Gaetano Gandolfi San Matteo della Decima near Bologna 1734 - 1802 Bologna

This hitherto unpublished painting is a characteristic work by Gaetano Gandolfi and probably dates from the artist’s maturity, that is from the latter half of the 1780s or early ’90s, by comparison with other dated or documented works from around this time. Gandolfi’s confident handling of paint gives his figures and their draperies a certain solidity and this, combined with the muted colour palette, is typical of his later works. The elegant figure of the angel, shown in back-lit profile, is closely comparable to that in Gandolfi’s altarpiece in the Oratory of the Blessed Virgin of the Nativity and Saint Giustina at Villa Tanari, Bazzano, a bozzetto for which was recently sold in these rooms, 7 July 2005, lot 40. The representation of a figure in profile, in controluce, is a recurrent motif in Gaetano’s paintings; another such example is the figure of Saint Cecilia in his bozzetto sold, New York, Christie’s, 29 January 1999, lot 33, datable to around the same time (the picture was signed and dated 1791 on the reverse of the original canvas).

The refinement of the composition in the present painting, as well as its high level of finish and considerable dimensions, would indicate that it was a finished picture rather than a modello for a larger work. It was almost certainly intended for private devotion and although no preparatory drawing or painted bozzetto is known in Gaetano’s extensively published œuvre, some parallels may be drawn with other autograph works by the artist. The figure of the angel, for example, pointing towards the horizon whilst sweeping towards the other figure in the picture, echoes that in Gaetano’s small painting of Tobias and the Angel in a private collection, Bologna, which must surely be a sketch for a larger work as yet untraced (D. Biagi Maino, Gaetano Gandolfi, Turin 1995, p. 397, cat. no. 193, reproduced fig. 226). That painting, which Biagi Maino dates to the late 1780s, was probably executed at around the same time as the present work.