The Flemish painter Matthias Stom was one of the most emblematic interpreters of the Caravaggesque current, marking with personality his stay in Rome, Naples and Sicily between 1630 and certainly until 1645, although his place and date of death are unknown. In the years of his Italian sojourn, his ties were also strong with Genoa, where his presence is never documented, but where his important paintings arrived due to commissions and collecting, starting – in particular – from the beginning of his Sicilian sojourn (post 1637). .is essay presents a previously unpublished canvas attributed to Stom, hypothesising its relationship with his main Sicilian painting cycle, created for the Count of Mazzarino and Prince of Butera, Giuseppe Branciforte Barresi and Santapau, by virtue of the striking coincidences between the measurements of the work and those reported in 18th and 19th century inventories, as well as the concordances and iconographic peculiarities presented by this Nativity. . e canvas, Sicilian by origin, went to Naples and then, by routes that are still not completely clarified, to Genoa (where it has been recognised today) after 1801. A route that, albeit at a later date, seems to confirm the relationship already established centuries earlier between Genoa and Matthias Stom.
Matthias Stom e un"inedita Natività tra la Sicilia e Genova
Giacomo Montanari
2025-01-01
Abstract
The Flemish painter Matthias Stom was one of the most emblematic interpreters of the Caravaggesque current, marking with personality his stay in Rome, Naples and Sicily between 1630 and certainly until 1645, although his place and date of death are unknown. In the years of his Italian sojourn, his ties were also strong with Genoa, where his presence is never documented, but where his important paintings arrived due to commissions and collecting, starting – in particular – from the beginning of his Sicilian sojourn (post 1637). .is essay presents a previously unpublished canvas attributed to Stom, hypothesising its relationship with his main Sicilian painting cycle, created for the Count of Mazzarino and Prince of Butera, Giuseppe Branciforte Barresi and Santapau, by virtue of the striking coincidences between the measurements of the work and those reported in 18th and 19th century inventories, as well as the concordances and iconographic peculiarities presented by this Nativity. . e canvas, Sicilian by origin, went to Naples and then, by routes that are still not completely clarified, to Genoa (where it has been recognised today) after 1801. A route that, albeit at a later date, seems to confirm the relationship already established centuries earlier between Genoa and Matthias Stom.
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