Jan Miel su rame. Modelli romani per una produzione poco nota e una proposta per gli esordi

The article examines the oeuvre on copper by the Flemish painter Jan Miel (Beveren, 1599?-Turin, 1664), absent in the early sources and the subject of only limited scholarly interest. The discovery of two unpublished pictures of the Martyrdom of Saint Agatha and the Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence offers the occasion to reconsider this little-known aspect of his output, adopted throughout his career, no doubt in part to satisfy the demands of market and clients; it also reveals the variety of Roman models he was able to rework in an individual manner. Furthermore – precisely because it is extraneous to Roman figurative culture – it can be hypothesized that the oil on copper of the Assumption of the Virgin in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Dunkerque and the etching of the same subject were executed close to his arrival in Italy, demonstrating how Miel, at the same time as painting bambocciate, had undertaken narrative subjects since the 1630s.