museums and institutions:
Attributed works:
I. The storyteller, by Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo. c. 1765. 33.7 by 57.2 cm. (S-M 554.1999). A replica, slightly smaller in size, cooler in palette, and more delicate in touch, of one of the five genre scenes formerly in the Maxwell Blake collection, Kansas City, now in a Roman private collection. Identically executed replicas of three others are at Copenhagen, Paris (Musée des Arts Decoratifs), and Venice (Forti Collection). The prototypes, apparently dated 1765, were once assumed to be the work of Giambattista at the beginning of his Madrid period but are, in fact, among Giandomenico's most delightful inventions of this kind. The replicas probably date from some years later.
Attributed works:
II. Christ in the house of Simon the Pharisee, by Bernardo Butinone. c. 1485. Tempera on panel, 25 by 20 cm. (S-M 71.1999). One of thirteen surviving scenes from the Life of Christ of identical format and similar size probably from a small altar-piece, perhaps similar in format to Butinone's triptych in the Raccolte Civiche, Milan. They are very close in style to the predella of Butinone's most celebrated collaboration with Bernardo Zenale, with whom he frequently worked, the altar-piece begun in 1485 for S. Martino in their native town of Treviglio.
Attributed works:
III. Esther and Ahasuerus, by Luca Cambiaso. c. 1570. 98.4 by 89.5 cm. (S-M 123.1999). In the late 1560s, Cambiaso's style showed its first signs of a deliberate simplification of form and restraint of handling. This picture is a capital example of the artist's extreme and often curious distillation of the classical style. It is one of six paintings by the artist in the Collection, which also contains forty-four drawings by Cambiaso, his workshop and various imitators of his extravagant style.
Attributed works:
IV. Portrait of a man, by Sebastiano del Piombo. c. 1516. Panel, 43.2 by 31.8 cm. (S-M 524.1999). This fine and little-known example of Sebastiano's portraiture was evidently painted after his exposure to Roman classicism. It has hitherto been assumed that the portrait's format was original but it has clearly been cut from a larger work and a strip has been added along the right edge to balance the composition.
Attributed works:
IX. David with the head of Goliath, by Claude Vignon. c. 1616-22. 136.4 by 98.4 cm. (S-M 593.1999). This is one of the finest examples of the artist's Roman period (1616-22), between his late Mannerist training and his adoption of French classicism. The concentrated composition, coherent raking light, simple saturated palette and individuated psychology are text-book Caravaggism. The Collection possesses a fine Vignon on copper from this time, as well as another major French Caravaggesque painting, Guy François's Consolation of St Cecilia.
Attributed works:
V. The entombment of Christ, by Parmigianino. c. 1529-30. Panel, 24.1 by 19 cm. (S-M 390.1999). Recent cleaning has confirmed that this small painting is autograph and also that it precedes Parmigianino's etching of the subject (which it has often been thought to copy). Not only do the two compositions differ in detail, but that of the painting departs significantly from its own loose underdrawing in a dark pigment. Even if not conceived as a study for the etching, the painting must have served as its immediate model, which further implies that the other etched version once thought a later copy (Bartsch 26, as by Reni), but now generally held to be Parmigianino's first version, is indeed a later work. The panel is thus the most important surviving link between Parmigianino's activities as a painter and printmaker.
Attributed works:
VI. Sisyphus, by Guercino. 1636. Pen and brown ink and brown wash, 29.7 by 21 cm. (S-M 314.1999). This extraordinary example of the artist's mature draughtsmanship - one of ten sheets by him in the collection - is the most developed, and probably the most beautiful, of a number of studies relating to a now lost painting commissioned by Girolamo Ranuzzi in 1636. It is in excellent condition, the wash boldly applied in varying gradations without regard for literal denotation.
Attributed works:
VII. Study for the 'Allegory of Virtue', by Correggio. c. 1530-34. Pen and brown ink and brown wash over traces of black chalk, 16.1 by 15.6 cm. (S-M 190.1999). This is a preparatory study for one of Correggio's last commissions, the pair of tempera allegories (in the Louvre) that completed the decoration of Isabella d'Este's studiolo at Mantua. On the left is Minerva, holding her helmet and a spear, while on the right is a combined personification of the Cardinal Virtues. The drawing is a rare example of Correggio's preliminary use of pen and ink rather than red chalk and, as Popham noted, is an exceptional instance of his use of wash.
