Luca Giordano (Napoli 1634 - 1705), The Incredulity of Saint Thomas

The painting is accompanied by an expertise by Prof. Nicola Spinosa.


This intense Incredulity of Saint Thomas, attributed by Prof. Spinosa to Luca Giordano, was probably executed between 1650 and 1653–54, in the artist’s early phase, still strongly marked by the influence of Caravaggio and, above all, by the models of Jusepe de Ribera. The painting is distinguished by its heightened naturalism, its strong handling of light, and the vigorous physiognomic and expressive characterization of the figures, elements that find precise parallels in other early works by the Neapolitan master, including the Death of Seneca in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, the Saint Jerome in Prayer in the Pinacoteca Civica of Asolo, and the canvases Lot and His Daughters and The Expulsion of Hagar in the Gemäldegalerie, Dresden. The work also constitutes a rare instance of this subject in Giordano’s production, which he would return to only many years later in the version now in the Monastery of San Lorenzo at El Escorial, executed at the end of the 1680s. Private collection, Lazio.