Jacob Wrestling with the Angel
To be considered among the most representative results of the artist’s production, the painting appears expertly constructed on a weave of oblique and parallel lines, with a game of dynamic contrast between the two figures of the angel and the old Jacob, twisted and entwined in an exhausting struggle. In fact, the pose appears artificial and forced, highlighted by the extreme elongation of the limbs and the still late mannerist muscular arms. The luminous register has a particular almost silvery quality and cold tones. The glimpse of a wooded landscape in the background appears completely in tune with the results of contemporary Flemish painting. The result is a masterpiece of complex figurative culture, in which late mannerist artifices and memories of Gaudenzio Ferrari’s painting are intertwined. The work can be dated around 1610. The work comes from the Archbishop’s Picture Gallery and is part of the collection of Cardinal Cesare Monti (1593-1650).
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Artwork details
- Artist:
- Pierfrancesco Mazzuchelli, detto il Morazzone (Morazzone (VA) 1573 - 1625/1626)
- Title:
- Jacob Wrestling with the Angel
- Date:
- c. 1610
- Medium and technique:
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions:
- 178,5 × 140 cm
- Inventory:
- MD 2002.105.001
- Location
-
Location: Monti Collection, first floor
The Monti Collection comprises a group of paintings and drawings from the Archbishop’s Picture Gallery that reflect the collecting choices of Cardinal Cesare Monti (1593–1650). These were fully in keeping with the culture of Saint Charles Borromeo and the spirit of the Counter-Reformation: art, and painting in particular, was intended to encourage virtue and moderation among the faithful. The cardinal’s choices focused especially on the sixteenth-century Venetian school, painters active in Lombardy in the early seventeenth century, the followers of Leonardo and the Emilian school.
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