Leonello Spada Bologna 1576-1622 Parma

"The following condition report has been provided by Henry Gentle, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. The original canvas is lined. The paint surface is fragile and unstable and in some areas the paint is unsecured. There is visible extensive restoration to replace previous paint losses to the figures and the background. This is most visible in the hair and face of Christ, the Madonna's face, the back of the book and to the figure of Joseph. There is a discoloured and patchy varnish which, if removed, would enhance the tonality."
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This painting of the Holy Family is characteristic of Leonello Spada's idiosyncratic style. It is probably datable to the last few years of Spada's life, by comparison with other works produced in the period between 1615 and 1622. These years, during which he undertook the fresco decoration of the cupola and northern transept chapel of the Basilica della Beata Vergine della Ghiara in Reggio Emilia, mark the high point in Spada's career. Also employed in the same church was Spada's contemporary Alessandro Tiarini, with whom Spada has sometimes been confused (indeed the present painting was traditionally ascribed to Tiarini). Spada was influenced by Caravaggio for much of his life - something which earned him the rather unfair pseudonym of 'scimmia di Caravaggio' - but by the time the Holy Family was painted, his style had successfully blended Caravaggio's naturalism with the classicism of the Carracci and Domenichino.

The figure of Joseph in this Holy Family is extremely similar in type to the old man in Spada's Return of the Prodigal Son in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (inv. no. 677), as well as to the figure of Anchises in his Aeneas fleeing Troy, also in the Louvre (inv. no. 680).¹  Both of those paintings have been dated to Spada's maturity and though scholars are not in agreement over their precise dating, they are generally believed to have been painted some time between 1615 and 1622. Another work from the same period is Spada's Denial of St. Peter, which is known in two autograph variants; one in the Galleria Nazionale, Parma (inv. no. 176) and the other in a private collection.²  The composition is arranged along similar lines to that of the Holy Family with three figures shown in half-length, set against a plain dark background. The female seen in profile at the far left of the Denial of St. Peter closely resembles the Madonna in the Holy Family and may even be based on the same model.

We are grateful to Dott. Emilio Negro and Dott.ssa Nicosetta Roio for proposing the attribution to Spada on the basis of photographs.

1.  See E. Negro & N. Roio, in M. Pirondini ed., Leonello Spada (1576-1622), Reggio Emilia 2002, pp. 127-28, cat. no. 60, reproduced in colour on p. 87, plate XXVI; and pp. 128 and 137, cat. no. 61, reproduced in colour on p. 85, plate XXIV.
2.  Negro & Roio, op. cit., pp. 174-75, cat. nos. 145 and 146, both reproduced, the first in colour on p. 208, plate LXVIII.