Lot 1124 | Two Paintings: Cain and Abel; Sacrifice of Isaak

MAGATTI, PIETRO ANTONIO
Varese 1691 - 1767


Title: Two Paintings: Cain and Abel; Sacrifice of Isaak.
Technique: Each oil on canvas.
Mounting: Relined.
Measurement: 81 x 64,5cm.
Frame/Pedestal: Framed.
Certificate:
M. Pulini, Bologna, after examination of the original on 24. Januar 2020.

Provenance:
Private ownership, Italy.

The painter Pietro Antonio Magatti was born in Varese at the end of the 17th century and received his artistic training in Bologna, where he studied the works of Giacomo Cavedone and Giovanni Gioseffo Dal Sole. In 1725 he made the "Madonna offering the Rosary to St. Dominic" for the Chapel of the Rosary in the Church of San Vittore in Varese. This, his first independent altarpiece, combines the elements of Emilian painting and the light effects of Lombard painting. The following commissions, mostly in an ecclesiastical context, gradually show a greater degree of lightness in execution: the paintings are executed with broad and transparent brushstrokes, with an increasingly clear and delicate colouring.

From the 1740s onwards, Magatti played a leading role in the artistic milieu of Varese, where he is considered the most important painter of the 18th century.
The present oil paintings on canvas were created during this period. These two works, which depict two of the most dramatic scenes of the Old Testament, are the latest additions to the artist's oeuvre: we have the expert Massimo Pulini to thank for this enrichment.
Due to similar subjects and dimensions, the two paintings are to be understood as counterparts, but the name of the patron is still unknown. In the paintings the artist summarises the particularities of his unmistakable style: In a small space, the two scenes shine in bright, almost gaudy colours and soft shapes. Magatti gives the paintings different shades of colour, which probably allude to opposing meanings. In the case of Cain and Abel, the colours are rather warm, perhaps to emphasise the earthly, bloody and wild event, whereas in the counterpart the nuances are rather cold, so that they correspond to the colours of heaven and thus to the divine salvation of Isaac thanks to the proof of faith of his father Abraham.