RÉGNIER, Nicolas

R�gnier is documented in Rome from 1620. His paintings from his Roman period are markedly Caravaggesque in subject matter and style. The subject of music in painting had always been represented since the 16th century but it was in Rome, at the time of Caravaggio, that these scenes changed dramatically and that music per se became the central theme of pictures. Here the lute-player and singer each play and sing convincingly, and R�gnier’s accuracy in depicting both the instrument and the musical scores is impressive.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 10 minutes):

Claudio Monteverdi: Charming Angioletta, madrigal

This complex, multi-figured composition, uniting the themes of cardsharps and gypsies, is an anthology of motifs selected from the works of Manfredi and Valentin, but it has a more sumptuous and sensual air than either.

In a dark Roman inn, evoked by the ancient slab of stone, a sinister group of low-life types - a soldier, a muffled thief, courtesans, gypsies who seem to symbolize the perils of the world and the flesh - fleece two fashionable gulls. One falls prey to gypsies, while a young courtesan peers at the cards of his companion, signaling to a soldier accomplice, who has a card hidden in his palm.

This moral tale places a budding young woman amid a - literally - shady group located in a gambling hell. The virginity of the fresh-faced protagonist is signaled by the immaculate linen apron draped across her lap; the threats to it are all around, beginning with the bawd behind the fortune teller.

This painting is seems to be a tribute to the sitter of the portrait on the easel, who may be identified as Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani, the collector and patron of Caravaggio to whom R�gnier was ‘pittore di casa’. It has been suggested that R�gnier moved into the Palazzo Giustiniani around 1622.

The composition is based on Caravaggio’s St John in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City.

This painting was executed in Rome where the artist was a follower of Caravaggio.

This painting is one of the masterpieces of R�gnier’s Venetian period. In this image death verges on eroticism and the beauty of the women’s finery matches that of Sebastian’s nudity.

Sophonisba was the daughter of a Carthaginian general at the time of the second Punic war. She married a prince of neighbouring Numidia, allied to Rome, and succeeded in alienating him from his Roman masters. But he was captures by another Numidian leader Masinissa, who in turn fell in love with Sophonisba, and likewise married her. To prevent the loss of a second ally from the same cause the Roman general Scipio demanded that she be surrendered and sent captive to Rome. Her husband, not daring to defy Scipio, sent her a cup of poison which she drank.

Sophonisba was the daughter of a Carthaginian general at the time of the second Punic war. She married a prince of neighbouring Numidia, allied to Rome, and succeeded in alienating him from his Roman masters. But he was captured by another Numidian leader Masinissa, who in turn fell in love with Sophonisba, and likewise married her. To prevent the loss of a second ally from the same cause the Roman general Scipio demanded that she be surrendered and sent captive to Rome. Her husband, not daring to defy Scipio, sent her a cup of poison which she drank.

Sophonisba’s death is a popular theme among Baroque painters of Italy and northern Europe. The present painting, one of the three existing versions by Regnier, shows the influence of Guido Reni.

R�gnier is documented in Rome from 1620, when he is known to have been living with Dirk van Baburen and David de Haen in the district of Sant’Andrea della Valle, but he probably arrived in the city some years prior to that date. R�gnier’s paintings from his Roman period are markedly Caravaggesque in subject matter and style. As well as being influenced by Bartolomeo Manfredi (as Valentin de Boulogne had also been) Regnier’s works can also be closely associated with those of the Frenchman Simon Vouet, alongside whom he worked in Rome from 1622 (year in which Vouet returned to Rome from Genoa) to 1625 (year in which R�gnier left Rome for Venice).

This strongly Caravaggesque painting was painted towards the end of R�gnier’s Roman stay.

A vanitas is a symbolic work of art showing the transience of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death, often contrasting symbols of wealth and symbols of ephemerality and death. Vanitas pictures flourished in the seventeenth century when variants can be found in Protestant Holland and Catholic Flemish, Italian and Spanish territories. The present painting was registered in the nineteenth century as a work by Guido Reni, later it was thought to be by a follower of Caravaggio such as Artimisia Gentileschi or Johann Liss. Now it is catalogued as a painting by the Franco-Flemish Nicolas Regnier active in Rome and Venice.