XIV - Genoese Drawings - Marty de Cambiaire

of a famous silversmith who taught him the rudiments
of drawing. From the age of eleven, Domenico Fiasella
presumably expressed the desire to continue his training
in Rome, which was denied to him because of his youth.
But the child insisted and managed to obtain permission
to go to Genoa. He then began his apprenticeship under
Aurelio Lomi, a Pisan artist living in this city between 1597
and 1604, and later under Giovanni Battista Paggi, who had
recently returned from Florence. In 1607, Domenico Fiasella
finally set off for Rome where he must have spent about ten
years. There the young artist attended an “accademia del
nudo” 1 and worked assiduously copying the works by the
old masters, particularly Raphael, whose paintings were, as
Soprani states, “his idols and his first object of imitation”.
He quickly made acquaintances with many artists; both
Domenico Cresti, called Il Passignano, and Giuseppe
Cesari, also known as Cavaliere d’Arpino, presumably asked
Fiasella to work for them 2 . He was influenced by different
artistic trends then in vogue in Rome including Caravaggism.
Besides, he knew very well one of Caravaggio’s most
important patrons, Vincenzo Giustiniani. Soprani mentions
that this Italian marquis, collector and art lover, owned
numerous drawings and several of Fiasella’s works, including
those today identified as Christ Raising the Son of the Widow
of Nain and Christ Healing the Blind (Ringling Museum in
Sarasota, Florida). In Rome, Fiasella met Orazio Gentileschi,
half-brother of his former master Aurelio Lomi, and Giuseppe
Vermiglio. The influence of both artists is sometimes clearly
visible in his work, as Mary Newcome Schleier points out 3 .
Once this aesthetic synthesis was completed, Fiasella
returned to Genoa and as soon received many commissions.
He took on many pupils and opened a workshop which after
Paggi’s death became the most important in the city. Soprani
recounts the success he achieved among Genoese influential
families such as the Lomellini who made their fortune by
trading coral from the Island of Tabarka. In the palace of Doge
Giacomo Lomellini, Fiasella painted frescoes of the scenes
of Judith and Esther drawn from the Old Testament. He was
also in charge of the decoration of several chapels in the
family church of Annunziata del Vastato. Fiasella executed
a number of paintings for the churches in and around
Genoa, but his success also spread beyond this region: he
supplied several works for the Genoese communities settled
in Naples (for example for the church of San Giorgio dei
Genovesi) 4 and in Sicily. Charles I of Mantua commissioned
him five paintings and invited him to settle permanently in
Mantua. Finally, Fiasella was the favourite painter of Octavio
Centurion, a banker of Genoese origin living in Madrid, who
played an important role in the promotion of Fiasella’s works
at the Spanish court 5 .
The attribution of the present drawing to Fiasella, first
suggested by Hugo Chapman, rests primarily on the
comparison with several other sheets presenting a very
similar technique: a Study of a Man Pouring Water and a
Study of Saint George, both in the Palazzo Rosso, Genoa
(Inv. 2214 and 1302). All the works present the same mixture
of stiffness and liberty, and combine rapid, free, slightly
dry lines with parallel hatching. In many other sheets,
like in the present one, the artist combined red chalk with
black chalk, the habit that he may have developed during
his Roman years, probably in the workshop of Cavaliere
d’Arpino, where he seems to have worked. He sometimes
borrowed certain figures from the master, notably like from
the fresco cycle in the palazzo Lomellini 6 . In addition to
the comparison of the draughtsmanship, the embracing
putti motif is recurrent in Fiasella’s painted works. He
undoubtedly drew his inspiration in his daily life and
family but the subject is also reminiscent of the motif of
the holy infants Saint John the Baptist and Christ embracing
which was treated by many artists in the circle of Leonardo
da Vinci and by Raphael. Another Fiasella drawing
depicting The Holy Family in the Desert (Frederikssund, JF
Willumsens Museum) also has this motif, this time with the
infants standing, like in The Holy Family Meeting the Infant
Saint John the Baptist (‘The Madonna del Passeggio’) at the
National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh.
1 Vite de’pittori, scultori ed architetti genovesi di Raffaele
Soprani, patrizio Genovese, in questa seconda edizione
rivedute, accresciute ed arrichite di note da Carlo Giuseppe
Ratti, Genoa, 1768, volume 1, p. 226.
2 Raffaele Soprani and Giuseppe Ratti, p. 227.
3 Mary Newcome Schleier, “Drawings and paintings by
Domenico Fiasella”, Paragone Arte, no. 543-545, May-July
1995, p. 43.
4 Some paintings from San Giorgio dei Genovesi are now on
deposit in the church of Pietà dei Turchini.
5 Soprani and Ratti, p. 231; Carmen Sanz Ayàn, Un banquero
en el Siglo de Oro. Octavio Centurión, el financiero de los
Austrias, La Esfera de los Libros. Madrid, 2015.
6 Piero Donati, Carlo Bitossi, Clario di Fabio, Franco
Vazzoler, Domenico Fiasella, Genoa, Sagep editrice, 1990,
p. 14.
13. Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, called il Grechetto
Genoa 1609 – Mantua 1665
The Assumption of the Virgin
Inscribed at lower centre: G. Bened. Castiglione.
Pen, brown and red wash, heightened with watercolour,
gouache and oil
375 x 275 mm (14 ¾ x 10 7/8 in.)
Provenance
William Mayor (L. 2799); Sotheby’s, London, 11 July 2001,
lot 72; private collection.
Bibliography
William Mayor, Original Drawings and Sketches by the Old
Masters formed by the late Mr. William Mayor, London,
1875, cat. 215.
Carlo Giuseppe Ratti in his extended version of Raffaele
Soprani’s Vite added that while in his youth Castiglione
studied ‘human letters’, he was pushed by a ‘secret genious’
to fill the pages of his school notebooks with drawings of
animals, landscapes and houses. Mindful of their son’s
talent, his parents placed him as apprentice with Giovanni
Battista Paggi, after which he seems to have proceeded to the
workshop of Giovanni Andrea de Ferrari. A pupil eager for
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Genoese Drawings