Salvator Rosa

LOT 589 PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF DR. EMANUEL AND MS. HILDA FEIRING SALVATOR ROSA ARENELLA, NAPLES 1615 - 1673 ROME TWO STANDING FIGURES pen and brown ink and wash on paper, made up to the right; drawn on the back of a fragment of a letter in the artist's hand 4 3/4 by 2 3/4 in.; 12 by 7.2 cm.

Lot Description Salvator Rosa (Naples 1615-1673 Rome) A cavalry battle scene in a mountainous landscape oil on canvas 15 x 24¼ in. (38 x 61.5 cm.) Lot Condition Report I confirm that I have read this Important Notice and agree to its terms. View Condition Report View Lot Notes ›

Salvator Rosa (Arenella, Naples 1615-1673 Rome) Divina Sapienza oil on canvas 39¼ x 28 1/8 in. (99.7 x 71.4 cm.) with the armorial bookplate of Prince Serge Mikhailovich Galitzine the Elder (Ivask I:116), the inscription 'Salvator Rosa [K Sergei Galitzine]' and an unidentified armorial red wax seal (all on the reverse of the old lining canvas) (Possibly) commissioned by Carlo Dati (1619-1676), philologist and natural scientist, pupil of Galileo and Torricelli, secretary of the Accademia della Crusca, Rome. Prince Dmitri Mikhailovich Galitzine (1721-1793), Ambassador of the Russian Empire, Vienna, by whom bequeathed with the entirety of his collection to his brother, Prince Alexandre Mikhailovich Galitzine (1723-1807), Vice-Chancellor of the Imperial Court, at his residence in Moscow, by whom bequeathed with the entirety of the collection to the Galitzine Hospital, Moscow, Prince Serge Mikhailovich Galitzine the Elder (1774-1859), in the picture gallery of the Galitzine Hospital, Moscow; (probably) sale, Galitzine Hospital, Moscow, 1817-1818. (Possibly) C. Dati, letter to Vincenzo Viviani, MS, Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, Ms. Gal. 168, c. 250r (reprinted in Mirto, op. cit. infra, no. 62), 'quando vegga disposizione nel S.r Salvadore a fare il favore della Testa o mezza figura che rappresenti la sapienza, allora mander le misure della...'. (Possibly) C. Dati, letter to Salvator Rosa, 1663, MS, Isolabella, Archivio Borromeo, Archivio Dati, mescolanze 12, cc. 29v.-32r. (reprinted in Dati, 1826, p. 174 and Volpi, 2008, op. cit. infra, appendix 4), 'che al suo valore non sia riserbato questo miracolo di fare vedere agli uomini le divine sembianze della Sapienza? Io per me lo spero, e pieno di confidenza ardisco d'esortarlo a intraprendere quest'opera veramente degna di lei'. 'Catalogue des tableaux envoyes de Vienne qui se trouvent actuellement dans la Gallerie du Grand Chambellan Prince Alexander Michailoviez Galitzin', 1793, MS, Saint Petersburg, Hermitage Archives, Fund 1, opis' VI-A, delo 144, no. 229, 'Femme tenant un livre et une pomme, sur toile - Salvator Rosa - 3 x 2,3 pieds'. Catalogue des tableaux, statues, vases et autre objets, appartenant l'Hôpital de Galitzin, Moscou, de l'imprimerie N.S. Vsevolojsky, Moscow, 1817, p. 6, 'Salvator Rosa - Une figure Allégorique représentant la Verité'. (Possibly) C. Dati, Scelta di Prose, Venice, 1826, p. 174. (Possibly) H. Langdon, 'Salvator Rosa: His Ideas and His Development as an Artist', unpublished doctoral thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art, London, 1974, pp. 22-3. (Possibly) C. Volpi, 'Salvator Rosa, nuovi documenti e riflessioni sul primo periodo romano e su quello fiorentino', in Storia dell'Arte, CXX, 2008, pp. 90-1 and 95-6, appendix 4. (Possibly) A. Mirto, 'Carlo Roberto Dati e Vincenzo Viviani: Carteggio (1659-1672)', Studi Secenteschi, LI, 2010, pp. 302, 306 and 343, nos. 6, 10 and 61, notes 55 and 80. C. Volpi, catalogue raisonné of the paintings of Salvator Rosa (forthcoming). We are grateful to Caterina Volpi for confirming the attribution on the basis of photographs, hailing the work as an 'extraordinary discovery' (private communication, 2012) and to Helen Langdon for pointing out that a picture of this subject was commissioned from Rosa by Carlo Dati (see Langdon, loc. cit.), as documented in Dati's correspondence with and concerning Rosa (most recently published by Volpi in 2008, loc. cit., with additional letters in Mirto, loc. cit.). Never before discussed or illustrated in any publication, this work constitutes an exciting addition to Rosa's oeuvre, taking its place amongst the philosophical and allegorical subjects which the enigmatic artist delighted in inventing, and for which he was celebrated in Italian intellectual circles in his own lifetime. Four letters written by the Roman scholar Carlo Roberto Dati discuss Dati's commissioning a Sapienza from Rosa, and may document the origins of this work. Florentine by birth, Dati was one of the most distinguished men of letters and science in Rome at a time when the city was the cradle of intense intellectual ferment, witnessing the expansion of the University of Rome, the foundation of numerous academies and learned societies, advances in science and medicine, all accompanied by the exponentially increasing output of publishing houses of all types. Instructed in the sciences by no less than Galileo Galilei and Evangelista Torricelli, Dati was above all a humanist, projecting etymological and lexical dictionaries, and serving as librarian to Giulio de' Medici. Having also trained as a goldbeater and goldsmith, Dati was a passionate antiquary and art collector, an admirer of Poussin's great Roman patron, Cassiano dal Pozzo. Two letters from Dati to the Florentine mathematician and scientist Vincenzo Viani (a co-pupil of Galileo and Torricelli), both apparently dating from spring 1663 (Mirto, op. cit., nos. 6 and 10), refer to an unspecified commission from 'S.r Rosa' (the nature of which must already have been known to both correspondents); another surviving, but undated, letter (Mirto, op. cit., no. 61) is more specific: 'quando vegga disposizione nel S.r Salvadore a fare il favore della Testa o mezza figura che rappresenti la sapienza, allora manderà le misure della...'. The letter trails off, omitting, tantalisingly, any specific indication of dimensions which would allow for comparison with those of the present work - apart from the phrase 'mezza figura' (i.e. half-length figure, as here). The most interesting letter, however, is that respectfully discussed by Langdon in 1974 and Volpi in 2008 (loc. cit.), dated 1663 (but with no month specified), which is addressed directly to the artist. This fascinating document reveals much about Dati's perception of Rosa's erudition and standing - longer and much more discursive than many of his letters to Viani, it engages Rosa in an erudite philosophical discussion, with references to Plato, Cicero, Seneca and Saint Paul, and exhorts the artist to capture in paint the hallowed essence of Divine Wisdom, attributing to his pictorial abilities the same metaphysical powers which enabled those great philosophers to perceive Her so clearly in their texts. Dati suggests that, like Apelles, Rosa may fall in love with his model in the course of discovering her image - 'E se per avventura come fece Appelle in ritrar Campaspe d'ordine d'Alessandro, venisse chi gi inamorato ne sia se n'accenderà maggiormente'. Helen Langdon has noted that the choice of subject may well have been inspired by the intense activity surrounding the University of Rome in the middle of the 1650s, which gained the nickname 'la Sapienza', which it bears to this day, in the 1650s, coinciding with the construction of Borromini's celebrated church of Sant'Ivo alla Sapienza, in the eponymous Palazzo della Sapienza, dedicated to the patron saint of students. Such a challenge may well have given rise to the striking image of Divine Wisdom, emerging, swathed in gold, from the murky background, presented here. The attributes borne by the figure do not conform to the iconographic prescriptions of Cesare Ripa or earlier prototypes, but it is to be expected that the fiercely independent Rosa, poet and philosopher as well as painter, should have taken pride in inventing his own personification. His attributes of an untied book, the enlightening Sun resting in Wisdom's breast, and the pointedly raised apple - perhaps the fruit of the Biblical Tree of Knowledge? - are characteristically unique to this depiction. Rosa has become famous as a stylistic chameleon, virtuosically disguising himself, imitating other artists or trying new styles at whim, and this work is no exception. His hand is immediately recognisable in the telltale drapery, with its cut, facetted folds; other passages, such as the face, incorporate favoured artistic choices which recur elsewhere in the oeuvre. The large eyes and pursed lips recall those of other feminine allegories, such as Music (c. 1641, Rome, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Palazzo Barberini), sometimes said to be modeled on Rosa's wife, Lucrezia; and the Fortuna of 1659, closer in date