Pietro Paolini, Lot n° 433

BEARY AGE THAT TEST A SAIL FOR A LOUD SOUND Oil on canvas in oval. 73 x 61 cm. In old gilded oval frame. Expert opinion in copy by Dr. Patrizia Giusti Maccari, Lucca, March 10, 1998. The old man, probably an instrument maker, is reproduced here in the half-portrait. In front of him, a lute is depicted at an angle to the picture, a perspectival success, for which he checks a string which he holds between both hands. His red robe has vertical slits in regular rows, and glasses are placed on the bridge of his nose. In the heavily darkened background the stone figure of a reclining Venus on a cline. Here, as in Paolini's other works, the chiaroscuro style of Caravaggism is striking, for the painter himself was in his early years in the workshop of Angelo Caroselli (1585-1652) in Rome, who in turn was a successor to Michelangelo Merisi il Caravaggio (1570/71-1610). Thus, here too, the face and especially the forehead of the old man shines out against the black background, with the flat wooden ceiling of the lute corresponding to it. Between light and dark, the stone sculpture reproduced in the background in semi-darkness functions, which also stands out in its coldness of colour from the warm light tones of the foreground. The subject of the picture itself fits entirely into the series of depictions of people who are involved with music or other instruments. Thus, another painting by the painter with exactly the same theme has become known, in which, in contrast to the present painting, a Roman column in place of the antique stone figure has been brought into the picture. The dating of the aforementioned comparative painting between 1619 and 1632 also provides the framework for the chronological classification of the present painting. Literature: Cf. Keith Christiansen, A Caravaggio Rediscovered: The Lute Player, Metropolitan Museum of Art 1990, pp. 24-25, pp. 70-73. (12203510) (2) (11) Pietro Paolin