Lot 7: Ottavio Vannini (Florence 1585-1644)

The Last Communion of Saint Peter
oil on canvas
82 x 57 7/8 in. (208.3 x 147 cm.)

with Galerie S. Hartveld, Antwerp, 1938 (as Giovanni Biliverti).
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 15 April, 1981, lot 93.

Ottavio Vannini was among the most important Florentine artists of the first half of the 17th Century. He was a pupil of Domenico Passignano in Florence and Anastasio Fontebuoni in Rome. When Passignano moved to Rome, Vannini remained in his studio working under Pietro Sorri, only later travelling to Rome, probably to assist Passignano, with profound consequences for the highly personal Classicism which he developed in Rome through close study of Michelangelo and Raphael. Subsequently, he returned to Florence where he worked on a number of highly prestigious commissions, including completing the fresco decoration of the Salone degli Argenti in Palazzo Pitti, Florence, as well as continuing to make canvases such as Rebecca at the Well (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, inv. no. 1573).

This picture, which formerly had two additional heads behind the figure of Christ, exemplifies Vannini's personal Classicism, both in the tightly modelled figures and specifically in the inclusion of Classical architecture. The perspective of the life-size figures reveals that the work was meant to be seen from below and the subject of the picture indicates that it was almost certainly commissioned to hang above an altar, the architecture of the picture no doubt harmonizing with that of the interior in which it hung. From his hand gestures it seems that the kneeling Saint Peter is interceding with Christ on behalf of the viewer; Christ in response points to the instruments of the Mass, held up by a figure of Faith behind Saint Peter, indicating a clear route to salvation.

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