Lot 219
  • 219

Alessandro Rosi

Estimate
120,000 - 180,000 USD
bidding is closed

Description

  • Alessandro Rosi
  • The judgement of Paris
  • oil on canvas

Provenance

With Wildenstein Gallery, New York.

Literature

E. Acanfora, Alessandro Rosi, Florence 1994, p. 62, cat. no. 8, reproduced;
F. Baldassari, La collezione Piero ed Elena Bigongiari. Il Seicento fiorentino tra "favola" e dramma, Milan 2004, pp. 48-50, fig. 39;
F. Baldassari, in Dipinti fiorentini del Seicento e del Settecento, exhibition catalogue, Padua 2007, pp. 58-61, cat. no. 13;
F. Baldassari, La Pittura del Seicento a Firenze. Indice degli artisti e delle loro opere, Turin 2009, p. 628 and 630, fig. 376, reproduced, plate. LXXVIII;
F. Baldassari (ed.), Seicento Fiorentino: Sacred and Profane Allegories, exhibition catalogue, New York 2012, cat. no. 14, pp. 112-119, reproduced in color. 

Condition

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This work is well restored and can be hung in its current condition. The canvas has a glue lining. The paint layer is stable and well varnished. The frame is similarly restored. A few delicate retouches are visible under ultraviolet light, none of which are concentrated in any one area. The faces of all four figures are particularly well preserved, as are the hands and most of the other details. There is a very thin vertical line of restoration in the right background, which may correspond to a slight break in the canvas. This painting is in very good condition.
"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."

Catalogue Note

The artistic personality of Alessandro Rosi remained confused until Alessandra Guicciardini's critical catalogue on the work of this distinctive Florentine painter. Most of his works had previously, and erroneously, been given to Sigismondo Coccopani, a figure to whom now only a few documented works can be attributed. Rosi appears to have been well aware of the trends in Florentine painting of his day, and worked as an apprentice in the studio of Cesare and Vincezo Dandini. Examples of his works can be found in the Palazzo Rinuccini and the Uffizi. His fresco series of Allegories in the closed loggia of Palazzo Corsini are among Rosi's most accomplished works, and as these are fully documented works, they have greatly aided in establishing an accepted group of works for this once elusive artist. 

The present Judgement of Paris appears to be an early work by Rosi. Compared with his more complicated and multi figured mature pictures, compositions from his early career can be generally categorized as simpler, and with only a few essential figures. The motif of the the two embracing graces here is repeated by Rosi in a later Ceres (private collection, see Literature, Acanfora 1994, color plate VIII). Furthermore, the pose of design of Paris is repeated in one of the figures in the aforementioned Palazzo Corsini fresco. Rosi executed another version of the present composition, of slightly larger dimensions, in the Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart. That version includes a flute in the foreground next to the large sea shell, an obvious allusion to Paris' preference towards the bucolic activities of a shepherd, and not a soldier of Troy. 

According to the myth, which varies slightly between Greek and Roman sources, Zeus held a banquet to celebrate the marriage of Achilles' parents. Having not been invited, Eris, the Goddess of Discord, threw a golden apple into the fray, which was inscribed 'to the fairest one'. Athena (Goddess of War), Hera (Zeus's wife and Queen of the Gods) and Aphrodite (Goddess of Love) each claimed that the apple was certainly meant for them, and the mortal Paris was appointed by Zeus to judge who should receive the prize. Having each bathed in the spring of Ida, the goddesses appeared to Paris, who was tending his flock on the mountain, and attempted to bribe him with various prizes. Hera offered to make him King, Athena to transform him into the ultimate warrior, and Aphrodite offered the love of the world's most beautiful woman. In the end, he awarded the apple to Aphrodite and received in return the love of Helen, wife of King Menelaus of Sparta, thereby providing the catalyst for the Trojan War.