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 114
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