Simon Vouet

Anonymous sale, Paris, Beaussant-Lefèvre, 5 December 2007, lot 98 (as 'Tête de Sainte' and 'Attributed to Vouet'; erroneously described as on panel).

Nantes, Musée des Beaux-Arts, 21 November 2008 - 23 February 2009; Besançon, Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'Archéologie, 27 March - 29 June 2009, Simon Vouet: les années italiennes 1613-1627, no. 32.

Simon Vouet: les années italiennes 1613-1627, exhibition catalogue, Nantes, Musée des Beaux-Arts, 21 November 2008 - 23 February 2009; Besançon, Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'Archéologie, 27 March - 29 June 2009, p. 141, cat. no. 32, reproduced.

"The following condition report has been provided by Henry Gentle, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. The canvas is unlined. The paint surface is stable and flat , apart from a flaking restoration to the Virgin’s left cheek. The canvas has been patched several times to consolidate and reinforce small damages and paint loss and is, as a consequence, vulnerable. A 3cm wide horizontal strip along the bottom edge is significantly re-painted, either, as a result of substantial paint loss, or an indication that this could be a later addition. Elsewhere across the surface restoration can be detected; through two horizontal fractures to the canvas which take in the Virgin’s right eye, through her nostril and into her left cheek and another through her neck and to below her left ear, top left and right corners, to the background above the Virgin’s head, to the Virgin’s forehead and small pin prick losses across the surface, many of which have been left un-restored. The restoration is excessive, in some areas, and discoloured and is well disguised beneath a degraded and yellowed varnish, the removal of which would significantly improve the tonality. Most of the paint is well preserved with paint texture and impasto intact and the colours un-faded. Offered in a gilt wood frame in good condition."
"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."

This striking image of the Head of the Virgin was almost certainly painted by Vouet in the mid-1620s, during the later years of the artist's Italian sojourn. Vouet first left France for Italy in 1611, arriving in Venice (via Constantinople) in the following year and making his way from there to Rome in 1614. In the Eternal City he initially fell under the influence of Caravaggio and, at the same time as receiving a pension from the French crown, he was patronised there by the wealthiest aristocratic families in the city; notably the Barberini, Giustianini, Orsini and Doria.

The paintings Vouet executed in Rome owe a great deal to Giovanni Lanfranco, one of the leading artists in the city at the time. However, it is Lanfranco's paintings from the previous decade that so inspired Vouet's work of the 1620s; such as the Saint Agatha cured by Saint Peter (Parma, Galleria Nazionale) of 1613-14.¹  Vouet's production from these years is characterized by a clear understanding of Lanfranco – his effects of light and shadow, plasticity of modelling and fluid handling of paint – and the present work is no exception.

Another slightly larger version of the composition, which includes the Virgin's hand wrapped around the tail of the headscarf, is in the collection of the Credito Bergamasco, Bergamo, and was exhibited in Giovanni Lanfranco: Un pittore barocco tra Parma, Roma e Napoli in 2001-2.²  It was dated there by Erich Schleier to circa 1623-24 and a similar date of execution seems plausible for the present work. Apart from differences in the headscarf, the head of the Virgin in each of these versions is extremely similar although there does appear to be a marked highlight – perhaps a pentimento – on her right eye in the present version. This might suggest that this head may have been executed first, perhaps painted directly from life, and indeed Dominique Jacquot hypothesised in the recent exhibition catalogue on Vouet's early italian years that she may be the artist's future wife, Virginia da Vezzi, whose appearance is recorded in an engraved portrait by Claude Mellan.³

1. See G.P. Bernini, Giovanni Lanfranco, Parma 1982, p. 185, fig. 23.
2. This painting, formerly in the collection of Andrea Busiri Vici in Rome has been on deposit at the Accademia Carrara, Bergamo, since 1996: see E. Schleier, Giovanni Lanfranco: Un pittore barocco tra Parma, Roma e Napoli, exhibition catalogue, Parma, Reggio di Colorno, 8 September – 2 December 2001; Naples, Castel Sant'Elmo, 21 December 2001 – 24 February 2002; Rome, Palazzo Venezia, 16 March – 16 June 2002, pp. 346-47, cat. no. C11, reproduced in colour (was described as a Vergine addolorata).
3. See the exhibition catalogue, Simon Vouet: les années italiennes 1613-1627, under Literature, cat. no. 92.