Attributed works:
VIII. Mercury leading Geography, by Giovanni Battista Gaulli, called Baciccio. c. 1690. Pen and brown ink with brown and gray wash over traces of black chalk, 29.5 by 26 cm. (S-M 13.1999). This beautifully conceived drawing is a finished study for the engraved title page of the second volume of Giacomo Cantelli da Vignola's Mercurio geografico ovvero guida geografica in tutte le parti del mondo (Rome, 1692-97). Mercury is shown leading a female figure with the attributes of both Geometry and Mathematics. Recent research has revealed that Baciccio was responsible for numerous designs for book illustration. Besides two other drawings, the Collection includes three paintings by him: an unpublished oil sketch for a pendentive in S. Agnese, Rome; a small Rinaldo and Armida; and a portrait of a woman.
Attributed works:
X. Conversion of St Paul, by Daniele Crespi. c. 1620. Panel, 118.7 by 84.5 cm. (S-M 197.1999). In this important early picture, in immaculate condition, the general composition and violent compression of space relate to a bas-relief designed by Cerano for the façade of S. Paolo Converso, Milan, while the intricate rhythms and palette depend on the mature works of Giulio Cesare Procaccini. However, in the precise modelling of the forms and the dramatic presentation Crespi's own distinctive idiom is already evident. The Collection also includes Crespi's slightly later Ecce Homo, as well as excellent paintings by Cerano, Morazzone and Carlo Francesco Nuvolone.
Attributed works:
XI. The Annunciation, by Paolo Veronese. c. 1585. 104.5 by 82.9 cm. (S-M 586.1999). This small altar-piece is typical of the best works from Veronese's last years where the heroic splendour of his mature paintings yields to something less intellectualised and more intuitive and authentically felt. The Collection includes two other paintings by Veronese, both fragments of large compositions.
Attributed works:
XII. St Cecilia, by Simon Vouet. c. 1627. 134 by 97.8 cm. (S-M 601.1999). By the 1620s Vouet had begun to reconcile his earlier Caravaggist manner with the more subtly controlled and elegantly stylised languages of Domenichino and Reni. This St Cecilia is a masterpiece of this later development, probably painted at the end of his long stay in Rome (1613-27). It is the centre-piece of a group of seven paintings by the artist, his circle, and immediate followers.
Attributed works:
XIII. St Agatha, by Lorenzo Lippi. 1640s. 73.7 by 63.5 cm. (S-M 369.1999). In this outstanding painting of Lippi's maturity the vivid naturalism and alluring psychology of St Agatha is powerfully contrasted with the evidence of her cruel martyrdom. It exemplifies Lippi's precision of design and clarity of rhetoric reminiscent of the works of Santi di Tito.
Attributed works:
XIV. Holy Family with the young St John the Baptist, by Bartolomeo Guidobono. c. 1690. 71.1 by 55.9 cm. (S-M 326.1999). Guidobono's meticulous, sweet style is the antithesis of the dominant grand manner in Genoese painting, and reflects his early training with his father and lifelong collaboration with his brother, both painters on porcelain. As a result of trips to Emilia, Guidobono's already delicate style was influenced by Correggio's soft contours and luminous colours, and his mature works, such as this one, are beautifully vague in atmosphere and feeling.
Attributed works:
XIX. Flora, by Sebastiano Ricci. c. 1712-16. 125.7 by 152.4 cm. (S-M 494.1999). This large masterpiece from Ricci's London period illustrates a passage from Ovid's Fasti: the nymph Chloris is seduced by Zephirus, and renamed Flora. Here, Ricci renders the moment before her seduction: as Flora flirts with a putto and suggestively grasps the stem of an iris, Zephirus approaches from behind, indicating his quarry and cautioning silence to another putto. At the right, a vessel spills over with blossoms that celebrate their namesake and portend the result of the union. In addition to a fine landscape that is principally the work of Marco Ricci, the Collection possesses at least three other paintings by Sebastiano.
