PQC Fine Art is setting up its traditional Christmas exhibition dedicated to the Old Masters in Cremona in the halls of Palazzo Frodi, which will open its doors on 14 December. A journey to the heart of the Seventeenth century, an era of contrast and unease, of dazzling light and deep shadow.

A selection of works that begins with the revolution of Caravaggio and leads to the extreme consequences of the Baroque period, revealing its most secret depths.

The heart of this exhibition is a never-before-seen work by Giovanni Lanfranco that was recently rediscovered and presented at the Senate of the Republic; a “philosopher reading” who, with his intense, penetrating gaze, seems to be pondering the very meaning of existence. 

The image is symbolic of a period characterised by the clash between reason and mystery, science and faith, and light and shadow. Lanfranco, an heir to the great tradition of Emilia, combined Caravaggesque realism with an extraordinary feeling for colour and light and was a forerunner of the Luminist energy of Roman Baroque.

Lanfranco is accompanied by two Neapolitan artists: Francesco de Mura, with his fluid and vibrant strokes and his ability to elegantly render the grace and motion of his figures, and Francesco Solimena, a master in monumental composition who blended Classicism with the Baroque to create a majestic and theatrical form of expression. 

These figures expressed a form of art that, with its dynamism and theatricality, reflected the tensions of an era in turmoil. The Baroque is an explosion of gestures, an overflowing of excess, an endless proliferation that abandons the Renaissance and its pretence of harmony to celebrate seduction.