FRENCH CARAVAGGESQUE PAINTER OF THE 18TH CENTURY Saint Bartholomew Oil on canvas, 60.3X45.7 cm Provenance: Milan, private collection Of remarkable quality and expressive force, the painting can be attributed to a French master active between the fourth and fifth decade of the 17th century. Observing the typology of the face and the drafting, one can sense an echo, albeit elusive, of Georges de La Tour, but the whole seems less influenced by a Flemish or Italian Caravaggesque observance, showing a proximity to the production of the Le Nain brothers, here softened by a more nuanced conduction. We can also see that the painter places all his attention on the rendering of the face, concentrating on evoking the intensity of the gaze, its emotional introspection, achieving an atmospheric vibration that restores tangible vitality to the figure, corroborated by the masterfully resolved hand in the foreground. We can therefore infer that the painter is an exponent of a Caravaggism that is no longer such, expressing a sincere and up-to-date naturalistic temperament, that, for example, pronounced by the mysterious Jean François, brother of Guy (Le Puy-en-Velay, c. 1578 - 1650), but with much higher qualitative results. This aspect obliges us then to look at the Le Nain sphere, especially if we consider the face of the St. Jerome signed by Louis Le Nain and dated 1643 (cf. Milovanovic 2019, pp. 210-211, no. 44) or the St. Joseph in the Adoration of the Shepherds in the National Gallery in Dublin assigned to Mathieu Le Nain (cf. Milovanovic 2019, pp. 222-223, no. 51). Reference bibliography: N. Milovanovic, Les Frères Le Nain. Bons génies de la sympathie humaine, Dijon 2019, ad vocem