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

This painting is most likely a ricordo of Gandolfi’s enormous canvas of the same subject today in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna.¹ That painting, together with its pendant showing Volumnia with her sons before Coriolanus, has been convincingly dated to circa 1784 on the basis of an inscription on the reverse of a preparatory drawing for the latter.² A similar date for this and other related canvases seems plausible. A pair of paintings in a private collection, Bologna, are likely to be the principal bozzetti or modelli for the Pinacoteca pair, especially since some details appear to have been slightly modified in the final paintings (particularly in the case of the Coriolanus).³ Very few differences are discernible between the bozzetto of The Continence of Scipio and the final painting: in the former the tower in the distance is squared; the bearded man pointing downwards just right of centre is wearing a turban and has a slightly more decorated sleeve; and the figure behind him wearing a veil is only sketched out.

This small canvas follows the bozzetto more closely than it does the final painting and it is therefore likely that it was produced for a private patron, using the bozzetto as its model. Gandolfi most likely kept the pair of sketches in his studio after having completed the Pinacoteca paintings in order to produce replicas on demand; this seems to have been the common working practice in Gandolfi’s studio since many of his most popular compositions were replicated by him on numerous occasions. The loose brushwork and colouring are typical of Gandolfi's sketches, and the brushwork appears fresher and more accomplished in certain details than that in another small-scale painting of the same composition in the Molinari Pradelli collection at Marano di Castenaso (Bologna), considered by Biagi Maino to be an autograph replica executed for a private patron.⁴ Since the canvases are almost identical in size and the compositions are the same in every detail, it is reasonable to assume that they were copied from the same model or from each other. The youth standing before Scipio is clean-shaven and wears not a crown but a headband in both versions; the turbanned man spreads his left hand over a vase rather than clutching the spoils of war; and the veiled figure behind him is indicated in a similarly sketchy manner. Arguing in favour of the the present work pre-dating the Molinari Pradelli version is the fact that certain details, such as the boat in the background and the man bending over in the lower right corner, are painted with greater confidence and freedom in handling.

We are grateful to Dott.ssa Donatella Biagi Maino for endorsing the attribution to Gandolfi on the basis of a colour transparency.

1 Oil on canvas, 194 by 269 cm.; see D. Biagi Maino, Gaetano Gandolfi, Turin 1995, p. 387, cat. no. 159, reproduced fig. 180.
2 For the Coriolanus see Biagi Maino, op. cit., p. 387, cat. no. 157, reproduced fig.183.
3 Both oil on canvas, 55.5 by 80.5 cm.; Biagi Maino, ibid., p. 387, cat. nos. 156 & 158, reproduced figs. 181 & 179 respectively.
4 Oil on canvas, 36 by 45.5 cm.; Biagi Maino, ibid., p. 388, no. 160, reproduced fig. 182.