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| Francesco Gessi Madonna and Child with St Lawrence, St Frances of Rome and St Nicholas 1620 oil on canvas Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan |
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| Francesco Gessi Temptation of St Thomas Aquinas ca. 1632-33 oil on canvas Musei Civici di Reggio Emilia |
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| Francesco Gessi Madonna and Child ca. 1624 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
" . . . the Reni succession at Bologna need not detain us: Francesco Gessi (1588-1649), Giovan Giacomo Sementi (1580-1636), Giovanni Andrea Sirani (1610-1670) and his daughter Elisabetta (1638-1665), or Luca Ferrari from Reggio (1605-1654) who transplanted his master's manner to Padua and Modena. These mediocre talents transformed the positive qualities of Reni's late 'classicism' – the unorthodox simplicity of his inventions – into compositions of boring pedantry; his refined silvery tonality into a frigid scale of light tones; his vibrant tenderness into sentimentality; and his late 'sketchy' manner with its directness of appeal was neither understood nor followed."
– Rudolf Wittkower, Art and Architecture in Italy 1600-1750, originally published in 1958, revised by Joseph Connors and Jennifer Montagu and reissued by Yale University Press in 1999
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| Francesco Gessi Judgment of Paris before 1649 oil on copper private collection |
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| Francesco Gessi St Cecilia before 1649 oil on canvas private collection |
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| attributed to Francesco Gessi St Francis of Assisi supported by Angels while receiving the Stigmata ca. 1620-25 drawing Museo del Prado, Madrid |
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| Francesco Gessi St Francis of Assisi supported by Angels while receiving the Stigmata ca. 1620-25 oil on canvas Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna |
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| Francesco Gessi St Francis of Assisi in Adoration of the Cross ca. 1630-40 oil on canvas Palazzo dei Musei, Modena |
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| Francesco Gessi St Veronica with Veil before 1649 oil on canvas private collection |
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| Francesco Gessi Flight into Egypt before 1649 oil on canvas Christ Church, University of Oxford |
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| Francesco Gessi St Catherine of Alexandria before 1649 oil on canvas private collection |
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| Francesco Gessi Head of St Charles Borromeo before 1649 drawing Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| Francesco Gessi Descent of the Holy Ghost (Pentecost) before 1649 drawing British Museum |
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| Francesco Gessi Martyrdom of St Blaise before 1649 drawing British Museum |