Pietro da Cortona, Vision of St Francis

Photogallery

Pietro da Cortona, Vision of St Francis
Pietro da Cortona, Vision of St Francis
Room XIII. 17th cent.

The Vision of St Francis is a copy, of slightly smaller dimensions, of the altarpiece that Pietro da Cortona painted in 1640-1641 for the Montauto Chapel in the church of the Annunziata in Arezzo. The painting, that comes from the Pontifical Villa of Castelgandolfo, was exhibited in the Pinacoteca in 1932. The apparition of the Virgin in the act of offering the Child Jesus to St Francis is a particularly common subject in the 17th century. The religious theme is expressed here with remarkable vitality and freedom, with a fluidity of stroke and richness of chromatic effects, confirming the great personality of the artist, who was one of the leading Baroque painters.