Attributed works:
XV. Study of the head of a youth, by Peter Paul Rubens. 1601-02. Oil on paper, mounted on panel, 34.9 by 22.9 cm. (S-M 507.1999). A homage to Caravaggio in type and conception, this study captures the physicality and ambiguous psychology of a live model. It appears to have been used for the figure of a page in Rubens's Mocking of Christ, one of three pictures he executed for the St Helen Chapel in S. Croce in Gerusalemme, Rome - his first Italian commission. The same head reappears in at least four subsequent paintings. This is thus one of the earliest, most striking, and evidently most successful of the artist's innumerable preparatory studies in oil.
Attributed works:
XVI. Landscape with Tobias and the angel, by Guercino. c. 1616-17. Oil on copper, 33.7 by 44.5 cm. (S-M 323.1999). In this work of his early maturity, Guercino translated the popular tale of faith, revelation, and reward into a scene of exquisite beauty with a sensory appeal that is far in excess of the demands of the narrative. With the Suida-Manning Penitent Magdalen of c. 1623-24 and its own Personification of Astrology of the early 50s, the Museum now possesses paintings spanning the artist's entire development.
Attributed works:
XVII. Pastoral landscape, by Claude Lorrain. c. 1628-30. 63.5 by 88.9 cm. (S-M 185.1999). One of Claude's earliest known works, this painting - in excellent condition - clearly reveals the influence of his first certain teacher, Agostino Tassi, and of the Northern landscape painters active in Rome. At the same time, the artist's own incomparable rendering of light is already evident, fusing the pictorial structure. The classical landscape tradition is well represented in the Collection, with works ranging from Gobbo dei Carracci, a probable Poussin, a superb Marco Ricci to three fine Zuccarrellis.
Attributed works:
XVIII. Musical party in a garden, by Giovanni Battista Passeri. 1640s. 72.4 by 97.8 cm. (S-M 438.1999). Although its exact significance remains elusive, this painting expresses an ideal of the most sophisticated Roman circle: past and present, idyll and genre, and even self-reference (the proprietorial man at the right is probably a self-portrait) are combined to self-consciously poetical effect. The painting is similar in subject and identical in style to the only signed painting, at Dublin, by this leading biographer of later seventeenth-century Roman painters.
Attributed works:
XX. Virgin and Child, by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. c. 1726-28. 48.3 by 40.6 cm. (S-M 551.1999). Recent cleaning has revealed a fine and particularly moving work of Tiepolo's early maturity, hitherto virtually unknown since it hung behind a door in the Mannings' bedroom, obscured by discoloured varnish. The artist's first manner under the influence of Piazzetta is still evident, but now yielding to a broader organisation and more co-ordinated rhythms.
Attributed works:
XXI. Study for St John the Baptist, by Giovanni Battista Piazzetta. c. 1720. Black and white chalks on faded blue paper, 47.2 by 40.5 cm. (S-M 452.1999). One of the finest examples of Piazzetta's early draughtsmanship, with an extraordinary force of chiaroscuro and characterisation, this is also extremely rare in that it can be connected to an extant painting (in the Pinacoteca del Seminario, Rovigo). The Collection includes three other drawings by Piazzetta and two small pictures: an oil sketch for his Cortona altar-piece (1739-44), and Young girl with a basket of apples (1740s).
Attributed works:
XXII. The adoration of the shepherds, by Domenico Piola. c. 1650. 70.5 by 90.8 cm. (S-M 465.1999). In his biography of Piola, Ratti describes a juvenile work that so successfully imitated Castiglione's style that 'vi si equivoca nell'autore... che non lascia ben ravvisarlo'. These words could also apply to this very early painting which emulates Castiglione's large altar-piece of 1645 for S. Luca, Genoa. The only examples of Piola's work in America, the Collection's four paintings span his entire development.
Attributed works:
XXIII. Lady with a string of pearls, by Donato Creti. 1710s. 73.7 by 61 cm. (S-M 208.1999). This is an exquisite example of Creti's self-conscious and rarefied classicism based on the example of Reni. It repeats and elaborates a figure in the foreground of his Achilles dipped in the Styx (Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna) which occurs again in a variant composition. The Collection includes an Education of Achilles as well as eight drawings by Creti.
