Otto Naumann Ltd Gallery Sale

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Lot 1
  • 1

Cesare Dandini Florence 1596 - 1657

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Description

  • Cesare Dandini
  • The Archangel Michael

  • inscribed in an old hand on the verso of the copper: Welasquez;
    inscribed in an old hand on the verso of the backing panel: Velasquez/ Pittore Spagnolo

  • oil on copper, oval, in an elaborate 17th-century Florentine gilt wood frame

Provenance

Private Collection, United States;
Anonymous sale, New York, Christie's, October 12, 1989, lot 37 (as Cesare Dandini); 
With Haboldt & Co., Paris, by 1990;
Acquired from the above in 1994.

Exhibited

Paris, Haboldt & Co., Tableaux Anciens des Ecoles du Nord, Françaises et Italiennes, 1990-91, no. 27.

Literature

Tableaux Anciens des Ecoles du Nord, Françaises et Italiennes, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Haboldt & Co., 1990-91, pp. 62-3, cat. no. 27, reproduced;
S. Bellesi, Cesare Dandini, Turin 1996, p. 83, under cat. no. 30, reproduced on p. 84, fig. 30a (as School of Cesare Dandini).
 

Catalogue Note

Baldinucci, the artist’s biographer, recorded that from early in Dandini’s career, he had painted "piccolissimi ritratti di femmine sopra rame, in quell modo, che noi dichiamo 'alla macchia'…. [tiny little paintings of ladies on copper, in a style that we call alla macchia].”   The artist continued to paint such small coppers, and this Archangel Michael would appear to date to the early 1630’s, preceding the other versions of the subject (see below).  Although Dr. Sandro Bellesi published the painting as a school work, known to him only from poor photographs at the time of the 1989 sale, he has since revised his opinion based on better photographs, and now supports a full attribution to Dandini himself.  Dr. Francesca Baldassari, based on first hand inspection, also supports the attribution to the artist.  She further notes that the composition served as an inspiration to Carlo Dolci, particularly for the Archangel Michael formerly in a private collection, France, and sold in these rooms in 19981.

The painting relates to the composition of an octagonal work by Cesare Dandini on a smaller and more intimate scale .2  The composition has slight variations;  for example the Archangel Michael’s bent left arm is brought in slightly and his right arm is drawn in closer to him as well. The copper support shows differences in technique and handling, and the reduced scale of this painting has led to the simplified treatment of certain details: the trim of his armour and hilt of his sword are less ornate and the artist has omitted the scales from his left hand. A further autograph variant, in which the Archangel Michael is shown bust-length and holding a spear but in which his expression and the pose of his head are identical, was formerly in the Bigongiari collection, Florence.3  Two red chalk head studies by Dandini, one in Stuttgart and the other in Florence, relate to the Archangel in both compositions and may have been kept in the artist’s studio in order for students to produce replicas.4 This type of painting was clearly very popular amongst Dandini’s patrons and clients for the same youth recurs in other compositions such as, for example, his Saint George in a private collection, England.5

 

1Sale: Sotheby's, New York, January 30, 1998, lot 43; it is interesting to note that that painting, also on copper, had been traditionally attributed to Cesare Dandini, and not to Dolci until the time of its sale.
2  Bellesi (under Literature) lists it as in a private collection but has more recently been acquired by Marco Voena, Milan.
3  Oil on canvas, 52 by 39 cm.; Bellesi, op. cit., pp. 81-82, cat. no. 29, reproduced in colour plate III.
4  Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie, inv. no. C73/2333, and Florence, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi, inv. no. 16295 S; both reproduced in ibid., p. 82, figs. 29a and 29b respectively.
5 Idem, pp. 135-36, cat. no. 78, reproduced.