Luca Giordano

Neapolitan, 1634 - 1705

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Italian Baroque painter (1634–1705)

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A young woman leans over to caress the head of a young man lying on the ground with his eyes closed in this square painting. The woman has pale skin and the man has a more peachy complexion. The woman is in the center with her body angled to our right, on the far side of the young man so we see her from the knees up. The hand closest to us is lifted with fingers spread, and she gently touches his hair with the other. A blond braid wraps over her forehead and another is plaited across the back of her head, which is topped by a crescent moon. Her ivory-white chemise exposes a bare shoulder and her breast, and a translucent sash crosses her chest. An ocean-blue mantle loosely wraps around her middle and the ends fly out behind. Soft light coming from the upper left casts her face in shadow and illuminates the young man who lies propped against a boulder to our right. He has curly, dark brown hair, and his mouth hangs slightly open. One arm rests across his waist and a rope or ribbon wraps around that wrist. His other arm is propped on the rock so that hand curls toward his neck around a long, thin staff. A brass horn lies on the ground nearby. A crimson-red cloak drapes around his moss-green tunic, which is open at the neck to expose a smooth, wide chest. One leg is bent with his sandaled foot resting on the ground while the other is partially extended. Two shaggy, white and brown dogs sit at his feet on the left side. One looks at the man, the other at us. A broken tree trunk juts into the scene at the center left edge, and a tree grows up along the right side just beyond the man. Towering gray and tan clouds fill the sky. The artist inscribed in the lower right, “Jordanus / F.”
Luca Giordano, Diana and Endymion, c. 1675/1680, oil on canvas, Gift of Joseph F. McCrindle in memory of Mr. and Mrs. J. Fuller Feder and in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art, 1991.20.1

Diana and Endymion

Luca Giordano · c. 1675/1680 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1991.20.1

Luca Giordano, Saint Anne Received by the Virgin and Christ, etching, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1973.56.1

Saint Anne Received by the Virgin and Christ

Luca Giordano · · etching ·  Accession ID  1973.56.1

Luca Giordano, The Raising of the Cross, pen and brown ink with brown wash over touches of black chalk on laid paper, Andrew W. Mellon Fund, 1975.111.1

The Raising of the Cross

Luca Giordano · · pen and brown ink with brown wash over touches of black chalk on laid paper ·  Accession ID  1975.111.1

Luca Giordano, Saint Anthony of Padua, black chalk and brown wash on laid paper, Joseph F. McCrindle Collection, 2009.70.128

Saint Anthony of Padua

Luca Giordano · · black chalk and brown wash on laid paper ·  Accession ID  2009.70.128

Bibliography

1966

  • Ferrari, Oreste and Giuseppe Scavizzi. Luca Giordano. Naples, 1966.

1991

  • Richerche sul '600 napoletano. Saggie e documenti per la Storia dell'Arte dedicato a Luca Giordano. Milan, 1991.

1992

  • Ferrari, Oreste and Giuseppe Scavizzi. Luca Giordano. L'opera completa. Naples, 1992.

1996

  • De Grazia, Diane, and Eric Garberson, with Edgar Peters Bowron, Peter M. Lukehart, and Mitchell Merling. Italian Paintings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1996: 116-117.