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Saint Roch Giving Alms
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Saint Roch Giving Alms
Saint Roch Giving Alms is an oil on canvas painting by the Italian Baroque painter Annibale Carraci, commissioned between 1587 and 1588 by the Confraternity of San Rocco in Reggio Emilia, a body for whom he produced several works. His largest work on panel or canvas (as opposed to fresco), it is the crowning achievement of his career before his move to Rome. Only completed in 1595, it is now in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden, Germany.
The commission is dated by an 8 July 1595 letter to the commissioners from the artist stating it had been commissioned "seven years earlier" and came at almost exactly the same time as the commission for an Assumption of the Virgin altarpiece, now also in Dresden. It was intended for one of the long walls of the Confraternity's oratory, now destroyed, facing Saint Roch Healing Plague Victims, a c.1585 painting by Camillo Procaccini in an identical format, destroyed in the bombing of Dresden.
The episode of the "Alms" was also supposed to be painted by Procaccini: it is unclear whether it was he who renounced this second commission or whether it was the members of the Confraternity, appreciating the art of Annibale – by then well-known in Reggio, having already created other works there, in addition to the Assumption for the same oratory of San Rocco – who decided to change painter.
Perhaps because of other commitments, Annibale, who had become one of the most sought-after artists in the Emilian area in those years, significantly delayed the execution of the painting. So much so that, in 1594, when Carracci was about to move to Rome, summoned by Odoardo Farnese, the "Alms" was still unfinished. Eager to begin his new Roman adventure, Annibale attempted to free himself from the commitment by proposing to his patrons that the canvas be completed by his cousin Ludovico.
Faced with the refusal of the members of the Confraternity, Annibale, who had already gone to Rome to finalize the agreements with the Farnese, returned to his homeland and completed the work at the end of 1595, moving in the same year (or at the beginning of the following) permanently to the city of the popes.
It has been hypothesized that upon returning from his first brief stay in Rome the painting was little more than a sketch and that therefore the work was almost entirely completed by Annibale in the few months that separated his temporary return to Emilia from the definitive start of his service for Odoardo Farnese.
In 1661 the painting was purchased by Duke Alfonso IV d'Este and then entered the Este collections in Modena.
In 1746, Saint Roch Giving Alms was included (with various other works by Annibale) in the Vendita di Dresda, the sale en bloc of the one hundred best paintings of the Este collections, decided by Francesco III d'Este, to deal with the substantial bankruptcy of the Este duchy. The purchaser of this extraordinary collection of paintings was the Elector of Saxony Augustus III. The "Alms of Saint Roch" thus landed in Dresden, where it still resides today.
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Saint Roch Giving Alms
Saint Roch Giving Alms is an oil on canvas painting by the Italian Baroque painter Annibale Carraci, commissioned between 1587 and 1588 by the Confraternity of San Rocco in Reggio Emilia, a body for whom he produced several works. His largest work on panel or canvas (as opposed to fresco), it is the crowning achievement of his career before his move to Rome. Only completed in 1595, it is now in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden, Germany.
The commission is dated by an 8 July 1595 letter to the commissioners from the artist stating it had been commissioned "seven years earlier" and came at almost exactly the same time as the commission for an Assumption of the Virgin altarpiece, now also in Dresden. It was intended for one of the long walls of the Confraternity's oratory, now destroyed, facing Saint Roch Healing Plague Victims, a c.1585 painting by Camillo Procaccini in an identical format, destroyed in the bombing of Dresden.
The episode of the "Alms" was also supposed to be painted by Procaccini: it is unclear whether it was he who renounced this second commission or whether it was the members of the Confraternity, appreciating the art of Annibale – by then well-known in Reggio, having already created other works there, in addition to the Assumption for the same oratory of San Rocco – who decided to change painter.
Perhaps because of other commitments, Annibale, who had become one of the most sought-after artists in the Emilian area in those years, significantly delayed the execution of the painting. So much so that, in 1594, when Carracci was about to move to Rome, summoned by Odoardo Farnese, the "Alms" was still unfinished. Eager to begin his new Roman adventure, Annibale attempted to free himself from the commitment by proposing to his patrons that the canvas be completed by his cousin Ludovico.
Faced with the refusal of the members of the Confraternity, Annibale, who had already gone to Rome to finalize the agreements with the Farnese, returned to his homeland and completed the work at the end of 1595, moving in the same year (or at the beginning of the following) permanently to the city of the popes.
It has been hypothesized that upon returning from his first brief stay in Rome the painting was little more than a sketch and that therefore the work was almost entirely completed by Annibale in the few months that separated his temporary return to Emilia from the definitive start of his service for Odoardo Farnese.
In 1661 the painting was purchased by Duke Alfonso IV d'Este and then entered the Este collections in Modena.
In 1746, Saint Roch Giving Alms was included (with various other works by Annibale) in the Vendita di Dresda, the sale en bloc of the one hundred best paintings of the Este collections, decided by Francesco III d'Este, to deal with the substantial bankruptcy of the Este duchy. The purchaser of this extraordinary collection of paintings was the Elector of Saxony Augustus III. The "Alms of Saint Roch" thus landed in Dresden, where it still resides today.
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