Theodosius Repulsed from the Church by Saint Ambrose
Date:
c. 1705
Artist:
Alessandro Magnasco (Italian, 1667–1749)
About this artwork
This painting depicts a historical event from the year 390 when Ambrose, the archbishop of Milan, refused to give communion to Emperor Theodosius I until he made public penance for the massacre of thousands of innocents after an insurrection. Theodosius, the last emperor to command the entire Roman Empire, eventually submitted to the archbishop’s moral authority.
The brushwork and arrangement of figures in this composition showcase Alessandro Magnasco’s fluid, energetic style. However, for the elaborate background edifice, an imaginary interpretation of the atrium of an early Christian church, he most likely employed an unidentified specialist in architectural painting.
Theodosius Repulsed from the Church by Saint Ambrose
Place
Italy (Artist's nationality:)
Date
Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.
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Robert Longhi, “Antologia di artisti: Un tema ambrosiano dal Magnasco,” Paragone 9 (May 1958), pp. 70–71, figs. 47, 48.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Annual Report 1960/61, Chicago, 1961, p. 11.
J[ohn] M[axon], “A New Painting by Magnasco,” The Art Institute of Chicago Quarterly 55 (1961), p. 50, ill. pp. 50–51.
Renato Roli, Alessandro Magnasco, I Maestri del colore, 59, Milan, 1964, n.p.
Anthony M. Clark, Review of Chicago, Painting in Italy in the Eighteenth Century: Rocco to Romanticism, in The Art Quarterly 33 (1970), p. 417.
Rodolfo Pallucchini, Review of Chicago, Painting in Italy in the Eighteenth Century: Rocco to Romanticism, in Arte veneta 24 (1970), pp. 291-3.
Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections (Cambridge, Mass., 1972), pp. 115, 368, 571.
A[ndor] Pigler, Barockthemen, eine Auswahl von Verzeichnissen zur Ikonographie des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, Budapest, 1974, vol. 1, p. 414.
Fausta Franchini Guelfi, “Un disegno inedito di Alessandro Magnasco nelle collezioni di Palazzo Rosso,” Bollettino dei Musei Civici Genovesi 7, no. 19/21 (1985), pp. 29-30, fig. 2.
Fausta Franchini Guelfi, “Alessandro Magnasco” in La pittura a Genova e in Liguria dal Seicento al primo Novecento, Genoa, 1987, p. 332, fig. 294.
Jean K. Cadogan, ed., Wadsworth Atheneum Paintings II: Italy and Spain Fourtheenth through Nineteenth Centuries (Hartford, 1991), p. 175, fig. 30.
Laura Muti and Daniele de Sarno Prignano, Alessandro Magnasco, Ravenna, 1994, pp. 57–60, 95, no. 44, figs. 54, 55 pls. 4 and 5.
Elizabeth Howard, The Art of Alessandro Magnasco: An Essay in the Recovery of Meaning, Florence, 1994, pp. 64, 135.
Fausta Franchini Guelfi, “Alessandro Magnasco” in Dictionary of Art, London, 1996, vol. 20, p. 95.
Marco Bona Castellotti, “Il ‘caso’ Magnasco: ragioni di una mostra,” in Alessandro Magnasco 1667–1749, exh. cat. Palazzo Reale, Milan, 1996, pp. 15 (ill.), 16.
Chicago, Art Institute, Painting in Italy in the Eighteenth Century: Rococo to Romanticism, September 19–November 1, 1970, cat. 9, ill. p. 35, traveled to Minneapolis, Institute of Art, November 24, 1970–January 10, 1971; Toledo, Museum of Art, February 7–March 21, 1971.
Frankfurt, Schirn Kunsthalle, Kunst in der Republik Genua, 1528–1815, August 29–November 9, 1992, cat. 108, p. 201, ill.
Julius H. Weitzner, New York, by 1958 [in his possession when published by Longhi 1958]; sold to the Art Institute, 1961.
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