Carlo Dolci Florence 1616 - 1687

This beautiful little picture shows with extraordinary simplicity the episode of the Holy Family’s Flight into Egypt. The composition is known in another autograph version painted for Andrea del Rosso (1570-1644) and sent by him to the Earl of Exeter at Burghley House, Stamford, some time before 1688, considered by Baldassari to date from circa 1630 (see Francesca Baldassari, under Literature, pp. 42-44, cat. no. 12, reproduced fig. 12). The Burghley picture is almost identical in composition to the present work, although the figures in the latter are placed more centrally and the rocky landscape is rendered even more simply. The deep religious feeling of the present painting gives it a fable-like atmosphere and, according to Baldassari, this version was painted after the Burghley picture, probably around 1640. Dolci has used gold paint for the figures’ haloes and the sharp detail of the donkey’s hooves, for example, contrasts with the softness in the figures’ robes. A preparatory drawing for the angel holding up the donkey’s lead is in the Gabinetto Nazionale delle Stampe, Rome (inv. F.C. 126111; reproduced in Baldassari, op. cit., p. 43, fig. 12a). Although the drawing was probably used as a model for the angel in both paintings, the angle of the angel’s head and the fact that the lead is held between both hands point to a closer association with the present version, rather than the Burghley one.

Baldassari tentatively suggests that this might be the “Madonna che va in Egitto” recorded in a manuscript dating from the first half of the 18th century in the Archivio di Stato, Florence (A.S.F., Bardi, III, 46, Pitture e sculture di Firenze), as being in the house of “Senatore Nicolò e fratelli Ginori”, along with an Apostle and a Nativity (the latter possibly identifiable with the copper formerly with Wengraf Ltd., London; see Baldassari, ibid., p. 33, cat. no. 1, reproduced fig. 1). Both the Nativity and the Flight into Egypt, and therefore possibly this picture, were exhibited by the Ginori family at San Luca in Florence, in 1724 (F. Borroni Salvadori, “Le esposizioni d’arte a Firenze dal 1674 al 1767”, in Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, vol. XVIII, no. 1, 1974, p. 80). The Ginori family were originally from Calenzano but settled in the San Lorenzo district of Florence at the end of the 13th century. During the ensuing centuries they established themselves as successful bankers and merchants, travelling extensively throughout Europe, South America and the Orient. Carlo Andrea, one of the most important figures of the Ginori dynasty, founded the historic Doccia porcelain factory in 1737 when he was just thirty-five years old.

Francesca Baldassari, to whom we are grateful, had known the present work only from photographs at the time of writing her monograph on Carlo Dolci in 1995. She has since seen the painting in the original and firmly believes it to be an autograph work by the artist.