Caravaggesque School Of The 17th Century Attributed To The Workshop Of Nicolas Regnier (1590-1639)

Caravaggesque school of the 17th century attributed to the studio of Nicolas Regnier (1590-1639) Canvas 98 cm by 74 cm Old frame of the time of 110 cm by 84 cm Our painting represents two young people. The young musician who seems to be tuning his violin wears on his left hand a ribbon certainly offered by the girl as proof of his interest and his love. Nicolas Tournier (1588-1167) - Niccolo Renieri. Nicolas Regnier, known as Regnier or Niccolò Renieri (born in Maubeuge around 1588 and died in Venice in 1667) is a Baroque painter influenced by caravagism who painted a large part of his work in Italy, first in Rome and then especially in Venice. His place and his time of birth make him a man of double culture, "painters of the north" and French. A well-liked painter, he also became a successful collector and entrepreneur and built a vast fortune. Regnier was born in Maubeuge (Hainaut County) around 1588, in a French-speaking family; he has half-brother Michel Desoubleay aka Michele Desubleo, also future painter. Being born in the Spanish Netherlands, he is bored by his place of birth (that is to say, born in the county of Hainaut, subject of the king of Spain, because the region will become French only in 1678) and therefore of French culture: he remains all his life the man of a double culture. From 1601, he went to Antwerp (Duchy of Brabant, and not Flanders), with Abraham Janssens, who already initiated him to the new Italian naturalism. He went to Rome around 1615, where he followed the teaching of Bartolomeo Manfredi and entered his influence in the Caravaggesque circle, with Valentin de Boulogne, Claude Vignon and Nicolas Tournier. He first tries to imitate his master faithfully. His reading of Manfredi's painting is brilliant and sensual, striving to make the richness of the ornaments and held in the portraits he makes. He gradually climbed the ladder of the Academy of St. Luke, and became the protégé of the Marquis de Giustiniani. He also meets Simon Vouet, who is also well versed in Caravagism, who influences Régnier's work and allows him to elaborate a more precious painting (La Diseuse de Bonne Aventure, Musée du Louvre), and more turned towards a classicism of borrowed, that Regnier also finds in the work of Guido Reni. For reasons still unknown, he left Rome around 1625 and went to Venice, where he added to his activities as a painter those of art dealer and collector. Without ceasing its production, the Venetian period will be the most prolix, under the influence of Emilian painting, sports a softer caravagism, in historical and mythological paintings, as well as in religious commissions and portraits. Its palette is softened, while maintaining a wide variety of tones; the quick touch is also typical of this Venetian influence. Regnier's paintings are then imbued with a certain decorative and gestural emphasis, peopled by grieving girls, sumptuously dressed. Nicolas Régnier has four daughters, Angelica, Anna, Clorinda and Lucrezia, all painters and students of their father. Clorinda marries the Italian painter Pietro della Vecchia and Lucrezia Daniel van den Dyck.