Paintings Drawings Sculptures 2016 - Jean Luc Baroni

Giovanni Domenico Ferretti
Florence 1692 - 1768
27
The Harlequins remonstrating with the Doctor
Black chalk and brown wash.
172 x 215 mm (6 ¾ x 8 ½ in.)
Provenance: Bears two brown ink paraphes on the
old backing which also bears the inscription in black
chalk: Feretti and in another hand: Mr Zamy (?) qui
a… furini; Marianne C. Gourary, New York.
Ferretti spent much of his career in and around Florence
but he was versatile and eclectic in the mediums in
which he worked as well as in his style and choice of
commissions. His Florentine masters were Tommaso
Redi and Sebastiano Galeotti although he also spent
five years in Bologna in the studio of Felice Torelli,
returning again to Florence by the age of 23 where
he received minor commissions to paint frescoes both
in churches and palazzi and already in 1717 was
made a member of the Accademia del Disegno. His
first important commission, however, was to fresco
the cupola of the cathedral of Imola, the native city
of his father. With a letter of introduction from the
archbishop of Imola, Cardinal Ulisse Gozzadini
addressed to Cosimo III de’ Medici, Ferretti returned
to Florence but for the meantime he continued to work
on projects elsewhere, in Pistoia and Impruneta. His
contacts with the Medici became established with
the commission from Grand Duke Gian Gastone, the
next Grand Duke of Tuscany, to design tapestries for
the Medici workshop, for which payments began in
1728. In 1731, he was welcomed amongst the twelve
Maestri di Pittura at the Florentine Accademia, a signal
of his, by then, high standing as a painter; he became
Console of the same institution the following year,
a post which he filled until shortly before his death.
Soon after this, he began work on the major project
of his career in Florence, the frescoes of the choir and
apse of the Chiesa della Badia di Firenze (signed and
dated 1734) which are now considered as the highest
expression of Florentine Rococo. From this time, his
services were in constant demand. The 1740s were
spent on major projects both in and beyond Florence,
a great altarpiece for the cathedral depicting The Death
of St Joseph, a cycle of frescoes in the refectory of the
convent of SS. Annunziata, a series of frescoes in the
Palazzo Sansedoni in Florence and an ambitious fresco
project in the church of SS. Prospero and Filippo in
Pistoia. In the mid 1750s Ferretti executed the frescoes
in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence,
as well as an altarpiece for one of its chapels. By the
early 19 th Century, although a good part of his work
had already been destroyed, Ferretti was considered
by Luigi Lanzi (1732-1810) in his Storia Pittorica
d’Italia as the principal fresco painter of his generation
in Florence and by Francesca Baldassari, in her 2003
monograph, as the greatest protagonist of Tuscan
painting in the 18 th century 1 .
As Francesca Baldassari describes, one of the most
delightful aspects of Ferretti’s work is the group of
paintings and drawings dedicated to caricatures and
masques. Continuing in the tradition of Florentine
satire established by artists of the 17 th century, such
as Baccio del Bianco and Stefano della Bella, during
the 1740s, Ferretti painted two well-known series of
Harlequinades 2 ; one, a group of 16 paintings, is now in
the Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze, the other, comprising
14 pictures formerly belonging to the Max Reinhardt
collection at Schloss Leopoldskron, Salzburg, is now
in the Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota. These works
show the influence of Giuseppe Maria Crespi (1665-
1747) who was deeply admired by, and came under
the close protection of, Ferdinando de’ Medici.
In an article of 2008 about Ferretti’s Disguises of
Harlequin 3 , Fabio Sottili publishes the discovery of
new documents which show that Ferretti’s interest
in the Commedia dell’arte and the choice of the
subjects for these paintings were the result of specific
commissions from two members of one of the oldest
Sienese families, namely Orazio Sansedoni (1680-
1751) and his nephew Giovanni di Ottavio (1711-
1772), rather than, as previously thought, of the
Florentine theatrical environment - most notably, the
Accademia del Vangelista, at one time a religious
confraternity but by then, a society for enthusiasts of
the dramatic arts - which in 1742 was enlivened by the
presence in Florence of Carlo Goldoni. Sottili explains
that between 1742 and 1746, Ferretti was working
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