Saint Matthew and the Angel

c. 1645/1648

Simone Cantarini

Artist, Pesarese, 1612 - 1648

A bearded man holds and looks down at an open book as a winged angel holds a feather pen and an inkwell in this vertical painting. Both are shown from the waist up against a peanut-brown background, and both have pale skin. The man’s body faces us, though his shoulders are angled slightly to our left. He is balding, with a rim of gray, curly hair, and a full, grayish-white beard. His forehead is heavily wrinkled, and there are hollows under his high cheekbones. A marine-blue cloth drapes across his shoulders over a brick-red garment. He braces the book with one hand so the fingers hook over the top edge of the pages. He lifts a section of a few pages with the other hand, and there is black writing on the white pages. The angel stands facing away from us so we look onto the back of the ear and side of the left cheek. The angel’s long blond hair is braided into two plaits and wound around the sides and top of the head, where they are tied with a red bow. The angel wears a bodice with a square neckline, and the puffy white sleeve we see is gathered at the elbow. The wings are snowy white. The tip of the white feather pen rests in the shallow, hockey puck-shaped inkwell held in the left hand.

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 29

Artwork overview

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Hagström, Stockholm, by 1937.[1] (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 11 December 1959, no. 108, as by Guercino); James O. Belden, Paris and Washington; gift 1972 to NGA.
[1] According to Fern Rusk Shapley, Catalogue of Italian Paintings, 2 vols., Washington, 1979: 1:110.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1996

  • Obras Maestras de la National Gallery of Art de Washington, Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City, 1996-1997, unnumbered catalogue, 62-63, color repro.

Bibliography

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 54, repro.

  • Borea, Evelina. Pittori bolognesi del seicento nelle gallerie di Firenze. Exh. cat. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, 1975: 66.

  • Mancigotti, Mario. Simone Cantarini, il Pesarese. Pesaro, 1975: 136.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. Washington, 1979: 1:110-111; 2:pl. 76.

1980

  • Ragghianti, Carlo L. “Galleria di Washington.” Critica d'Arte n.s. 45/172-174 (1980): 217-220.

  • Ferretti Colombo, Anna. "Simone Cantarini: Dalla marca baroccesca alla bassa padana." Bollettino d'Arte 67 (1980): 28.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 74, repro.

1986

  • Mazza, Angelo. In The Age of Correggio and the Carracci: Emilian Painting of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Exh. cat. Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1986-1987. Washington, D.C., 1986: 398.

1992

  • Colombi Ferretti, Anna. "Simone Cantarini." In La scuola di Guido Reni. Edited by Emilio Negro and Massimo Pirondini. Modena, 1992: 119, 126, color pl. 121.

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: 41-42, repro. 43.

Wikidata ID

Q20177215

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