Lot 50: DANIELE CRESPI

DANIELE CRESPI BUSTO ARSIZIO CIRCA 1597 - 1630 MILAN THE MADONNA AT PRAYER oil on panel 63.2 by 48.5 cm.; 24 7/8 by 19 1/8 in.

This exciting new addition to the oeuvre of Daniele Crespi dates from the 1620s. It was during this decade that the young Crespi came into his own as an artist, moving away from the exaggerated style of Lombard mannerism to develop his own original style focused on stark depiction of form and a simplification of content.

In the present painting this has resulted in an intense, psychological depiction of the Madonna paused in contemplation and prayer. Her simple, almost heavy, facial features appear repeatedly in Crespi's other Madonnas of the 1620s. They can be found in a more emotional format in the Prado Pietà and again in the compositionally more ambitious Madonna and Child with Saints Francis and Carlo Borromeo in the Pinacoteca dell'Ambrosiana (see N. Ward Neilson, Daniele Crespi, Soncino 1996, pp. 31, 35, 109 and 177).

We are grateful to Dr. Francesco Frangi for endorsing the attribution to Crespi on the basis of photographs and for suggesting a date of execution in the 1620s.