Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Giovanni Maria Morandi (1622-1717) - Rome, Venice, Vienna

Giovanni Maria Morandi
Rest on the Flight into Egypt
ca. 1680-90
oil on canvas
private collection

Giovanni Maria Morandi
Pope Alexander VII borne aloft in Corpus Christi Procession
ca. 1655-65
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy

Giovanni Maria Morandi
The Three Marys at the Sepulchre
before 1717
oil on canvas
Museo del Prado, Madrid

"Born in Florence in 1622, Giovanni Maria Morandi received his first training under Giovanni Biliverti, but at an early date he visited Rome and northern Italy, especially Venice, an experience which made him totally forget his early schooling.  Morandi, whose artistic career commenced at a rather late date, had the qualities of an accomplished cavalier and man of the world, which enabled him to ingratiate himself among the Roman nobility.  . . .  He was recommended as a portraitist to the Holy Roman Emperor, Leopold I in the 1660s and for a time was active at the court in Vienna.  Summoned by Pope Clement IX about 1668 he returned to Rome.  . . .  Among the Roman painters of the later Seicento, Morandi was one of the most moderate in his taste.  His manner is as distant from that of the adherents of Pietro da Cortona and the followers of Giovanni Battista Gaulli as it is from the cold and empty manner of many of the imitators of Carlo Maratti.  His color is generally luminous and deep; brownish-red and purple-red tonalities predominate.  A certain weakness in his draftsmanship and modeling strike one at times as unpleasant; and yet the majority of his paintings are tasteful and elegant.  He was of little importance with respect to the further resolution of the major problems of painting; he lacked any drive toward new and unusual effects."

– Hermann Voss, from Baroque Painting in Rome (1925), revised and translated by Thomas Pelzel (San Francisco: Alan Wofsy, 1997)

Giovanni Maria Morandi
Portrait of Holy Roman Empress Claudia Felicitas as Diana
1666
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Giovanni Maria Morandi
Portrait of Anna de' Medici, Archduchess of Austria,
mother of the Holy Roman Empress Claudia Felicitas

1666
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Giovanni Maria Morandi
Portrait of Sigismund Franz of Tyrol, Archduke of Austria
 before 1665
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Giovanni Maria Morandi
Portrait of Niccolò Simonelli in his Cabinet of Curiosities
ca. 1660
oil on canvas
private collection

after Giovanni Maria Morandi
Portrait of Principessa Virginia Borghese
eldest daughter of Giovanni Battista Borghese, Prince of Sulmona & Rossano
and consort of Agostino Chigi, Prince Farnese

ca. 1665
engraving by Albertus Clouwet
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Giovanni Maria Morandi
Profile Sketch of Pope Innocent X
ca. 1644-55
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Giovanni Maria Morandi
Member of a Religious Order ransoming Christian Slaves from the Turks
ca. 1650-1700
drawing
Musée du Louvre

after Giovanni Maria Morandi
Annunciation
ca. 1710
etching and chiaroscuro woodcut
by Anne-Claude de Caylus and Nicolas Le Sueur
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Giovanni Maria Morandi
The Visitation
1659
oil on canvas
Basilica di Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome

Giovanni Maria Morandi
Study for Boreas abducting Orithyia
1640
drawing
Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf

Giovanni Maria Morandi
Study for Boreas abducting Orithyia
1640
drawing
Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf