Marcantonio Franceschini Bologna 1648 - 1729

commissioned from the artist by John Cecil, Fifth Earl of Exeter, who died before their delivery (see note), then sold by the artist to;
Carega.

In Franceschini’s account book, there is an entry on the 4^th of June 1704 for “Due quadri fatti per il Milord Exeter con un Noli me Tangere e una Samaritana, due figure per ciascheduno, restati a me per la morte di ditto Signore; li ho venduti al Sig.r Carega, Doppie sessanta di Spagna, sono….990 [Two paintings made for Milord Exeter with a Noli me Tangere and a Samaritan Woman, two figures in each, kept by me because of the death of the aforementioned Lord; I have sold them to Signor Carega, sixty Spanish doubloons, which are… 990]."¹  Painted for a specific and important collector, this pendant pair representing Christ and the Samaritan Woman and the Noli me Tangere are lushly colored and highly finished, and exemplify the coolly elegant classicism of Franceschini’s mature period, circa 1700. Dwight Miller, noting the particular care with which the artist painted them and the extensive and varied colors he employed, considered that in the present pair Franceschini “operò al meglio della sua abilità, creando dipinti che rientrano tra i suoi più belli [worked to the best of his ability, creating paintings that are amongst his most beautiful]."²

As Franceschini himself noted in his libro dei conti, the pair were originally commissioned from the artist by “Milord Exeter.”   John Cecil, 5th Earl of Exeter was a great collector and patron of Italian painters, and among the earliest of the English “grand tourists”.  Lord Exeter had acquired works by many of the most prominent Italian artists of the time, such as Carlo Dolci, Carlo Marrati, Baciccio and Luca Girodano, and naturally a commission from such a celebrated and important foreign connoisseur would have been attended to with great care by Franceschini.³  However, Exeter died in late August 1700, before the paintings had been completed, and the two paintings thus never left the artist’s studio. 

In 1702, Franceschini left Bologna for Genoa, where he had been given the prestigious commission to fresco the Salone del Maggior Consiglio in the Palazzo Ducale, a project which was to keep him there until he returned home to Bologna in 1704.  Given his time there, it is possible that the “Sig.r Carega” that Franceschini sold the paintings to was a member of noble Genoese "Carrega" family, whose grand Palazzo Carrega Cataldi was on the Strada Nuova.  The critic Ratti had noted Francheschini’s popularity among the Genoese elite, and catalogued with praise the works by him in some of the most famous collections of the city⁴.

1 See D.C. Miller, op. cit., p.217. 

2  See D.C. Miller, op. cit., p. 217.

3  Many of these works are still at Burghley House, in Lincolnshire, still one of the most distinguished collections of Italian Baroque paintings outside of Italy.  For a full discussion of his collecting, please see H. Brigstocke & J. Somerville, Italian Pictures from Burghley House, Alexandria, VA., 1995.

4  “Ecco un'idea di quanto ha questo valente pittore operato in Genova, con tanto suo lustro e nostro, poiché di sì belle pitture godiamo [Here is an idea of how much this worthy painter accomplished in Genoa, with so much to his credit and ours, as we get to enjoy such beautiful pictures]  C.G. Ratti, Storia de’ pittori et architetti liguri e de’ forestieri che in Genova operarano, M. Migliorini ed, Genoa, 1997, c 211.v.