Lot 217: The Annunciation

Ludovico Mazzanti (Rome 1686-1775 Orvieto)
The Annunciation
oil on canvas, unframed
79½ x 118 in. (201.9 x 299.7 cm.)

We are grateful to Professor Giancarlo Sestieri for proposing the attribution on the basis of photographs.

Ludovico Mazzanti, together with Giovanni Odazzi (1663-1731), was one of the favourite pupils of Giovanni Battista Gaulli, il Baciccio (1639-1709). He entered Baciccio's workshop while still a teenager, in 1700, and spent the first years of his activity in Rome and in the neighbouring region, where he was touched by the influence of Carlo Maratti. One of his most important commissions in Rome was for four canvases for the Bernini church of Sant'Andrea al Quirinale, which Professor Sestieri has compared to the present one. Mazzanti then fulfilled other commissions both in Rome and for the Cathedral in Orvieto. In 1733 he moved to Naples, where he stayed until 1739, and where his style was influenced by Francesco Solimena and Paolo de Matteis. After the Neapolitan years, he was active again in Orvieto, in Umbria and Rome.