Offered by Antichità Castelbarco
Antonio Maria Viani (Cremona, circa 1550 – Mantua, circa 1635)
Saint Michael the Archangel
Oil on canvas (78 x 61 cm – in antique frame 89 x 71 cm)
On the back, traces of an ancient inscription with the acronym DCAI, a Greek abbreviation referring to the divine attributes of the saint: D (Dikaios, the Just), C (Custos, guardian/protector of the Church), ? (Archangelus) and I (Invictus or undefeated warrior).
This image of Saint Michael the Archangel is evocative, depicted with outstretched wings in his armour, his right hand holding a flaming sword while the other holds a rod with a scale hanging from it, on which souls are placed, and which he will use to weigh their merits and sins.
It is therefore an extremely fascinating subject, taken from the theme of the Last Judgement and specifically from the “psychostasia”, or the weighing of souls by St. Michael: according to the Book of Revelation, he had the power to sift through souls before the Last Judgement, choosing the elect for ascension to heaven and the damned for descent into hell.
The canvas is a precious testimony to the Lombard school of painting between the 16th and 17th centuries, attributable to the Cremonese painter Antonio Maria Viani (Cremona, 1550 - Mantua, 1635): our subject is specifically extrapolated from the splendid work entitled “The Trinity with the Last Judgement” conceived by Viani himself and then made famous by the engraving by Jan Sadeler (https://catalogo.fondazionezeri.unibo.it/scheda/fotografia/168116/) (Ref. 1).
Our canvas is therefore a derivation of the large composition, from which the figure of Saint Michael has been extracted to make him the sole subject. There are two known versions of the entire composition by Viani, one in Naples at the Complesso Monumentale dei Girolamini (Ref. 2 - oil on copper, 49.5x36 cm), the other at the Pinacoteca Stuard in Parma (Ref. 3 - oil on canvas, 59 x 48 cm,
The latter canvas is very similar in style to our Saint Michael: we can see the same formal elegance and marked inclination towards Mannerism, even in terms of colour, typical of Viani, which initially developed in Cremona, his hometown, under the tutelage of Giulio Campi and consolidated during his stay at the court of Munich, in the service of Duke William V.
During his time in Bavaria, his style absorbed elements from the taste of Nordic artists such as Friedrich Sustris and Peter de Witte, integrating the Italian tradition with a search for scenographic effects typical of European courts.
Delevery information :
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