Lot 322: PAOLO DOMENICO FINOGLIO

PAOLO DOMENICO FINOGLIO ORTO DI ATELLA OR NAPLES CIRCA 1590 - 1645 CONVERSANO SAINT ANTHONY ABBOT oil on canvas 70 7/8 by 39 3/8 in.; 180 by 100 cm.

Acquired by the present owner in the late 1980s.

We are grateful to Professor Nicola Spinosa for tentatively proposing the attribution to Finoglio and for comparing the present Saint Anthony Abbot to Finoglio's lunettes depicting the founding fathers in the Sala del Capitolo in the Certosa of San Martino in Naples, executed before 1626.(1)

The ten Founding Fathers of Religious Orders( )were carried out at an early stage in the artist's career, when he had come under the influence of Battistello Caracciolo's naturalism.(2 ) The caravaggesque light emerging from the left of the composition, reflecting off the saint's forehead, and the restrained palette accentuate the focus of the scene. All ten canvases depict elderly men, their brows furrowed in concentration, before a simple background, as echoed in the present work.


1. For a discussion of Finoglio's work in San Martino see Paolo Finoglio e il suo tempo, exh. cat., Conversano 2000, pp. 43- 50.
2. Op. cit, p. 149, cat. no. 10, reproduced in colour pp. 87-91, plates 10a-l.