The Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds

A member of the Guicciardini family, probably Florence (according to the seal and label on the reverse);
Private collection, UK;
Acquired from the above by the present owner.

The following condition report is provided by Sarah Walden who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's: Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds. Adoration and Annunciation. Although originally from the great Caravaggiesque era in Naples, this pair of octagonal paintings evidently became part of in the Guicciardini collection in Florence, before being taken abroad perhaps during the grand tour. They have both been given comparatively recent firm linings with strongly constructed octagonal stretchers. The original canvases have a marked texture, which seems to have absorbed the rich dark Caravaggiesque ground creating a distinct dark craquelure. Adoration of the Shepherds. This central scene has been beautifully preserved, with much magnificently intact detail throughout the figures and through every area with strongly descriptive highlights, including for instance the still life of the basket of bread, and the vivid drapery of the kneeling shepherd on the left and the kneeing boy. St Joseph is also largely finely intact, while showing the dramatic contrast between the denser lights and the way in which the darks tend to sink into the omnipresent dark ground, with subtler half tones tending to be swallowed by the force of the darks. This is evident in Joseph's blue drapery and can also be seen in some of the heads including that of the Madonna herself. Naturally the ox and the ass have tended to sink into the darks of the background, however the shepherd behind on the right has carefully been lightly cleaned in the past and retains all the half tones, as does the fine shadowed head of the kneeling shepherd on the left. The varnish is slightly opaque under ultra violet light but older retouching can be seen in a quite wide band bordering particularly the upper three sides of the canvas, with other retouching also around the lower edges. The putto above has various small retouchings visible under UV within his craquelure as well as near the outer edges. A few older retouchings can be seen within the figure of the Madonna and in the drapery she is holding over the Child. Elsewhere there are various more recent tiny touches in the central background with occasional slightly larger touches near the central figures although they remain remarkably untouched and pure overall.
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The Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds was one of the finest and most striking artists active in Naples in the wake of Caravaggio. Clearly working in the close ambit of Jusepe de Ribera his anagraphical identity eludes us,  though his stylistic personality is quite defined:¹ very much rooted in the chiaroscuro idiom, his œuvre comprises a homogeneous group of figurative paintings, of which a handful are mythological, some half-length single figure studies, and several treatments of the subject of the Annunciation. Indeed, his name derives from the remarkable Annunciation to the Shepherds in the Birmingham Art Gallery, a picture once thought to be by Velázquez.² 

His interest in the human form, discernible in the studied poses in which he usually portrayed his figures, is matched by a sensitive naturalism found in his approach to texture, particularly the rough fabrics which clothe the protagonists, as well as in his delicate depiction of still-life elements. These interests are perhaps best illustrated in the artist's aforementioned namepiece in Birmingham, as well as his Allegory of the Arts, in the Masaveu Collection, Oviedo, or in his Perseus and Phineas in a Florentine private collection.³ In the present pair this can be seen in the shepherd boy with his back to the viewer in the Adoration, as well as in the delightful smouldering embers and jug in the Annunciation, which can also be found in the Annunciation to the Shepherds formerly in the Piasecka Johnson Collection, sold London, Christie's, 8 July 2014, lot 36, for £2,000,000, the artist's record price at auction. The pose of the putto descending from the sky in the present Adoration is identical to that in the Piasecka Johnson canvas.

1. The numerous attempts to link him with known figures operating in that city, among them Juan Dò, originally from Valencia but active in Naples in the 1620s, and Bartolomeo Passante or Bassante, have so far not been unanimously accepted. 

2. See G. Porzio, La scuola di Ribera, Naples 2014, p. 82, fig. 43, reproduced.

3. See N. Spinosa, Pittura del Seicento a Napoli, Da Caravaggio a Massimo Stanzione, Naples 2010, pp. 333–34, cat. no. 291, reproduced; p. 333, cat. no. 296, reproduced.