Memento Mori Melancholy, Venetian school around 1800 After Domenico Feti (1589 - 1623)

Important vanity, melancholy after Domenico Feti (Rome, around 1589 - Venice, 1623). Oil on canvas of vertical rectangular shape in a baroque style frame, melancholy or meditation is a partial recovery of the work Domenico Feti dated 1618. In this painting, the central character, Mary of Magdala, wears a long dress and a cloak; She holds her head with her hand and looks towards a skull held by her other hand. She is both pensive and melancholy. The skull is placed on a book, itself placed on a table. The subject is very characteristic of the hermetic, astrological and alchemical climate that reigned at the court of Ferdinand Gonzaga at the beginning of the 17th century. This painting was reproduced many times, the original is in the gallery of the Academy of Venice. A variant currently in the Louvre Museum was acquired in Flanders by Gabriel Blanchard for the collection of Louis XIV. It was presented in the King's cabinet of paintings at the Palace of Versailles in 1695. Domenico Feti (1589-1624), author of “La Mélancolie” circa 1618-1622, was an Italian Baroque painter. His style of painting will evolve over time. Indeed, initially he worked at the court of Mantua, where he was influenced by different styles and painters. Then, following an incident with a Mantuan nobleman, he will move to Venice where his style of painting will approach Venetian art. Finally, he will be inspired until his death by the painting of Rubens in order to continue to improve his style. Vanity or Memento mori represents human life through symbolic motifs intended to highlight its inconsistency and fragility. Meditation on death, redemption, the vanities of the world, the notion of time and the ephemeral, the quest for a virtuous inner life by mastering the outer life. It developed as an independent pictorial genre at the beginning of the 17th century and was closely linked to the feeling of precariousness that spread in Europe following the Thirty Years' War and the plague epidemics. Work in the Venetian school of the early 19th century around 1800. Frame dimensions: height 113.5cm width 95.8cm.