Giovanni Battista Crespi, detto il Cerano Saint Charles in Glory

Became part of the Archbishop’s Picture Gallery in 1689 by legate of Cardinal Federico Visconti (1617-1693), the small panel is considered one of Cerano’s masterpieces and derives from the large altarpiece now preserved in the church of San Gottardo in Corte in Milan; it is considered the oldest representation of this subject.

Beyond its value as a presumable iconic prototype, the tablet is one of Cerano’s most ideologically impressive images, in his profound understanding of the Tridentine dictate. The image of the saint, elevated to celestial and now otherworldly and ultra-historical glory, on the one hand, is a tribute to the rigor and penance of Boromeo, on the other it reveals the originality of the painter in detaching himself from the more current baroque rhetoric of Catholic triumphalism. Of exceptionally high quality and great executive refinement, the painting can be dated to 1610.