Estimate

5.000 - 8.000

Session 2

16 March 2022

Hammer Price

Description

Saint Francis of Assisi
Oil on canvas
(restoration)

82,5x64,5 cm

Category

Paintings

Additional Information

Doménikos Theotokópoulos, better known as "El Greco" (1541-1614), artistic style stands on the principle of imagination and intuition in what refers to the subjective character of the conception of the artwork.
Unburdened by classical criteria, it will be through the abundance of colour that he manages to conceive and develop a very distinctive and unique style that is mainly characterized by disturbing and violent paintings of seemingly careless execution.
The work herewith described features some characteristics of El Greco’s more mature phase, at a time when the artist produced three other depictions of Saint Francis. One in which the Francis is portrayed with Saint Andrew (ca. 1600), today at the Prado Museum in Madrid, one with John the Evangelist now kept at the Uffizi, in Florence, and a third one, a kneeling Saint Francis Xavier (1595-1600) that can be seen at the Art Institute of Chicago.
According to the Professor and Art Historian Nicos Hadjinicolaou (n. 1938), renowned El Greco expert, the present work is a replica produced in Spain during the 17th century, a fact that turns it into a notable iconographic document that reinforces the consistent historical fact of El Greco’s lasting impact as a pioneering artist even after his death. Scientific analyses of the present work by Old Master’s experts reinforce its attribution to a painter from the artist circle.