabric, played on low tones, the broad and rapid brushstrokes, create a portrait that is anything but idealized, of such intensity as to make the pictorial matter itself vibrate. The pictorial quality of Fracanzano is fully expressed in some details, such as the hands, the beard or the hair, of rare beauty, rendered with great mastery, in the deep attention to detail and naturalistic research. The attention to the naturalistic data, present in some of his works, is expressed here in the beautiful rendering of the rooster, taken from life, which contrasts with the rough rocky backdrop. His works are visible in some of the main Neapolitan churches, such as S. Domenico Maggiore, S. Maria della Sapienza, Santa Maria della Speranza, and Apulian churches such as the Cathedral of Santa Maria Maggiore in Barletta, the Church of Santa Maria di Nazareth in Barletta, or the Cathedral of Gravina, and in important museums such as the National Museum of San Martino, the Quadreria dei Girolamini in Naples, the Diocesan Museum of Andria or the Museo del Prado in Madrid.
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