Matteo Rosselli – God The Father Blessing, Florentine School, 17th Century

Matteo Rosselli – God the Father Blessing, Florentine School, 17th Century

Matteo Rosselli (Florence, 1578–1650)
God the Father Blessing
Florentine School, first half of the 17th century
Oil on canvas
59 × 45 cm
Expertise by Federico Berti
Superb state of conservation

An important 17th-century Florentine painting depicting God the Father Blessing, by Matteo Rosselli (Florence, 1578–1650), one of the leading figures of Florentine painting during the first half of the 17th century.

The painting is accompanied by an expertise by art historian Federico Berti, who identifies it as a characteristic work by Matteo Rosselli.

God the Father is represented half-length, with flowing white hair and beard, his head slightly inclined and surrounded by a radiant golden halo. His right hand is raised in blessing, while his left rests upon the globe.

Federico Berti notes that the physiognomic construction and composition are characteristic of Rosselli. A particularly significant comparison can be made with Matteo Rosselli’s Christ the Redeemer in the Princeton University Art Museum (inv. 1977-1), which similarly presents the radiant head and the open, raised right hand.

Berti also draws attention to the distinctive construction of the eyes, with their fleshy, arched eyelids, a characteristic feature found throughout Rosselli’s work.

The painting is also closely related to Rosselli’s celebrated “character heads” (teste di carattere), studies of strongly individualized heads, frequently depicting elderly bearded men. Filippo Baldinucci, who was himself a pupil of Rosselli and wrote his biography, specifically praised the artist’s studies of elderly heads, describing them as executed with great refinement.

Another significant comparison is provided by the Saint Evangelist painted by Rosselli around 1623 for the Chapel of San Nicola in the Basilica della Santissima Annunziata in Florence, where a closely related head of an elderly bearded man appears in reverse.

The importance of the composition is further demonstrated by the existence of another version, measuring almost exactly the same (58 × 43 cm), which Federico Berti assigns to the workshop of Matteo Rosselli. The close correspondence in dimensions suggests that it may have been produced using the same cartoon.

Matteo Rosselli was a central figure of 17th-century Florentine painting. His important Florence workshop was attended by artists who would become leading painters of the following generation, including Lorenzo Lippi, Jacopo Vignali and Volterrano. Baldinucci praised Rosselli for the correctness of his drawing, the beauty of his heads, his invention and the exceptional harmony of his compositions.

Condition: superb state of conservation, as expressly noted in Federico Berti’s expertise.

Expertise: Federico Berti.