Bernardo Cavallino

In the collection of Don Ignacio Despujol y Rigalt, II conde de Caspe;
By descent to his widow, Doña Isabel Trénor y Palavicino, Condesa de Caspe, Spain;
Acquired from the above by the great-grandfather of the present owner, as part of an estate situated in the outskirts of Madrid, in 1923;
Thence by family descent.

N. Spinosa, 'Nuevas aportaciones al catalogo de Bernardo Cavallino, in In Sapientia Libertas, Escritos en Homenaje al Profesor Alfonso E. Perez Sanchez, Madrid/Seville 2007, pp. 368-69, reproduced figures 3 & 4.

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. These two paintings have recently been lined and have new apparently Spanish stretchers. They have not however been cleaned at the same time, although there are a few superficial recent retouchings. Clearly they have been neglected for a long time, with some beneficial and some disadvantageous consequences. The extremely darkened varnishes make any definitive analysis of their condition hard, but there is no doubt that Tobias curing the blindness of Tobit has suffered accidental damage, which is not the case with Lot and his Daughters. In both cases the undamaged paint appears to be largely finely preserved. Tobias Curing the Blindness of Tobit. This painting has quite wide rough old fillings around all the edges and down a vertical line in the centre from the top edge down to the level of Tobias's legs. Other heavy old fillings can be seen in the back of the angel, in the background behind the angel and in his cheek. Also across the top left corner, between the two heads at the top left of the central line, in the middle on the right of the central filling and at lower centre left. The central feet and the tail of the dog are repainted over filling along the base, as is the shoulder and red drapery at the upper left edge. The surface is somewhat pitted with old lost flakes. There is recent cosmetic retouching over patches in the lower centre and occasionally elsewhere, however this appears likely to be over blanching and general opacity rather than other losses, and the actual underlying condition is entirely blurred not only by the dark old varnishes but by the accreted rough old repairs, which may cover original in various places. Lot and his Daughters. As with the pendant there is a web of dark craquelure and heavy old layers of varnish. There seems to be old retouching in the drapery over the beautiful back of the girl on the left and on the hill behind at upper left, as well as around the edges. The upper corners probably have old knocks and scattered old retouching but there does not seem to be any serious accidental damage or loss. There are also no small flakes evident across the surface, and the dramatic brushwork appears beautifully intact. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

This pair of Old Testament scenes by Bernardo Cavallino can be dated to the artist's early maturity, during the early 1640s, at a time when his earlier dependence on the severe tenebrist style of Ribera had given way to his own more refined and lyrical manner.

Both paintings have only recently come to light, having remained together in the collection of the same family since the early part of the 20th century. Their emergence attests to the strong level of demand that existed for the artist's work by the early 1640s, for they are both known through other autograph versions, as well as numerous old copies. 

Tobias curing the Blindness of Tobit exists in a variant today in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Kassel, in which the artist has condensed the narrative to fit the squarer format of the canvas (70 by 77.2 cm.), by grouping the figures more tightly and omitting the figure in red on the left of the present scene. The figure of Tobit's wife Anna - here seen to the left of the angel - has been moved to directly behind the figure of her blind husband, and an additional figure is positioned to her right, further crowding the scene.¹ In the Seattle Museum of Art a direct replica of the present composition exists, which forms part of a group of stylistically related replicas of known Cavallino compositions, which points either to the artist's employment of a workshop, or perhaps more likely the existence of a close imitator. ²

Cavallino's painting of Lot and his Daughters is also known in another version, a picture formerly in the Astarita Collection, Italy, which was included in the exhibition of Neapolitan painting in Rome in 1938 and was subsequently with the dealer Gilberto Algranti in Milan during the early 1990s.

The book of Tobit appears to have been a rich narrative source for Cavallino's work. De Dominici records paintings of three other episodes from the Old Testament figure's life, including The Departure of Tobias and The Marriage of Tobias, which were together in the Francesco Valletta and Marchese dei Grazia collections. There are no other known listings of the present pairing.

We are grateful to Professor Nicola Spinosa for endorsing the attribution to Bernardo Cavallino, following first hand inspection, and for suggesting a dating to the early 1640s.

 

1. See the exhibition catalogue, Bernardo Cavallino of Naples, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, 14 November - 30 December 1984, pp. 96-97, reproduced p. 96.
2. See op. cit., reproduced p. 99, figure 24f.