XIV - Genoese Drawings - Marty de Cambiaire

his mount inscribed The Nativity and Castiglione; his sale at
Christie’s, London, 5 July 1820, lot 112 (described as ‘One,
the Virgin and Child in the manger, in colours’ Castiglione);
P. & D. Colnaghi, Old Master Drawings, June 1968, no. 14,
frontispiece; Christie’s, London, 24 January 2001, lot 42;
private collection.
Of subject and graphic style comparable to The Holy Family
with Angels in the Louvre (Inv. 9402) and to The Virgin and
Child in the British Museum (Inv. 1922 0629 2), this drawing
with an old-standing prestigious provenance dates to the
1650s and can be connected with an etching of the same
subject and dating to the same period in the Palazzo Rosso,
Genoa (Inv. 3663).
The large dimensions of the print (439 x 314 mm), its
incompletion, as well as its technical imperfections have been
pointed out and explained by the artist’s experimentation 1 .
Another etching showing only the lower part of the
composition, in reverse, is in the Kupferstichkabinett,
Staatlich Museen, Berlin.
A drawing in the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm (Inv.
1605/1863, Percy, no. 48) may be the design for this
etching. Its composition is very similar to the print, except
for two additional angels flying above the main angel. It
is considerably more finished and more thoroughly drawn
than the present sheet which presents significant differences
compared to the print, which means that it may have been
an initial thought the artist did not pursue or a variation.
The technique of red oil paint on paper is characteristic of
Castiglione who developed it throughout his career, abeit
the browner shade which he sometimes used in his late
works. The darker accents that punctuate the composition
are also highly characteristic of his art.
The faces are drawn in rapid lines, the anatomies quickly
sketched. The importance of elegant, crumpled draperies
is apparent in the brushstrokes on the Virgin’s mantle.
Movement and energy create a strong expressive power
and despite the turbulence of the churning lines, we can
well perceive the mother’s tenderness for the child, the joy
of angels and the overall festive atmosphere. It is interesting
to mention that this drawing used to be in Thomas Hudson’s
collection. According to the catalogue of his sale, this
portrait painter, collector of drawings and prints, and an
enthusiastic amateur of Rembrandt’s works also possessed
a scene of a herd of animals.
1 Gianvittorio Dillon, Ezia Gavazza, Federica Lamera,
Giovanna Rotoni Terminiello, Timothy Strandring, Laura
Tagliaferro, Il Genio di Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione,
Genoa, Sagep Editrice, 1990, p. 231, no. 91.
15. Giovanni Battista Gaulli, called Baciccio
Genoa 1639 – Rome 1709
Putti Playing in a Landscape
Pen and brown ink, grey wash over traces of black chalk
Bears the inscription anibal Carache lower left
216 x 330 mm (8 ½ x 13 in.)
Bibliography
Yvonne Tan Bunzl, Old Master Drawings, London,
exhibition catalogue 29 November-15 December 1978,
no. 30, illustrated.
According to Carlo Giuseppe Ratti, Giovanni Battista
Gaulli, called Baciccio, trained in the workshop of
Luciano Borzone (1590-1645), however, it is more likely
that he studied with one of Borzone’s sons. He was
very early responsive to the works of the elder Genoese
artists, including Valerio Castello and Giovanni Benedetto
Castiglione, and to the works of the foreign artists who
had passed through Genoa, primarily Rubens and Van
Dyck. Orphaned in 1657 after a plague epidemic, he left
for Rome. There, one of his compatriots and a dealer of
paintings, Pellegrino Peri, introduced him to Gian Lorenzo
Bernini who took him under his protection. In 1662,
Baciccio entered the Academy of Saint Luke whose ranks
he quickly climbed in the years to follow.
A great portraitist, he skilfully combined the elements
inherited from Rubens and Van Dyck with the influence of
Bernini to produce over sixty likenesses of all prominent
Roman figures. Baciccio is also the author of some of the
most important religious decorations in Rome, including
those commissioned by Clement X for Santa Maria sopra
Minerva and for Santa Maria al Collegio Romano, in which
he painted the Glory of Saint Martha, a bozzetto for which
is in the Museo dell’Accademia Ligustica di Belle Arti.
The Glory of Saint Martha attracted the attention of Jesuits
who invited him for the decoration of the dome and the
vault in their church of Santissimo Nome di Gesù, called
Il Gesù, in which Gaulli, helped by Bernini, conceived
the decoration that is considered a paragon of baroque
painting. Gaulli also made altarpieces for many Roman
churches. In 1693, the Genoese Giovanni Battista Spinola
offered him the commission for the ceiling decoration in
the hall of Maggior Consiglio in the Palazzo Reale (now
Palazzo Ducale) in Genoa. In spite of an existing bozzetto
of the theme of the Triumph of Liguria which Ratti says to
have seen in the house of Baciccio’s son 1 , the project never
saw the light of day, the prices the artist charged being
considered too elevated. It was Marcantonio Franceschini
from Bologna who finally obtained this commission. In
1707, Gaulli made the decoration of the vault in the church
of Santi Apostoli, his final tour de force, which he finished
in less than fifty days. Shortly before the painter’s death,
Clement X commissioned to him the mosaic decoration of
the small cupola in the vestibule of the Baptistery of Saint
Peter in the Vatican, but Francesco Trevisani had to finish
this project.
A prolific painter, Baciccio spent most of his career in Rome
becoming as important in painting as Bernini in architecture.
Ratti repeatedly laments the rarity of his works in his
hometown while his reputation there was significant.
Baciccio was also a prolific draughtsman. Although Ratti
100
Genoese Drawings