to Dati's commission, with a similar turn of the head and treatment of the bared arms (Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum). One of the remarkable things about the present work, assuming that it can be dated, as Dati's correspondence would suggest, to circa 1663-1664, is its strong debt to Florentine Seicento painting, with the close focus on a single figure set against a dark background reminiscent of the works of artists such as Carlo Dolci, Volterrano and Furini. Rosa would have been fully exposed to Florentine tendencies during his period in the Tuscan capital (1640-1649), but it is a tribute to the depth of his pictorial repertory and the degree of his stylistic adaptability that he could invoke that influence almost 15 years later - perhaps in consideration of Dati's Florentine patriotism. The neat division of Wisdom's face into two halves, one illuminated, the other veiled with shadow, serves an allegorical purpose; but it is also a conceit which Rosa found artistically pleasing, both in his Florentine period (Arion, c. 1645-1648, private collection), and later in his career (Archytas of Tarentum, known in two versions, 1668, Madrid, Museo del Prado; and York, Castle Howard). In the eighteenth century the picture belonged to one of the most important of Imperial-era Russian collections, that formed in Vienna by Prince Alexandre Mikhailovich Galitzine (fig. 2) and bequeathed to his brother, Prince Dmitri Mikhailovich Galitzine (fig. 3), for the support of the Galitzine Hospital, Moscow, a pioneering institution of its kind in Russia (fig. 4). The verso of the canvas bears the ex libris of Prince Serge Mikhailovich the Elder, as illustrated in U.G. Ivask, [The Description of Russian Bookplates], Moscow, 1908, I, p. 112, fig. 116. The collection formed by Prince Alexandre Mikhailovich was sold by his ultimate heir, Prince Serge Mikhailovich the Elder, at auction in 1817-1818. The subsequent provenance of the picture is not known; it does not seem to have been acquired, as some of the auctioned works were, by Prince Serge Mikhailovich the Younger (1843-1915). The as yet unidentified red wax seal may match, however, that on a Deposition by Pieter van Mol in the State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow (inv. no. 378), which had the same Galitzine provenance before passing to F.S. Mosolov (d. 1852) and his descendants, whose collection is currently the subject of an exhibition at the Museum (see K. Yegorova, [Pushkin Museum catalogue of the Northern Schools], Moscow, 1998, p. 218, no. 156]. The Galitzine collection was one of the first great private collections in Russia to be opened to the public, and included such masterpieces as Perugino's Crucifixion triptych (now Washington, National Gallery of Art), Cima da Conegliano's Annunciation (Saint Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum) and Boucher's Hercules and Omphale (Moscow, State Pushkin Museum). We are grateful to Vittoria Markova and Lyubov Yurievna Savinskaya of the State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, for their help in establishing the Galitzine provenance and consulting the Galitzine inventories of 1793 and 1817.

748. Salvator Rosa (1615-1673) Albert, the disciple of St William of Maleval, etching with drypoint, c.1661, [B. 2; Wallace, 100], trimmed, 305 x 190mm. (12 x 7 1/2 in); with a group of 5 etchings from the 'Figurine' series, c.1653-1658, each c.145 x 95mm (5 3/4 x 3 3/4 in), all unframed (6).

Salvator Rosa (Arenella, Naples 1615-1673 Rome) A philosopher (recto); The same figure, in reverse (verso) pen and brown ink, grey wash (recto); pen and brown ink (verso) 5½ x 2¾ in. (14 x 7 cm.) The Marquis of Lansdowne, Meikleour; and by descent. THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN (LOTS 26 TO 30) M. Mahoney, The Drawings of Salvator Rosa, New York and London, 1977, no. 69.9. On the basis of its stylistic qualities, Mahoney (op. cit.) suggests a date for the present drawing of circa 1662. The figure, which has been traced through the sheet and worked up separately on recto and verso, may therefore be an early preparatory study for Rosa's etching The Academy of Plato (1662; Bartsch 3). Here the figure on the extreme right of the composition wears very similar headgear and splays his fingers in the same expressive manner as the figure in this drawing, although the position of his legs is altered.