Wednesday, May 18, 2022

Pietro Faccini (1562-1602) - "Gran Spirito" in Bologna

Pietro Faccini
Mary Magdalen at the Tomb of Christ
before 1602
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen

Pietro Faccini
Martyrdom of St Lawrence
ca. 1590
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Pietro Faccini
Martyrdom of St Lawrence (detail)
1590
oil on canvas
Chiesa di San Giovanni in Monte, Bologna

Pietro Faccini
Martyrdom of St Lawrence (detail)
1590
oil on canvas
Chiesa di San Giovanni in Monte, Bologna

Pietro Faccini
The Annunciation
before 1602
oil on copper
Museo Civico di Modena

Pietro Faccini
The Annunciation
ca. 1600
oil on canvas
Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna

Pietro Faccini
The Annunciation (detail)
ca. 1600
oil on canvas
Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna

Pietro Faccini
The Annunciation (detail)
ca. 1600
oil on canvas
Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna

Pietro Faccini
Mystic Marriage of St Catherine,
attended by St Jerome

ca. 1595
oil on canvas
Pinacoteca Capitolina, Rome

Pietro Faccini
Penitent St Jerome in the Wilderness
ca. 1600
oil on copper
Schorr Collection, London

Pietro Faccini
Figure Study of a Boy
ca. 1590
drawing
private collection

Pietro Faccini
Half-Length Figure Study
ca. 1590
drawing
Art Institute of Chicago

Pietro Faccini
Académie
ca. 1585
drawing
private collection

Pietro Faccini
Académie
ca. 1585
drawing
Cabinet des Estampes et des Dessins
de Strasbourg

Pietro Faccini
Académie
before 1602
drawing
Musée du Louvre

"Pietro Faccini's brief career seems to have begun at a relatively late age, when around 1583 he entered the Carracci academy in Bologna.  His precocious talent is said to have aroused the jealousy of Annibale Carracci, however, and in the 1590s Faccini left the Carracci academy, later setting up his own school.  . . .  He may have traveled to Venice, and the influence of Tintoretto noted by his biographer Cesare Malvasia is evident in some of his later works.  According to Malvasia, Faccini was a productive painter known for his small-scale decorative pictures, although only a handful of paintings by him survive today.  . . .   Aptly described by one scholar as 'one of the most creative and original draughtsmen of the Emilian school', Faccini drew in a variety of techniques, using pen and ink wash, red and black chalk, watercolour and oiled charcoal.  His drawings were greatly admired for what Malvasia calls their gran spirito.  They were especially popular with collectors, and Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici is said to have owned over a hundred by the artist.  Guercino also admired Faccini's drawings, which were a strong influence on his early chalk style, and is known to have possessed a number of nudi d'accademia by the artist.  In fact, Malvasia reserves special praise for Faccini's drawings of the male nude, which he notes were often confused with those of Annibale Carracci: 'so many drawing from the nude, that one sees an infinity of his models in all the most famous collections, so sensational, so daring, fluttering, and what is more, so easy and frank, that look as if they were by his master [i.e. Annibale Carracci], many are sold every day as if the work of his hand.'"   

– from biographical text published by Stephen Ongpin Fine Art, London