Cesare Dandini

Private collection, Palermo;
With Old and Modern Masters, London, from whom acquired by the present owner.

C. del Bravo, "Un'osservazione su indediti seicenteschi," in Antichità Viva, no. 5, 1971, pp. 23, 27, reproduced fig. 8;
M. Gregori, "Nota su Orazio Riminaldi e i suoi rapporti con l'ambiente romano," in Paragone, no. 269, 1972, pp. 53, 65, ft. 81, no. 63, reproduced;
M. Gregori, "A Cross-Section of Florentine Seicento Painting, The Piero Bogongiari Collection," in Apollo,  vol. C, no. 151, 1974, pp. 221, 229, ft.16;
C. McCorquodale, Painting in Florence 1600-1700, exhibition catalogue, London 1979, p. 36 under no. 11;
A.M. Petrioli Tofani, "Review of C. Theim, Florentiner Zeichner des Frühbarock, Munich 1977," in Prospettiva, no. 19, 1979, p. 85-86;
G. Cantelli, Repertorio della Pittura Fiorentina del Seicento, Fiesole 1983, p. 57;
S. Bellesi, "Intorno ad alcuni equivoci tra Cesare e Vincenzo Dandini," in Paradigma, no. 10, 1992, pp. 82-84, no. 30, reproduced;
S. Bellesi, Cesare Dandini, Turin 1996, pp. 82-84, no. 30, reproduced;
La Collezione. Dipinti e Sculture. Opere d'Arte della Città di Lugano, Lugano 1998, p. 36, no. 18;
M. Gregori, Storia delle Arti in Toscana. Il Seicento, Florence 2001, p. 69, reproduced;
S. Bellesi, Cesare dandini. Addenda al catalogo dei dipinti, Florence 2007, pp. 11-12, note. 20.

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com , an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This picture has been recently restored and should be hung in its current condition. The canvas is lined. The paint layer is stable, clean and varnished, and has been recently retouched. The retouches are very thorough, well-matched and attempt to eliminate the most noticeable and disturbing losses, without allowing the retouching to become too prevalent. Some natural thinness is visible in some areas of the background in the right, in the lower left and in the shadowed parts of the armor, particularly. In other areas, the retouching is quite noticeable under ultraviolet light. They are quite pronounced in the pink of the cloak, in the highlights on the armor and in the green skirt worn by the figure. In the face, cracking and thinness has been retouched, but less so in the wing behind the head. The hair and the hands have also received retouching. The bulk of this retouching has been well applied. The reflection in the armor is very bright and perhaps requires a thin tone and some of the color, for instance in the green skirt, is slightly garish, yet these small adjustments can be easily made without cleaning the picture. The picture could also be hung as is.
"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."

In his 1996 monograph on the artist, Prof. Sandro Bellesi (see Literature) considers this painting to be one of the masterpieces of Dandini's oeuvre. In the elegance and harmony of its design, the vivid expression and swaggering pose of the Saint Michael, his hand resting nonchalantly on the sword, and the rich effects of light and colour, it encapsulates all that the artist seemingly strove to achieve. The head itself exists in numerous other works by the artist and there are two preparatory drawings for it, one in the Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart (see fig. 1), and the other in the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi.¹ The head is repeated in a bust-length depiction of Saint Michael in the Bigongiari collection, Florence, in which the protagonist's left hand, grasping a spear, is raised to shoulder height,² and also in another work, tentatively identified as a Saint George, in an English private collection.³ The head bears striking physiognomical similarites with a Saint John the Evangelist in the Luzzetti collection, Florence,⁴ and with a Portrait of a boy in a beret in the Palazzo Pitti, Florence.⁵ Based on such similarites, together with the characteristic and dramatic contrasts of light and dark and the rich coloration and tonality, Bellesi dates this work to the middle of the 1630s, when the artist was at the height of what Baldinucci describes as his '"maniera vaga," an elegant style in which his figures are diligently drawn from nature but then "finita e corretta" with a particular grace and beauty.

Although unusual in Italian seicento easel painting, the octagonal format was one favoured by Dandini and some of his Florentine peers; see, for example, his Portrait of Checca Costa in the Museo Stibbert, Florence, the David with the head of Goliath in a private collection, or the Ganymede in a Florentine private collection.⁶

1. See Bellesi, under Literature, p. 82, nos. 29a and29b, both reproduced.
2. Ibid., pp. 81-2, no. 29, reproduced.
3. Ibid., pp. 135-6, no. 78, reproduced p. 136.
4. Ibid., pp. 99-100, no. 46a, reproduced p. 100.
5. Inv. no. 1890. Ibid., pp. 79-80, no. 26, reproduced.
6. Ibid., p. 104, no. 48; p. 85, no. 32; p. 138, no. 82, all reproduced.