Giovanni Battista Salvi Il Sassoferrato

Giovanni Battista Salvi, called Sassoferrato (Sassoferrato 1609-1685 Rome) The Madonna and Child oil on canvas 26½ x 20½ in. (67.3 x 52.1 cm.) with Acquavella Gallery, New York. Private collection, Caracas. PROPERTY OF A SOUTH AMERICAN COLLECTOR The present picture relates to a composition in the church of San Giovanni Laterano, Rome, which includes the figure of the young St. John the Baptist at right. We are grateful to Professor François Macé de Lépinay for having confirmed Sassoferrato's authorship of this picture on the basis of photographs. He has also pointed out that this is the only known example of this particular composition, which makes it a rare unicum within Sassoferrato's oeuvre (private communication, 9 April 2013).

Giovanni Battista Salvi, il Sassoferrato (Sassoferrato 1609-1685 Rome) The Madonna at Prayer oil on canvas 19¼ x 15¼ in. (48.9 x 38.5 cm.) This small devotional work showing the Madonna at prayer is a particularly fine version of one of Sassoferrato's most celebrated compositions. One such version can be found in the Museé des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux (see F. Macé De Lépinay, P. Zampetti, S. Cuppini Sassi, Giovanni Battista Salvi "Il Sassoferrato", exhibition catalogue, Sassoferrato, 1990, p. 52, no. 6). The simplicity of the composition and sobriety of the palette are qualities that established these depictions of the Madonna as among the most effective and recognisable religious images of the 17th Century.

Lot Description Giovanni Battista Salvi, il Sassoferrato (Sassoferrato 1609-1685 Rome) The Madonna and Child with angels oil on canvas, oval 24 x 30 1/8 in. (60.9 x 76.5 cm.) Provenance Henry Arundell, 8th Lord Arundell of Wardour (1740-1808), Wardour Castle, Wiltshire, for whom purchased in Rome by Father John Thorpe, 1770, and by descent. Purchased from Wardour Castle, 1947, by the following, Anonymous sale [The Property of an Educational Foundation]; Sotheby's, London, 13 December 1978, lot 118 (£4,500). Private collection, Austria, until the 1980s, whence acquired by the present owner. Literature G.F. Waagen, Galleries and Cabinets of Art in Great Britain, London, 1857, p. 392. View Lot Notes › This composition is among the best-known images by Sassoferrato and a testament to his artistic antecedents. Sassoferrato is noted for his adaptations of works by Renaissance artists and Raphael in particular, though some of his most celebrated copies of earlier masters were based on prints after Bolognese seicento artists (see F. Russell, 'Sassoferrato and his Sources. A Study of Seicento Allegiance', The Burlington Magazine, CXIX, October 1977, pp. 684-700). In this instance, the artist adapts Guido Reni's etching, Madonna with the Sleeping Child, so successfully that he ultimately produced numerous versions of the painting, including the work in the Pinacoteca Malaspina, Pavia. The present painting can be counted among the most refined works by the artist - the sophisticated drawing of the central group and the delicately detailed facial features of the putti are of the highest quality. Henry, 8th Lord Arundell of Wardour, representative of one of the most prominent of English Roman Catholic families, was educated at St. Omer and at Turin, visiting Rome in 1760. He employed the architect James Paine to build a spectacular new mansion at Wardour (1770-6), which is most remarkable for the Chapel in the north wing, many of the furnishings of which were ordered in Rome through the agency of the Jesuit, Father John Thorpe (1726-1792). The long correspondence between Thorpe and his patron clarified the role of the former in assembling a collection suitable for and worthy of the new house. A letter of 30 January 1770 shows that Thorpe was to ask the German artist, Anton von Maron, to cover the Child in two copies by Sassoferrato after Reni. That Thorpe knew of the dependence of Sassoferrato's composition on Reni's design is not surprising, but the skill with which the Virgin's veil is used to wrap the Child in this and the other versions of the composition suggests that there was in fact no call for Maron to satisfy Arundell's 'overdevelloped [sic] sense of propriety' (J. Ingamells, A Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy, 1701-1800, compiled from the Brinsley Ford Archive, New Haven and London, 1997, p. 940): Maron did, however, add the token drapery to the companion picture Madonna and Child (Sotheby's, 13 December 1978, lot 119). The two paintings were separated after the 1978 sale and the pendant was exhibited in the 1990 Sassoferrato exhibition (see S. Troiani, ed., Giovan Battista Salvi, 'Il Sassoferrato', exhibition catalogue, Milan, 1990, no. 65) and is now in a private collection, Rome. We are grateful to M. François Macé de Lépinay for confirming the attribution, on the basis of photographs (private communication, 15 October 2012).

Lot Description Giovanni Battista Salvi, il Sassoferrato (Sassoferrato 1609-1685 Rome) The Madonna and Child embracing in an interior, a landscape with Saint Joseph beyond oil on canvas 53 7/8 x 38 7/8 in. (136.7 x 99.8 cm.) Provenance Anonymous sale; Christie's, New York, 7 June 2002, lot 168 ($295,500), where acquired by the present owner. Pre-Lot Text THE PROPERTY OF A LADY View Lot Notes › ALTHOUGH SASSOFERRATO IS BEST KNOWN for his adaptations of works by Raphael, some of his most celebrated copies of earlier masters were based on prints after Bolognese seicento artists (for a full discussion see F. Russell, 'Sassoferrato and his Sources. A Study of Seicento Allegiance', The Burlington Magazine, CXIX, October 1977, pp. 684-700). This imposing Madonna and Child embracing is based on an etching by Guido Reni (fig. 1), who, along with Annibale Carracci and Francesco Albani, would provide the models for several of Sassoferrato's most successful compositions. However, of the seicento artists who influenced the painter's development, it was the classicism of Reni that drew the strongest response and it is even possible that Sassoferrato studied with the Bolognese master when he returned to Rome in 1628 (G. Vitaletti, Il Sassoferrato. Giambattista Salvi 1609-1685, Sassoferrato, 1990, pp. 37 ff). Sassoferrato made a number of faithful copies after Reni's famous Madonna adoring the Sleeping Christ Child in the Galeria Doria Pamphili, Rome. However, unlike these copies (which are of comparable dimensions to the original), the present work is notable for the manner in which the artist successfully enlarges the scale of the composition substantially from the engraving, whilst preserving the essential intimacy and emotion of the original. As Russell observes, 'with these copies after Reni, Sassoferrato makes a serious and personal contribution to the tradition represented by his models. For in their new format the two compositions achieve new roles and become among the most effective religious images of their century' (op. cit., p. 699). A version of this picture, of smaller dimensions (97.2 x 64 cm.), is in the National Gallery, London, and others are in Palazzo Bianco, Genoa, and Studio del Mosaico, Vatican, Rome. Like the National Gallery version, the present picture could be considered a late work.

Lot Description Giovanni Battista Salvi, called Sassoferrato (Sassoferrato 1609-1685 Rome) The Madonna in Prayer oil on canvas 18½ x 15¼ in. (47 x 38.7 cm.) Saleroom Notice We are grateful to Jan van Helmont for suggesting that the arms on the reverse of the stretcher are those of Prickel. View Lot Notes › This painting relates to Sassoferrato's Madonna in the Museo Comunale in Cesena, Foggia (inv.55), which was executed in around 1686 and ultimately deliveres from Raphael's famous Madonna Contestabile in the Herimitage, St. Petersburg.