The Marriage of Mary, oil on canvas, 166 x 110.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
European private collection

The attribution of the present painting to Antonio Bellucci has been confirmed by Professor Eduard Safarik (written communication).
The present composition is typical of the late Venetian Baroque period and is set on a diagonal with the figure of Saint John moving from the left lower corner to the upper right, creating a sense of depth. The architectural background and the pictorial representation demonstrate a luminosity as well as chromatic elements in light tones that clearly originate from the school of Veronese, anticipating the 18th Century. Characteristic of Bellucci´s work are the tricks of composition, the wide draperies, the theatricality of the movements, and the type of figures with a classicist accent, which are traceable in the painter´s artistic production between the end of the seventeenth Century and the beginning of the next.

The present painting can be compared to Bellucci´s Battesimo di Sant’ Eusebio (Venice, Gallerie dell’Accademia), dated 1689; the figures on the left of the deacon and the priest are very similar to the figures in the present work. The figure of the Madonna contains strong aspects of the classical style and together with a vivacity of the colouring relates to the artist’s more mature works, as for example the painting realized for the Abbey of Klosterneuburg and the allegories of the Palais Liechtenstein in Vienna, where Bellucci worked between 1702 and 1704. The present painting can most probably be stylistically dated to this period, where a skilful construction of the scenography and a fluid, bright colouring are typical of the Venetian painter, who was highly appreciated at the European princely courts of the time.

A drawing conserved in the Musei Civici di Reggio Emilia is closely related to the present painting. The variations on the arrangement of the figures and the background indicate that the drawing may be considered as a preparatory drawing for the canvas in an advanced stage of the painting’s realization.

The present painting and the related drawing will be published in the forthcoming volume about the collection of drawings of the Musei Civici di Reggio Emilia, edited by Alessandra Bigi Lotti and Giulio Zavatta.