2007 Catalogue - Colnaghi

Provenance: Provenance: Marchesi de Mari, Genoa,
from whom traditionally believed to have been
acquired by the great-grandmother of the present
owner some time before 1884; thence by family
descent to the previous owner.
These two, exquisitely painted devotional pictures,
unpublished but recently accepteded by Baldassari as
autograph works, were painted in 1678 according to
the date on the reverse of one of the stretchers. 1 The
Madonna, and presumably its pendant the Christ
Carrying the Cross, was conceived on 13th May 1678
and the old handwriting on the reverse of the stretcher
may well be Dolci’s own. The form of the date with
interlocking initials - A[nno] S[alutatis] - may be
compared to Dolci’s date and inscription on Patience,
datable to the previous year. 2 The inscriptions on the
reverse of the paintings may also be interpreted as
prayers of redemption with invocations to Christ and
the Madonna to intercede on the artist or patron’s
behalf. This, together with their intimate scale, would
suggest that the paintings were intended for private
devotion. The pairing of Christ with the Madonna is
by no means unique in Dolci’s œuvre: a very
comparable small-scale ‘diptych’ showing Christ and
the Madonna, also inscribed on the reverse and dating
from three years later, 1681, is in the Statens Museum
for Kunst, Copenhagen, though there the figure of
Christ is shown with his eyes to Heaven rather than
carrying the Cross and confronting the viewer. 3
Both of the Colnaghi compositions exist in other
versions within Dolci’s œuvre but no other variant was
executed on such a small scale. The Christ carrying the
cross is an almost exact replica of a larger work, dated
by Baldassari to the second half of the 1660s in a
private collection in Rome. 4 The Colnaghi Christ
repeats its earlier prototype almost exactly, with the
same choice of colours and an identical composition
(the latter being equally suited to a rectangular and an
14
Carlo Dolci
(Florence 1616 – 1687 Florence)
Christ Carrying the Cross and Madonna
Both inscribed on the reverse of the original stretcher in an old hand, possibly the artist's own, the first: IHS/ Amore/ et/ nostra/ redenzio/ Desiderium
and the second AS/ 1678 à 13/ di maggio princi/ piata/ Satisma:/ Maria Ora/ pro nobis pechato/ ribus
Oil on canvas, a pair
12 3 /4 x 10 5 /8 in. (32.3 x 27 cm.)
46
octagonal-shaped canvas). The reddish highlights in
Christ’s hair have been replicated exactly and Dolci has
used gold paint not only for Christ’s halo in our work,
but also for his hair, lashes and irises. However there
are minor variations which give an added pathos to the
Colnaghi version: Christ’s eyes have been brought
slightly closer together and Dolci has delicately painted
a teary edge along the lower lids, absent from the larger
variant. In both versions Christ’s lips are parted, as if he
is about speak, and the directness of his gaze underlines
the pathos of the scene. Both versions are remarkable
for the meticulousness with which the artist has
painted the details of Christs’s hair and beard, the
Crown of Thorns, and the grain of the wood of the
Cross which heighten the emotional impact and
spiritual intensity of the image.