Orazio Gentileschi Circle

Circle of ORAZIO GENTILESCHI (Pisa; 1563-London; 1639).
"Rest from the flight to Egypt".
Oil on canvas. Relined.
Measurements: 47 x 63 cm.
This painting of classicist school retakes the scene of the painting of the mannerist painter Orazio Gentileschi dedicated to the theme of the flight to Egypt, currently in the collection of the Louvre Museum. Both scenes depict the Holy Family resting on their way after leaving Bethlehem to escape Herod's persecution. The work in question follows the model of the Louvre painting, highlighting the moment in which the Virgin breastfeeds the Child Jesus, respecting the volumetric and monumental proportions of the bodies. It also follows the model of the Virgin of the Milk. The Infant Jesus looks at the viewer, adopting a natural gesture, without any artifice. The mother has classical features that remind us of timelessness. Her hair is gathered in a silky, light brown bun. The painter in question has chosen a range of more contrasting and earthy tones than the original, so that the flesh tones are slightly atheistic and the light models bodies and features with ingenuity. The whole shows a sacred and leisurely image without the need to introduce symbolic elements.
Orazio Lomi Gentileschi was an Italian painter born in Tuscany. He began his career in Rome, painting in a mannerist style. Much of his early work in Rome was collaborative in nature. He painted the figures in Agostino Tassi's landscapes in the Rospigliosi palace, and possibly in the great hall of the Quirinal palace. After 1600, he was influenced by the more naturalistic style of Caravaggio and began to have commissions in Fabriano and Genoa before moving to Paris, to the court of Maria de' Medici. He remained there for two years, but only one painting from his stay has been identified, an allegorical figure of Public Happiness, painted for the Luxembourg Palace, and now in the Louvre collection. In 1626, Gentileschi, accompanied by his three sons left France for England, where he joined the household of the king's prime minister, George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham. He was a favorite artist of Queen Henrietta Maria, for whom he painted the ceiling of the Queen's House at Greenwich. The paintings of his English period are more elegant, artificial and sober than his earlier works. They include two versions of The Finding of Moses (1633), one of which was sent to Philip IV of Spain; it was previously supposed to have been a gift from Charles I, but is now known to have been sent on Gentileschi's own initiative.