St Catherine of Alexandria

1640 · Private collection

religious

Saint Catherine, here depicted in close-up three-quarter length, presents all of de Bellis's stylistic characteristics: priority is given to the figure, shown frontally and with a fine turn of the head to her left, where a wheel the instrument of martyrdom is placed in the background. Seated against a small ledge at lower right, she makes a demonstrative gesture with her left hand, echoing her gaze towards a broken fragment of the wheel in the right corner. Antonio De Bellis was at once a naturalist in the purest Neapolitan tradition and a talented colourist who succeeded in juxtaposing the most sophisticated tonalities in a genuine search for elegance.

About the Artist

Antonio de Bellis

1616 – 1656

Italian painter. He worked primarily in Naples in a formidable naturalistic style deeply influenced by Jusepe de Ribera. His oeuvre was first critically evaluated in the mid-18th century by de Dominici, who included de Bellis among the foremost students of Massimo Stanzione. De Dominici dated de Bellis's best-known work, the incomplete cycle of oil paintings representing scenes from the Life of St Carlo Borromeo (in situ) at San Carlo alle Mortelle, Naples, to the mid-1650s, believing that the work had been left unfinished when the artist died in the plague of 1656. There is, however, no documentary evidence for de Bellis's death in that year, and archival evidence since uncovered by de Vito shows the paintings were commissioned between 1636 and 1638, executed 1636-39 and exhibited in the church in 1640. In light of this, the artist's date of birth of about 1616 has been suggested.

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