St. Matthew

Etching, circa 1650, without printing details.

After Guido Reni.

A fine impression, printed on contemporary laid paper with "circle with clover and letter", trimmed to the borderline or with thin margins, very good condition.

Our knowledge of Girolamo Scarsello’s life is very fragmentary. He was a pupil of Francesco Gessi and worked as a painter and etcher in Bologna, Milan and Turin. Scarsello’s printed work comprises just six etchings, which according to Bartsch are “exé­cu­tées d’une pointe légère et assez spirituelle” (Le Peintre-Graveur, XIX, p. 249). In the past, some of Scarsello’s prints were taken for works by Giovanni Andrea Sirani, to whom he was stylistically very close and who also provided the model for the present etching.

Scarsello was a by no means untalented little master who developed his skills by imitating and adapting the art of Sirani and Guido Reni. 

A very rare work, undescribed.