Giacinto Gimignani

Sale, London, Sotheby's, 10 December 1979, lot 244 (subject not identified), purchased by Ralph Holland

Newcastle, 1982, no. 57

Reproduced as fig. 1 in sale catalogue, Sotheby's, London, Old Master Paintings, 6 December 2006, under lot 43

This is a preparatory study, with small differences, for Gimignani's painting of the subject sold London, 6 December 2006, lot 43.  Two related preparatory drawings are known, one for the figure of Olindo¹ and the other for the kneeling figure in the foreground.²  Ralph Holland's notes point out that Nicholas Turner was the first to make the connection between the drawing and the painting.

An interesting connection can be made between this composition and a similar, but horizontal, painting of the subject by François Perrier, now in the Musée St. Denis, Reims.  That work was part of a highly important series of sixteen paintings of scenes from Gerusalemme Liberata commissioned by François Annibal d'Estrées, French ambassador to the Papal Court from 1636 to 1640, for his hôtel in Paris.  Fifteen were painted by French artists working in Rome, but one, The Meeting of Rinaldo and Armida in the Enchanted Forest, is by Gimignani, signed and dated 1640.³  The painting to which the present drawing is related has been considered on stylistic grounds a work of 1650 or later, but it may reflect the earlier collaboration of Gimignani and his French colleagues in Rome.

The subject is taken from Book II of Torquato Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata which was published in 1581 and became hugely popular, providing inspiration for many painters.  Gimignani illustrates the moment when the female warrior, Clorinda, arrives to liberate Sophronia, a Christian girl, and her lover Olindo who have been condemned to burn at the stake by the Saracen king.

1.  Vienna, Albertina, inv. no. 2107;, V. Birke and J. Kertész, Die Italienischen Zeichnungen der Albertina..., Vienna 1994, vol. 2, p. 1107, reproduced
2.  Paris, Musée du Louvre, Cabinet des Dessins, inv. 17731; C. Legrand and D. d'Ormesson-Peugeot, La Rome baroque de Maratti à Piranèse, exhib. cat., Paris, Musée du Louvre, 1990-91, p. 29, no. 11
3.  For the Perrier, see A. L. Clark, Jr., François Perrier, Paris 2001, reproduced p. 71; for the history of d'Estrées' commission, see A. Brejon de Lavergnée and N. Volle, Seicento, le siècle de Caravage dans les collections français, exhib. cat., Paris, Grand Palais, et al., 1988-89, pp. 233-235