Giovanni Battista Caracciolo, called Battistello

Doria collection, Genoa
Arenberg collection, Brussels
Private collection, Germany
Matthiesen Gallery, London
Robilant and Voena Gallery, London (acquired from the above)
Luigi Koelliker collection, Milan, until at least 2008 (acquired from the above)
Robilant and Voena Gallery, London (acquired from the above)
Acquired from the above by A. Alfred Taubman, January 2011

Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales and Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria, Caravaggio and his World: Darkness and Light, 2003-2004, no. 20
Milan, Palazzo Reale and Vienna, Liechtenstein Museum, Caravaggio e l'Europa: Il movimento caravaggesco internazionale da Caravaggio a Mattia Preti, October 15, 2005 – February 6, 2006 and March 5 – July 9, 2006, no. VI.11 8
Ariccia, Palazzo Chigi, La “Schola” del Caravaggio.  Dipinti della collezione Koelliker, October 13, 2006 – February 11, 2007, no. 88
Naples, Museo di Capodimonte, Ritorno al Barocco, Da Caravaggio a Vanvitelli, December 12 – April 11, 2010, no. 1.2
New York, Robilant & Voena at Sperone Westwater, Italian Paintings: From 17th to 18th Centuries, January 7 – February 19, 2011
Detroit Institute of Arts, 2011-2012 (on loan)

Ferdinando Bologna, in Fifty Paintings 1535-1825 (exhibition catalogue), London and New York, 1993, no. 12
Mattia Preti, tra Roma, Napoli e Malta (exhibition catalogue), Naples, 1999, p. 17
Stefano Causa, Battistello Caracciolo, l’opera completa, Naples, 2000, p. 201, no. A103, illustrated p. 305, no. 307
An Art Odyssey (exhibition catalogue), London, 2001, no. 27
John Spike, in Caravaggio and his World (exhibition catalogue), Sydney and Melbourne, 2003, no 20
Wolfgang Prohaska, in Caravaggio e l’Europa, Il movimento caravaggesco internazionale da Caravaggio a Mattia Preti (exhibition catalogue), Milan, 2005, no. VI.11 8
Gianni Papi, in La “Schola” del Caravaggio, Dipinti della collezione Koelliker (exhibition catalogue), Milan, 2006, pp. 286-289
Wolfgang Prohaska, in Ritorno al Barocco.  Da Caravaggio a Vanvitelli (exhibition catalogue), Naples, 2009, p. 63
Wolfgang Prohaska, Italian Paintings from the 17th to the 18th Centuries *(exhibition catalogue), New York, 2011, p. 28, illustrated p. 29

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 has not recently been restored, and could easily be hung in its current state. The painting is originally made from two pieces of canvas joined vertically through the center. There may be another horizontal join across the top of about 1 ½ inches. There are retouches around the extreme edges. Some of the darker colors have become slightly milky with the old varnish. Under ultraviolet light, the old varnish is slightly opaque. The retouches visible under ultraviolet light are few and far between, mostly focused around the hands of the discipline leaning on the table in the center of picture. His left hand particularly seems to have received quite a lot of retouching, as has the sleeve on which it rests. The condition in most of the picture seems to be very good, but cleaning is ultimately recommended to return more depth to the work, particularly in the darker colors.
"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."

A key figure in European Caravaggism, Giovanni Battista Caracciolo became the founder of the movement in Naples after falling under the spell of Caravaggio's naturalism from an early stage in his career.  Caracciolo's master, Belisario Corenzio, showed a keen interest in the advancements of his contemporaries and followed the innovations of Caravaggio closely (S. Causa, “Caracciolo, Giovanni Battista,” in Jane Turner (ed.), Grove Dictionary of Art, vol. V, p. 693).  He travelled to Rome, likely accompanied by the young Caracciolo, and there sketched the progress of Caravaggio’s then incomplete Calling of Saint Matthew in the church of San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome (Ibid.)  The impact of Caravaggio’s Roman canvases, coupled with those Caracciolo had studied in Naples, would shape his painting style for the rest of his career.   

Caracciolo was by no means a mere imitator: he built on Caravaggio’s themes of naturalism and tenebrism and developed his own individual artistic language. The present Calling of Saint Matthew, for example, is dramatically Caravaggesque in style, yet Caracciolo has succeeded in making the subject entirely his own.  Far from replicating Caravaggio’s celebrated painting in San Luigi dei Francesi, Caracciolo’s depiction of the subject is so markedly original that scholars have questioned whether the painting depicts a different subject altogether.  When Wolfgang Prohaska published the canvas on the occasion of its exhibition in 2005 and later in 2011 (see Exhibited and Literature), he recorded the title as Christ Preaching to the Disciples.  This speculation regarding the subject appears to have been shared, at least in part, by Gianni Papi who published it in 2006 under the traditional title followed by a question mark (see Literature).  In representations of the Calling of Saint Matthew, Christ would typically be shown pointing to Saint Matthew, summoning the saint to follow him.  Yet here, as Prohaska asserts, Christ does not point directly to an individual but gestures outwards in a “rhetorical” manner, engaging the viewer (W. Prohaska, 2011, op. cit.).  Prohaska argues that “the ‘protagonist’ of the scene is clearly the money,” the coins being counted out on the table and the money pouch held self-consciously out of Christ’s view by the apostle (Ibid.).   Prohaska reads the painting as representing Christ’s disapproval of riches, seeing wealth as a distraction from the path to grace.  He proposes that the painting depicts an episode from the Gospels in which Christ encourages the apostles to adopt a life of poverty and modesty, such as Matthew 10:5, Luke 6:24 and 12:33, hence his alternative suggestion for the subject.  

Opinions remain divided regarding the date of this painting, a difficulty enflamed by the lack of a firm chronological framework for the artist’s corpus.  John Spike broadly suggests it to have been executed sometime in the decade preceding Caracciolo’s death in 1635 (J.T. Spike, op. cit.).  Papi suggests an earlier dating, to 1622, placing it as contemporaneous to the artist’s masterpiece of 17th century painting, the Washing of the Feet, in the Museo Nazionale di San Martino, Naples (G. Papi, op. cit.; for Caracciolo’s Washing of the Feet, see S. Causa, 2000, op. cit., p. 193, no. A74, illustrated no.256).  Both Stefano Causa and Prohaska, meanwhile, compare the painting to Caracciolo’s Madonna and Child with Saint Anne, in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (fig. 1), a mature work thought to date after 1630 (W. Prohaska, op. cit.) The figures in both canvases share a monumental quality and stand before indistinct architectural forms, “in a space that is only defined by the plasticity of the figures themselves” (Ibid.).

This canvas can be traced back to the collection of Caracciolo’s greatest Genoese patrons, the Doria family (see Provenance).  The Doria were aware of Caracciolo at least as early as 1610 when Marcantonio Doria received a letter from his procurator and correspondent in Naples, Lanfranco Massa.  Massa wrote with news of progress on Marcantonio’s Saint Ursula commissioned from Caravaggio and also requested paintings by his “disciple” Caracciolo (S. Causa, 2000, op. cit.).  From this date onward the artist’s renown spread beyond Naples and he began providing work for the Doria and several other Genoese patrons, visiting the city a number of times in the years between 1618 and 1624.