The Rest on the Flight into Egypt

BORN IN BOLOGNA TO A HUMBLE FAMILY, Leonello Spada trained as a painter in his native city and was later associated with the Accademia degli Incamminati, through which he came into contact with the art of the Carracci, whose work would strongly influence the development of his style. Spada was already a successful painter by the first years of the seventeenth century and was praised for his naturalism: 'uno de' più bravi coloritori che mai si vedesse: parve che macinasse carne umana, e se ne servisse per colore, tanto son vive e sanguigne le sue figure' (C.C. Malvasia, Felsina Pittrice: Vite de' Pittori Bolognesi, Bologna, reprinted 1841, II, p. 79). Towards the end of the decade he travelled to Malta, most probably via Rome and Naples, to fresco the Magistral Palace of the Order of Malta at the request of the Grand Master Fra' Alof de Wignacourt, a key figure in the biography of Caravaggio, whose full-length portrait of the Grand Master is in the Louvre, Paris. Whether or not he met Caravaggio in person, Spada would have encountered his oeuvre, which clearly left a strong impression. His mature style is characterised by a continued assimilation of the Carracci's language and the reuse of caravaggesque elements, but without the complexity or drama of the Lombard master. This aspect is perfectly and positively described, once again by Malvasia: 'temprando l'ombre rigorose del Caravaggio, più grazioso anche e corretto di lui dimostrossi' (loc. cit.) but because of this he received the rather unflattering nickname scimmia del Caravaggio (Caravaggio's ape). Having returned to Bologna by 1611, Spada was busy fulfilling commissions for important patrons such as Maffeo Barberini (the future pope Urban VIII), Alessandro d'Este and Ranuccio Farnese. He moved to Parma in 1617 in order to decorate the newly founded Farnese Theatre, and remained there until the end of his life. This picture is a fine example of the many devotional works that Spada produced in these late years. It has strong affinities with the Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine of Alexandria in the Church of San Sepolcro in Parma, of 1621, the head of the second angel on the right of which seems to be repeated, in a smaller scale, in this canvas (see E. Monducci, E. Negro, M. Pirondini and N. Roio, Leonello Spada, Reggio Emilia, 2002, pp. 188-9, no. 156).

We are grateful to Professor Daniele Benati for confirming the attribution to Leonello Spada on the basis of photographs.