The Visitation and the Annunciation - Attributed to Luca Giordano (Naples, 1634- Naples, 1705), Neapolitan school ...

The Visitation and the Annunciation - Attributed to Luca Giordano (Naples, 1634- Naples, 1705), Neapolitan school of the 17th century
Pair of oil paintings on canvas, each measures: 50 x 40 cm, framed measures: 70 x 60 cm. Son of a modest painter, Antonio Giordano, his friendship with José de Ribera marked his life. Luca soon began to work with Ribera in his Neapolitan workshop, and due to the great influence of the Spanish artist and the numerous trips to Rome, Venice and other cities, in search of greater knowledge of the different techniques of the time, he became one of the best baroque artists. Also, in Venice, he received the influence of Giovanni Battista Spinelli in his early works. Giordano acquired a style that fused Venetian and Roman. He combined the ornamental pomp of Paolo Veronese with more lively complex schemes "in the grand manner" of Pietro da Cortona. In Venice he painted frescoes in the Basilica of Santa Maria della Salute. Between 1682-83 he painted several series of frescoes in Florence, including the dome of the Corsini Chapel in the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine. In the block occupied by the old Medici Palace he painted the ceiling of the Biblioteca Riccardiana (Wisdom liberated from the Slavery of Ignorance) and the immense ceiling of the gallery of the Medici Riccardi Palace. The frescoes include in the center the prototypical hagiographic celebration of the Medici family surrounded by a series of intertwined narrative spaces: allegorical figures (Cardinal Virtues, Elements of Nature) and mythological episodes (Neptune and Amphitrite, the Abduction of Proserpine, the Triumphal Procession of Bacchus, the Death of Adonis, Ceres and Triptolemus). Luca Giordano and Spain, Royal Palace Exhibition Catalog (March 7-June 2, 2002), National Heritage, Madrid, 2002. Provenance: important private collection from Barcelona (lots 450 to 462)