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San Michele uccide i soldati di Sennacherib
The particular devotion to San Michele and the theme of the Archangel engaged in the fight with the devil, often recurring in southern painting and statuary, is of particular importance in upper Irpinia. The San Michele also belongs to this popular devotional vein, which the Franciscans of the convent of San Marco saw made by Angelo Michele Ricciardi.
Bene storico artistico: Disegno
Oil painting on canvas
Measures 160 x 250 cm
Angelo Michele Ricciardi (1672-1753)
1740 ca
SP 29 snc, Contrada San Marco – Sant’Angelo dei Lombardi (AV)
40.9296
15.1702
State property. In Free use concession pursuant to art. 11 co.3 D.L. no. 83/2014
Well restored recently
The canvas taken away after the 1980 earthquake was restored by Raffaella Spirito. After the skilful restoration work, the canvas was kept in the deposits of the Superintendence in Padula and Atripalda and in 2010 it returned to Sant'Angelo dei Lombardi.
Made when Ricciardi was already in old age, probably with the help of the workshop, the canvas is influenced both in the construction of the figures and in their monumentality by the influence of Francesco Solimena of whom Ricciardi had been a pupil. All too evident, in fact, is the similarity that borders on the copy of the figures in the foreground of the canvas San Michele chasing the rebel Angels from Paradise, which Ricciardi reproduced verbatim in the drawing of Sennacherib's soldiers.
