Portrait of a Young Soldier
Oil on paper mounted on canvas
43 x 29.2 cm
Circa 1645
Italian 17th century style frame
Bibliography: Nicolas Spinosa, Aniello Falcone, e i pittori della sua cerchia (1625-1656), 2023, no. 16, p. 105; La Pittura del Seicento a Napoli, da Caravaggio a massimo Stanzione , 2010, no. 161, p. 253, reproduced
The 17th century in Naples was an extraordinarily complex historic moment. Under Spanish domination, the vice-royalty experienced the absolute height of cultural splendor: the “Golden Age of Neapolitan Baroque art,” led by strong personalities like Ribera, Luca Giordano and Mattia Preti. This was also the century of three huge disasters that hit the capital: the very violent eruption of Vesuvius in 1631, the Masaniello revolt in 1647, and the plague in 1656.
Have begun his training with José de Ribera, who initiated him in the art of Caravaggio, Falcone developed an individual style where naturalism depended on strong drawing skills. Although there is no proof that he spent time in Rome, he was certainly acquainted with, on the one hand, the work of Velasquez from his Roman period (1629-30) and on the other, with the Roman Bamboccianti, painters of bambochades. In Naples, he occupied a position analogous to that of Pieter van Laer, developing his exceptional talents as a naturalist and attentive observer of reality in a period marked by Caravaggio. Along with Viviano Falcone and Domenico Gargulio, he also participated in painting a series of four large canvases representing scenes of ancient Rome for the Palacio del Buen Retiro in Madrid. In one of them, there are already scenes of gladiator combats at the Colosseum.
Although he produced religious compositions, Aniello Falcone is better known for his tumultuous battle scenes, inspired by “Jerusalem Delivered” by Tasso, painted for great Neapolitan collectors, like the rich Flemish art merchant, Gaspar Roomer (examples of which can be found in the Louvre, the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples, and Nationalmuseum of Stockholm). He made a specialty of the genre, making him the precursor of it in Naples. His contemporaries, Micco Spadaro and Salvator Rosa considered him the “oracle” of this artistic genre, he created a sort of diagram of the “battle without heroes,” where the violence of combat was translated with brushwork that was both expressive and precise. Beginning in 1640, his religious compositions, in particular for the churches San Paolo Maggiore and Gesù Nuovo in Naples, make evident more and more clearly his knowledge of the luminous, well-ordered classicism of Rome–Bologna..
But these were dramatic years for Neapolitans. The population was exasperated by the taxes and duties levied to finance the Spanish war against Flanders and by their forced militarization. The troops quartered between the fort of Sant’Elmo and the “Mercatello” plain were at the ready to put down any possible protestation.
Salvator Rosa and Micco Spadaro, both students in Aniello Falcone’s studio, belonged, like Masaniello, to the “Compagnia della Morte,” created by Aniello himself to avenge the death of a friend, beaten to death before his eyes by two Spanish soldiers When, after barely two years of revolution, the Kingdom of Naples, came back under Spanish domination, the Compagnia della Morte was dissolved and Aniello Falcone disappeared, ousted from his studio by Luca Giordano. Accompanied by Salvator Rosa, Falcone went to Rome where, he was encouraged to go to France. Louis XIV became one of his important patrons, before Jean-Baptiste Colbert accepted the painter’s request to return to Naples, where he died during the plague of 1656.
Published in 2010 by the Aniello Falcone specialist, Art Historian Nicola Spinosa, our painting was long considered to be a probable Portrait de Masaniello (1620-1647), the revolutionary Neapolitan who rebelled against the Spanish crown. This identification came from a drawing in sanguine, extremely similar to our sketch, which in all likelihood was a first draft. Today it is in the collections of the Pierpont Morgan Library (fig. 1), and is inscribed in pen and ink Ritratto di Masianello. It is probably a sketch for the figure of the young combatant on horseback painted in the foreground of the Battle between Jews and the Amalek, a fresco painted by Falcone, along with other episodes in the story of Moses, in one of the rooms in Gaspare Roomer’s villa in Barra.
Just like our painting, which is a work on paper mounted on canvas, the drawing is inscribed on the back. On ours, writing in brown ink also clearly shows through the whole bottom half of the portrait.
While Nicola Spinosa has no doubt about the attribution of our sketch, its destination is uncertain, since the artist apparently did not afterwards directly make use of this face.
The art historian considers that our sketch might also be the first draft for the figure for the young man in the foreground on the left, moving a ladder, in the two versions of the Siege of Jerusalem (Museo Donnaregina, Naples, and private collection, fig. 4), also able to be dated to the period of the frescos at the Villa Roomer, circa 1640-1647.
Falcone’s morphotype—clearly found in our sketch—is present in several of his drawings in sanguine. In them, we find models for the opened mouth, intended to accentuate the intensity of the action.
The strong contrast in our sketch, with the light skin standing out against a dark background was, of course, inherited from Caravaggio and from Falcone’s master, Ribera. We find it in a number of his works, as in the very beautiful Jacob Receiving Joseph’s Bloody Tunic (fig. 8, Museo Nazionale della Basilicata).