Louis Finson (Bruges c. 1580-1617 Amsterdam)

Born in Bruges, where he trained in the studio of his father Jacques Fynson, Louis Finson traveled to Italy at some point in the first decade of the seventeenth century. He is documented in Naples in 1608, where he was residing with the painter Abraham Vinck. He probably previously spent time in Rome, where he may have been a pupil of Caravaggio, whose works he frequently copied. In 1612, he visited Spain and from 1613 to 1615 lived in France, residing successively in Marseille, Aix-en-Provence, Montpellier and Paris before moving to Amsterdam.
This composition of the Annunciation must have been a popular one for Finson, as at least three other autograph examples are known. The prime version appears to be the large-scale, upright example dated 1612 in the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples (see B. Nicolson, 1989, op. cit., I, p. 106, III, fig. 936), for which a slightly reduced posthumous copy is in the collection of the Museo Nazionale Abruzzese, L’Aquila. Our example, which likely dates to the same year, appears to be the smallest and earliest of at least three horizontal versions in which Finson has removed the figure of God the Father and the angels and altered the expression of the Virgin, giving her a more contemplative appearance. A second, undated example is in the collection of the Museo del Prado, Madrid, while a third version, signed and dated 1614, is at Saint-Trophime, Arles. If the upper register of the vertical composition in Naples strongly recalls Caravaggio’s Seven Acts of Mercy, painted for the church of Pio Monte della Misericordia in Naples around 1607 and still in situ, the present painting confirms Finson’s inherently Flemish sensibilities, for the artist pays particular attention to the crisp folds of drapery enveloping the figures and the precise rendering of the various still life elements.
The inscription on the cartellino at lower center indicates that the painting was executed while Finson was resident in Naples, perhaps for the family whose coat-of-arms is woven into the carpet draped over the table. Didier Bodart has plausibly suggested that this may be one of the two paintings for which Finson received 300 livres from the Parliament of Aix-en-Provence to decorate their chapel room (loc. cit.). Bodart’s suggestion is given added weight by the fact that in 1847 the painting was yet in Provence in the Pavillon de Lenfant at Les Pinchinats in Bouches-du-Rhône (see de Chennevières-Pointel, loc. cit.).