Marcantonio Bassetti

ENGRAVED:
By Johann Michael Frey (1750-1818), when it was apparently with J.J. Hertel in Augsburg (as by Caravaggio).

As a young man Bassetti trained under Felice Brusasorzi and in circa 1605 left Verona for Venice, where he befriended Palma Giovane; an artist with whom he remained in contact even after he left the lagoon. In 1616 he travelled to Rome where he worked alongside Carlo Saraceni and two fellow veronese artists, Alessandro Turchi and Pasquale Ottino, in the Quirinal's Sala Regia (1616-17). Like Turchi and Ottino, Bassetti specialised in painting on slate, a preferred support for veronese artists, but he also executed a number of large-scale works. Whilst in Rome he absorbed the caravaggesque influences of his roman contemporaries but, like his veronese companions, he maintained the muted colours more typical of painters from his native city. This painting, which is conceived in a highly contrived "caravaggesque" light, probably dates from the end of Bassetti's Roman sojourn (1616-19) or from the years immediately after his return to Verona in 1620-21; a dating also confirmed by Dottssa. Ottani Cavina (private communication). Dating from around the same time are Bassetti's altarpiece with five bishop saints painted for the Cappella dei Santi Innocenti in Santo Stefano, sent from Rome to Verona in 1619, and his Martyrdom of St. Vito with Sts. Wolfgang and George in the Staatsgalerie, Würzburg, of circa 1620 (both reproduced in R. Pallucchini, La pittura veneziana del Seicento, Milan 1981, vol. II, pp. 580-1, figs. 339-40).

The main subject of this painting is a study of the male nude, and the arrows seem to have been painted in almost as an afterthought, thus turning the figure into a Saint Sebastian. The same can be said for Bassetti's painting of Irene curing St. Sebastian which was with Marco Voena in 1989 (another version of which is in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Marseilles): indeed the figure of St. Sebastian in that painting derives from a study of a male nude in a private collection (80 by 90 cm.; unpublished but known to Ottani Cavina). Another similarly caravaggesque painting by Bassetti is his Danaë, whose main subject is the human body and the inclusion of the shower of coins appears almost incidental (private collection; reproduced in La pittura nel Veneto. Il Seicento, Milan 2000, vol. I, p. 359, fig. 444).

A note on the provenance
The painting was engraved by Johann Michael Frey (1750-1818) when it was with a print dealer in Augsburg referred to by him as "J.J. Hertel". This may be identifiable with Johann Jacob Hertel (d.1852), third son of Johann Georg I (1700-c.1760) who was himself an engraver of note in Augsburg. Hertel died in Nuremberg and, according to Lugt, left his entire collection of prints and drawings to the city.  It is however very unlikely that the Princely family in whose collection it is believed to have been since the mid-17th Century bought it at that time.  Since it is thought that they were forced to sell property in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars, it is plausible that they offered it for sale with Hertel.

We are grateful to Mr. Terence Mullaly and Dottssa. Ottani Cavina for independently endorsing the attribution to Bassetti on the basis of photographs.