Teodoro Lechi

Italian, 1778 - 1866

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A man stabs a woman, Saint Lucy, in the chest while another man, a priest, holds a gold cup and offers her a small white wafer in this horizontal painting. Two man flank the priest, and the group is in front of a town square. Saint Lucy has pale skin and the men have tanned skin. In the center, Saint Lucy faces us and kneels with her body angled to our right. She turns her head away from us and toward the communion wafer with hermouth slightly open. Her copper-red hair is pulled back under a golden-brown cloth, which falls over her shoulders. The bodice of her thistle-purple gown has been pulled down, and blood trickles from the dagger held there. Her long sleeves are lined at the cuffs with white ruffles, and her skirt puddles on the ground. The gown has a sheen, suggesting satin or silk. She holds one hand down by her side, palm facing us, and holds up the gold cloth by her chest with the other. The man with the dagger is to our left. He hunches over Saint Lucy, stepping onto his front foot from behind her shoulder. He has dark hair, and his face is in shadow. His white shirt and butterscotch-yellow clothing expose the muscular shoulder of the stabbing arm. His pants end at the shin, and his feet are bare. To our right, the priest is balding with a white beard. His face is lined as he looks down at Saint Lucy, his head tipped toward us. He wears a white robe with a gold stole. A man wearing celestial blue and holding a thick candle kneels facing away from us between us and the priest. Another man wearing red and plum purple looks at Saint Lucy from under dark, lowered brows on the far side of the priest. Across from this group, a sixth person edges into the scene from our left, so only their profile, a shoulder, and a hand are visible. Deep in shadows, they seem to look into the town square. That space is lined with tall stone buildings to our right and an arch on the far side. A few people and oxen gather around a woman wearing pink, who stands on a platform in the square. Two more people sit atop a platform above the woman, flanking an upward shooting pink stream, like a wide ribbon. Thin white and gray clouds veil the shadowy, marine-blue sky in the upper left quadrant.
Veronese, The Martyrdom and Last Communion of Saint Lucy, c. 1585/1586, oil on canvas, Gift of The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation and Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1984.28.1

The Martyrdom and Last Communion of Saint Lucy

Veronese · c. 1585/1586 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1984.28.1

Francesco Francia, Bishop Altobello Averoldo, c. 1505, oil on poplar panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.5.64

Bishop Altobello Averoldo

Francesco Francia · c. 1505 · oil on poplar panel ·  Accession ID  1952.5.64

A man standing to our right with his hands together in prayer faces a woman holding a baby to our left in this vertical painting. All the people have pale skin. In the lower right quadrant of the painting, the man is shown from the chest up and is angled away from us so his profile faces our left. He has short, wavy brown hair, a bumped nose, flushed cheeks, and a faint goatee. He wears a black jacket with crimson-red sleeves. The high white collar and cuff of the hand we can see is decorated with a scrolling pattern in black. Slightly smaller in scale, the woman to our left is shown from the knees up. She wears a cherry-red dress under a cream-white mantle draped around her head and shoulders. A gold-edged, robin’s egg-blue drapery with a forest-green underside wraps around her middle and falls from the area of her waist. She stands with her body facing us and her head tilted to our right toward the baby in her arms. She looks up and to our left with brown eyes. She has brown hair, a straight nose, and her small pink lips are closed. Her head is encircled with a gold line indicating a halo. The baby she holds leans his head against her shoulder and looks off to our left, also with brown eyes. He has rounded cheeks and a chubby chest and arms. His midsection is wrapped with a white cloth, and he holds a yellow and red apple with his right hand, on our left. With his other hand, he holds the woman’s pointer finger. The scene takes place near the corner of a room with parchment-white walls.
Giovanni Battista Moroni, A Gentleman in Adoration before the Madonna, c. 1560, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1939.1.114

A Gentleman in Adoration before the Madonna

Giovanni Battista Moroni · c. 1560 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1939.1.114

Bibliography

1968

  • Lechi, Fausto. I quadri delle collezioni Lechi in Brescia: Storia e documenti. Florence, 1968