Lot 85: The Archangel Michael

Jacopo Vignali (Prato 1592-1664 Florence)
The Archangel Michael
oil on canvas
45¼ x 34½ in. (115.1 x 87.6 cm.)

The depiction of single saints on this scale was a favourite of the artist; see for example, Saint James the Greater (Christie's, London, 8 December 2006, lot 237), which was dated to the early 1630s. In these pictures Vignali conveys a sense of emotion through the delicate rendering of individual features, subtle sfumato and rich colour.
Like his most famous pupil, Carlo Dolci, Jacopo Vignali was notably precocious, entering the studio of Matteo Roselli in Florence in around 1605, when he was thirteen years old. Between 1615 and 1628 he was one of the team of artists involved in the commission for the extensive decoration of the various rooms of the Casa Buonarroti in Florence.