Roman School, circa 1625

Jean, Comte de Sellon d'Allaman (1736-1810), Château d'Allaman, Pays de Vaud, Switzerland;
Jean-Jacques de Sellon (1782-1839), Geneva;
Thence by descent.

Catalogue Raisonné des 215 Tableaux les plus capitaux du Cabinet de Monsieur le Comte de Sellon d'Allaman, dont une partie se voit dans son hôtel à Genève, et l'autre dans son château d'Allaman, en Suisse pays de Vaud...., Geneva 1795, p. 14-15, no. 35 (as Guercino);
Catalogue complet de la galerie de tableaux du Comte de Sellon. 578 nos. Catalogue de tableaux appartenant à Monsieur le Comte de Sellon à Genève... , Geneva 1798, p. 19, no. 79 (as Guercino);
Catalogue des Objets d'Arts contenus dans la maison du Comte de Sellon à Genève, rue des Granges, Geneva 1838, p. 10, when hanging in the Dining Room (as by Caravaggio).

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting has an old stretcher without wedges, and an old lining with open Italian gauze like canvas, probably eighteenth century. These are both still quite firm, although the slightly weak tension allows the stretcher bar lines to show slightly. There is one small recent chip by the middle of the right edge. The present restoration is also old, and the varnish is darkened and heavily dimmed in the shadows. One single old scrape from behind dented the cheek of the Child in a slanting line past His mouth down to the top of the Madonna's hand. This seems to have been smoothed back almost into place with some dampness from behind to the glue in the lining, so that it clearly happened later and did not perforate the painting or the lining. This has a darkened and cracked old retouched filling. The figures appear beautifully intact in the denser lighter paint, with a little possible thinness in some of the shadowy parts of the Child's far leg and the book nearby, and in the shadowy far side of the Madonna's face, perhaps with some slight old strengthening by the eye, and a little thinness in the strands of hair on the Child's forehead. His pointing fingers have some pentimenti. There are also various darkened retouches in the drapery below His leg. The drapery of the Madonna is magnificently intact however as is the strong beautifully preserved Caravaggiesque modelling of the figures generally. It s hard to see into the darks but there has clearly been unusually little past intervention. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

The attribution of this painting has always remained elusive.  Even the compiler of the catalogue of the Comte de Sellon's collection in 1795 noted that "Les connoisseurs sont partagés d'opinion sur l'auteur de ce tableau. Les uns le donnent à Guerchin, les autres à Michel Ange de Carravage". The design is very close to a work by Antiveduto Gramatica in the Pinacoteca Communale, Pesaro,¹ which is known in several versions, but the sophistication of this work exceeds that of Gramatica’s normal abilities.  On the basis of photographs, however, Prof.ssa Mina Gregori does not exclude an attribution to him.  Prof. Erich Schleier, however, does not accept this view and believes that this painting may be the work of a French follower of Caravaggio, such as Nicolas Régnier or Nicolas Tournier, working in Rome in the second decade of the 17th century.  A French attribution does not find support from Arnaud Brejon de Lavergnée who believes in an Italian rather than French source for this work, although without having seen the painting in the original.  More recently Dott. Gianni Papi has kindly suggested an attribution to the 'Master of the Incredulity of Saint Thomas’.  This painter, a Roman follower of Caravaggio, takes his name from the painting of the same subject today in the Palazzo Valentini in Rome which, together with a further group of paintings assembled for the first time under this attribution, was recently the subject of a major exhibition in Milan.²  The identity of the Master of the Incredulity of St. Thomas remains unknown. Papi has suggested that he may perhaps be identifiable with the Flemish-born painter Jean Ducamps (Giovanni del Campo), whose style seems to combine elements of the French followers of Caravaggio and Manfredi with facets of that of Jusepe de Ribera and Cecco del Caravaggio in Naples. Although unknown, this Master is generally considered to be the most important and certainly the most talented of the remaining unidentified followers of Caravaggio in any country.

This painting was most probably acquired in Rome between 1790 and 1791, where Jean, Comte de Sellon bought a large number of his pictures, but it may also have been acquired in Naples, which he visited in 1791, and where he made some of his finest acquisitions, such as Mattia Preti's early masterpiece, the Capture of Samson today in the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire in Geneva.³  Prof. Nicola Spinosa (private communication) has kindly pointed out similarities between this work and the paintings of the 'Master of the Cellini Madonna', whose eponymous work, a Madonna and Child, is today in the Cellini collection in Rome.⁴  Sellon was a prodigious collector, and fully a quarter of his collection was dedicated to works of the Italian school. Among the early Italian works were pictures attributed to Giotto, Starnina, Fra Angelico, Verrocchio and Giovanni Bellini, then Leonardo, Raphael and Correggio, but it was among the Seicento pictures in which the greatest concentration of quality lay. These included for example, another Neapolitan masterpiece, Andrea Vaccaro’s Triumph of David, and Giovanni Domenco Cerrini’s Saint Sebastian, both now in the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire in Geneva.⁵  Sellon was also an avid collector of landscapes and vedute owning numerous works by Salvator Rosa, Panini, Vanvitelli (of which no less than nine are today in Geneva), Canaletto, Panini and Fidanza.

For Jean and Jean-Jacques de Sellon and their collecting activities please also see the note to lot 31 in this sale.

1  H.Ph. Riedl, Antiveduto della Grammatica (1570-1626). Leben und Werk, Berlin 1998, p. 123, no. 24, fig. 38.
2  Milan, Palazzo Reale, Caravaggio e l'Europa. Il genio degli anonimi: Maestri caravaggeschi a Roma e a Napoli, 15 October 2005 - 6 February 2006, cat. nos. H1-27, all reproduced.
3  See M. Natale, Le goût et les collections d’art italien à Genève, Geneva 1980, pp. 66 ff..
4  Exhibited in Naples, Castel Sant'Elmo, Chiesa della Certosa di San Martino, Battistello Caracciolo e il primo naturalismo a Napoli, 1991-1992, no. 2.91, reproduced.
5  M. Natale, Musée d'Art et d'Histoire. Catalogue raisonné des peintures. Peintures italiennes du XIV au XVIII siècle, Geneva 1979, p. 31, no. 37, and p. 136, no. 188.