Giacinto Gimignani Pistoia 1606 - 1681 Rome

In the collection of a noble family for at least a century and inherited by the present owner in 1988.

U.V. Fischer, Giacinto Gimignani (1606-1681). Eine Studie zur römischen Malerei des Seicento, Ph.D. thesis, University of Freiburg, 1973, p. 158, cat. no. 63, p. 222, under cat. no. Z81, and p. 233, under cat. no. Z123;
U.V. Fischer-Pace, "Les œuvres de Giacinto Gimignani dans les collections publiques françaises", in La Revue du Louvre et des Musées de France, 1978, 5-6, pp. 352 and 358, footnote 46, reproduced p. 351, fig. 20;
C. Legrand & D. d'Ormesson-Peugeot, La Roma baroque de Maratti à Piranèse, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Musée du Louvre, 15 November 1990 - 18 February 1991, p. 29, under cat. no. 11;
V. Birke & J. Kertész, Die Italienischen Zeichnungen der Albertina. Generalverzeichnis, vol. II (Inv. 1201-2400), Vienna 1994, p. 1107.

This painting by Gimignani had long been considered lost and was only known to Ursula Fischer from old photographs at the time of writing her dissertation in 1973. The painting is a characteristic work by Pietro da Cortona’s principal pupil and can be dated to Gimignani’s mature period, that is to circa 1650 or shortly afterwards.¹

The subject is taken from Torquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata (Book II), a romantic epic that was published in a pirate edition in 1579 and in its first authorised version two years later in 1581. The book was much admired in Tasso’s time, as well as in the ensuing century when it served as inspiration for numerous Italian baroque painters, particularly the tales of Tancred and Erminia or Rinaldo and Armida. This particular scene shows the young Sophronia, a Christian young woman, being condemned to death at the stake by the Saracen king. Her lover Olindo stands beside her, awaiting the same destiny. In Tasso’s story the female warrior Clorinda comes to offer the king her help in exchange for their release, and manages to save the young lovers from their fate. Gimignani has chosen to depict the moment of high drama in which two young men fuel the fire that is about to ignite the pyre on which the lovers stand, and Clorinda bursts onto the scene wearing her armour.

The painting’s scale and technical refinement would suggest that it was almost certainly executed for a private patron and it may be a modello for a larger work. Gimignani obviously took great pains over the design as a number of preparatory drawings have survived, including a compositional drawing, lightly squared for transfer, in which the overall design is the same but in which a number of small differences are visible, especially in the architectural background (Fig. 1).² Two further studies also exist, each of them done in preparation for single figures and each drawn in red chalk on red prepared paper: one, for the figure of Olindo, is in the Albertina, Vienna; the other, for the kneeling youth lower centre, is in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (Figs. 2 & 3).³ Two pentimenti are clearly visible on the painting, further arguing for its likely function as a modello: the position of the left leg of the turbanned figure in the foreground was shifted slightly to the right, and the lifted front leg of the white horse was originally resting on the ground and not raised like the other one.

1 A painting of this subject, tentatively identified by Fischer with the present work, was seen by Chiti in a private collection in Rome in 1942 (see A. Chiti, in Bollettino storico pistoiese, vol. 44, 1942, p. 142). That painting, traditionally believed to have come from the collection of the Duke of Galliera, measured 140 by 92 cm. and was apparently signed and dated 1560 (though the date must almost certainly have been 1650). No trace of a signature or date is visible on this painting but a date around 1650 or in the early 1650s seems reasonable on grounds of style.
2 Pen and brown ink and wash, heightened with white; squared in black chalk; 309 by 236 mm.; sold, London, Sotheby’s, 10 December 1979, lot 244.
3 The drawing for Olindo, traditionally attributed to Agostino Carracci, is in the Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna, inv. 2107 (see V. Birke & J. Kertész, Die Italienischen Zeichnungen der Albertina. Generalverzeichnis, vol. II (Inv. 1201-2400), Vienna 1994, p. 1107, reproduced). The drawing for the youth is in the Cabinet de Dessins, Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv. 17 731 (see Legrand & D’Ormesson-Peugeot, under Literature, p. 29, cat. no. 11, reproduced).