Catalogue Roberti Fine Art, TEFAF Maastricht 2026 (1) compressed - Flipbook - Page 62
This precious slate was formerly attributed to Suor Lucrina Fetti, a Clarissan nun and the sister of
the better-known Domenico Fetti. She was active principally in the convent of Sant9Orsola in
Mantua, producing works that broadly follow her brother9s style. The attribution to her, first
proposed by Eduard A. Safarik, however, was based less on close comparison with securely
documented works by Lucrina—such as the now well-known Saint Barbara in the Strinati collection,
signed and dated 1619—than on the still somewhat indistinct critical profile of this painter.¹
This Annunciation is in fact an early work by Pietro Novelli, the leading Sicilian painter of the
seventeenth century. It predates his so-called 8Riberesque9 phase, which began in the early 1630s,
probably after direct contact with Jusepe de Ribera himself. It was only then that the defining
characteristics of Novelli9s mature style, so readily recognisable today, were fully consolidated. This
initial phase of Novelli9s artistic development remains relatively unfamiliar to the broader public,
despite significant scholarly efforts since the 1990s to clarify the historical and cultural framework
of his work.² The present painting displays notable affinities in composition and typology with the
signed altarpiece in the church of San Giacomo in Livo, in the province of Como, depicting Saint
Rosalia and the Virgin interceding with the Trinity to end the plague in Palermo (fig. 1).³ That work,
commissioned by members of the Lombard community residing in Palermo, is precisely
documented in a contract dated 12 March 1629, which stipulated completion by July of that same
year.
Fig. 1. Pietro Novelli, Saint Rosalia and the Virgin interceding
with the Trinity to end the plague in Palermo. oil on canvas.
Chiesa di San Giacomo, Livo.
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