TANZIO DA VARALLO (Valsesia, Piamonte, 1575 -... Lot n° 42

The son of a sculptor, Tanzio da Varallo (Antonio d'Enrico) was born around 1575 in the small Alpine town of Alagna. Orphaned in 1586, he moved to Varallo where his older brothers were working on the Sacred Mount. He received his first artistic training from his brother Melchiorre (1570/1575 after 1641). In 1600 Tanzio and Melchiorre obtained a passport from the local authorities to practice their art as itinerant painters and travel to Rome for the Jubilee Year. It is not known how long Tanzio remained in Rome, but the development of his style shows a broad knowledge of the works made in the first decade of the seventeenth century by painters such as Caravaggio (1571-1610) and his followers, particularly Orazio Gentileschi (1563-1639) , Giovanni Baglione (1566-1616) and Orazio Borgianni (1578-1588). He carried out several works in Naples and Venice. His first documented work, "St. Charles Borromeo Giving Communion to the Victims of the Plague", produced in 1616 for the Collegiate Church of Domodossola, places Tanzio again in Piedmont and later in Lombardy. His great achievement was the synthesis in his paintings, frescoes and altarpieces of the precepts taken from Caravaggio and the unbridled elegance of the Lombard Mannerists, which is why he deserves his own place in the Italian seicento. 142 x 114 cmOil on canvas