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SILVER Seller in Venezia, Italy
Oil on panel, cm. 13×9.5 Small panel of notable executive quality, depicting an elderly friar meditating inside a convent cell or study. The figure, sitting on a chair, is captured in a moment of spiritual recollection: the clasped hands rest on an open book —presumably the Bible or a breviary— while the eyes are lowered in silent prayer. The brown dress and long white chin precisely characterize the character in the midst of Franciscan monastic iconography. In the background, arranged with compositional care, three elements of great symbolic significance emerge: a wooden crucifix, which alludes to the centrality of faith; a globe on a support, which refers to the encyclopedic culture and tradition of learned friars —cosmographers, missionaries, scientists — so present in Counter-Reformation Europe; finally, a plumb window with rhomboid glasses that lets a cold, diffused light filter through, typical device of Nordic painting to evoke the collected atmosphere of the interiors. The table covered by a green drape completes the setting. The pictorial application reveals an expert hand, capable of conveying with great economy of means — on a support of only 12 × 8 cm — the spatial depth of the environment, the softness of the clothes and the luminous rendering of the face. The austere brown palette, animated by the green and pink tones of the background, is directly linked to the great tradition of the Flemish and Dutch genre painters of the 17th century (Rembrandt, Gerrit Dou, David Teniers), of which the 19th-century master is aware and refined successor. The state of preservation is good, with some small abrasions that do not affect the quality of the painting. In the upper part in the centre there are two small previous holes used to fix the work to the wall.
ID: 73557-1773400400-145963
