Gioacchino Assereto (Genova 1600-1649), Sacrificio... Lot n° 181

oil on canvas, cm 146x111 within a gilded wood frame, Exhibitions: "Caravaggio and caravaggeschi. La pittura di realtà", Sassari, Palazzo Ducale (25 June - 30 October 2015), Exhibition curated by V. Sgarbi. Bibliography: "Caravaggio and caravaggeschi. La pittura di realtà, exhibition catalogue (Sassari, Palazzo Ducale, 25 June - 30 October 2015), exhibition catalogue curated by V. Sgarbi, 2015, p. 118. The shaped profile of the painting favours the engaging composition of the story with the figures in the foreground, captured by a close-up shot at the climax of the story. The angel sent by God, a participant in the drama, arrives in extremis while Abraham is about to strike the final blow on his son Isaac, sadly gathered in a corner. The soft brush stroke animated by wise chiaroscuro passages, faithful to the natural datum and to the epidermal rendering of certain details, - note the angel's wings and the patriarch's thick beard -, obey the hand of Joachim Assereto. Attached to the ranks of Genoese Caravaggism, Assereto today enjoys the admirable judgement of Roberto Longhi who, together with Bernardo Strozzi, considered him one of the most interesting artists of the early seventeenth century, despite the fact that he had been living rather sedentary (except for a brief stop in Rome in 1639) and for this reason ignored by contemporary sources. The painting in question finds a reasonable place between the Thirties and Forties of the seventeenth century, in the catalogue of the painter's maturity which, by now liquidated formulas still marked by a late Mannerist culture, opens up to the novelties of the Baroque taste following the example of his Lombard colleagues and the Caravaggesque stimuli penetrated from Rome, adhering intimately and embracing the so-called "reality painting" especially those more human and immediate aspects.