Un nucleo di opere d'arte lombarda del Musée des Beaux-Arts di Bordeaux, dalla collezione del marchese di Lacaze

The essay traces the evolution of the parochial church of Ss. Giacomo e Filippo in Carate Urio, a small town on Lake Como, suggesting some interesting attributions for both the stuccoes and the paintings decorating the building. The sculpted decoration of the presbytery and the chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary is particularly relevant; it is attributed to Agostino Silva, active between the late 1680s and the early 1690s. The stuccoes in the chapel of St. Anthony of Padua have a more debatable attribution, for which an inquiry into the vast overview of the workshops along the lake is necessary. As for the paintings, the mysteries of the Rosary in the eponymous chapel are dated (1698) and signed by Como painter Francesco Torchio; the panels decorating the vault in the chapel and in the main body are the work of Pietro Bianchi, known as il Bustino. The authors of the paintings in the presbytery are still unknown: the altarpiece is a remarkable work from the latter half of the 17th Century, probably by an artist from Central Italy, while the two scenes at both sides are definitely the work of a local painter active in the 18th Century. Particularly noteworthy is the Holy Family attributed to the circle of Francesco Torriani, a copy of the better-known version by Giovanni Baglione in Gravedona (Como).