Giulio Cesare Procaccini

Believed by the present owners to have been acquired by their grandfather in the 1920s.

The liveliness and life-like quality of these three heads indicate that they were almost certainly painted directly from life. The figures are shown in profile, frontal and three-quarter views and, given the generic similarity of their physiognomical features, it is not impossible that all three were painted from a single model. It is tempting to assume that the child (or children) are to be identified as Giulio Cesare’s own but there is not enough biographical information to confirm such a theory: all we know is that at the time of his death Giulio Cesare had three adult daughters - Cecilia, Prassede and Virginia - from his wife Isabella Visconti, whom he had married in May 1600. The child at the left holds up a medal, whilst the child in the centre wears a coral necklace (as the Christ Child is often seen wearing) and the rightmost child has been transformed into a figure of the Infant Saint John the Baptist through the addition of an animal-hide and reed cross. Though these figure studies were produced as life-like portraits, Procaccini probably intended such pictures to remain in his studio so that he could re-use the heads for putti or other secondary figures in his larger compositions. Although exactly the same heads are not be found in any of his known altarpieces, similar children do occur in a number of finished works by the artist: see, for example, the children and putti in his Annunciation and Presentation in the Temple in the Certosa at Pavia, datable to 1612-15, or the numerous putti in his large-scale cartoon for an altar frontal today in the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, datable to 1620-25 (both reproduced in H. Brigstocke, Proaccini in America, exhibition catalogue, New York, Hall & Knight Ltd., 2002, the former on p. 184, the latter pp. 102-5, cat. no. 11, reproduced in colour). Another interesting comparison is provided by a painting of Three Angels, in the church of S. Antonio Abate in Milan (datable to 1610-11; reproduced in Brigstocke, op. cit., p. 164), in which a youth (almost certainly the same model) is painted in three different poses, and it is quite possible that for this painting Procaccini based himself on a life study not dissimilar to the present work. Given the confident handling of paint and plausible comparisons with Procaccini’s mature works, a dating in the 1620s seems likely for the present panel.

Despite the inscription in an old hand on the reverse of the panel, no early provenance for the painting is known. It is tempting to identify this work with a painting on panel showing "three small heads", listed in the 1634 inventory of Amedeo dal Pozzo's collection in Turin (f.10): "Giulio Cesare Procacini Tre testine di Giulio Cesare Procacini sopra l'asso grande meso palmo in quadro con cornise nera D.6" (inventory of 20 July 1634 of the collection of Amedeo dal Pozzo, Marchese di Voghera, Palazzo Dal Pozzo, Turin). Although measurements are often imprecise in old inventories the present panel, albeit small in scale, is larger than the "meso palmo" (half a 'palm') of the Dal Pozzo picture. Another painting that might tentatively be identified with the present work is a painting in Giovanni Carlo Doria's collection in Naples (f.35v): "115. Tre testine del proccacino... L.100" (inventory after 1625, probably after 1634; transcribed in Brigstocke, ibid., p. 138) and, almost certainly the same picture mentioned again, in the collection of Nicola Doria in Naples in 1690 (f.7): "Tre teste del Precacchini...12".

The attribution to Procaccini has been independently endorsed by Nancy Ward Neilson and Hugh Brigstocke, both after first-hand inspection of the painting (private communication to the owner).