Lorenzo Pasinelli

Commissioned, along with a pendant Sybil by Domenico Maria Canuti, by the Budrioli family, Casa Budrioli (later Casa Banzi), Bologna;
Thence by descent to Senatore Grassi, Casa Grassi, Bologna, as of circa 1760;
Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby's, 22 January 2004, lot 82, where acquired by the present owner.

Paris, L'Oeil Galerie d'Art, Tableaux italiens XIV-XVII siècles, June-July 1973,no. 8 (as North Italian School, XVIIth Century), reproduced;
London, Wildenstein, Venus and Cupid: an Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings from the XVI to the XIX Century, 14 February - 28 March 1991 (no catalogue).

G.P. Zanotti, Nuovo fregio di gloria a Felsina sempre pittrice nella vita di Lorenzo Pasinelli pittore bolognese, Bologna 1703, pp. 36-37;
A. Ottani Cavina & R. Roli, Commentario alla "Storia dell'Accademia Clementina: di G.P. Zanotti (1739)". Indice analitico e trascrizione delle postille inedite, Bologna 1977, pp. 33, 98, 108;
R. Roli, Pittura bolognese, 1650-1800: Dal Cignani ai Gandolfi, Bologna 1977, pp. 92; 133, note 5;
E. Calbi & D. Scaglietti Kelescian, eds. Marcello Oretti e il patrimonio artistico privato bolognese: Bologna, Biblioteca Comunale, Ms. B. 104, Bologna 1984, pp. 57, 149;
M. Wynne, Later Italian Paintings in the National Gallery of Ireland: The Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and Nineteenth Centuries, Dublin 1986, p. 86, reproduced fig. 119 (engraving by Rolli);
S. Stagni, Domenico Maria Canuti, pittore (1626-1684: Catalogo generale), Rimini 1988, pp. 105-106; 200 under no. 48;
C. Baroncini, Lorenzo Pasinelli, pittore (1629-1700), Faenza 1993, pp. 376-379, no. 113 (as lost); also cited pp. 216-218, under no. 26, and pp. 222-225, under no. 30, reproduced p. 377 (engraving by Rolli).

ENGRAVED
Giuseppe Maria Rolli (1645 - 1727)

The following condition report is provided by Sarah Walden who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting has a recent lining and restoration. Having clearly had a calm stable early life, with little accidental damage and apparently scarce interventions if at all, the painting appears to have been strongly lined and restored n the last few decades. The underlying resilience of the paint has allowed the overall character of the painting to be retained however, even though the recent lining has rather flattened the texture of the surface. The present cleaning was carried out at the same time as the lining. There is scarcely any accidental damage: one narrow vertical about three inches long in the lower right drapery, a few retouched fillings at the edges on either side, a scattering of small retouchings in the lower left corner, a little retouched damage in the ribbon on the chest, a small surface touch or two on the neck and various other minor retouchings in the far top corners. A band of thinner paint can be found in the upper right background. These are very minor small damages for a painting of this size and period. The sweep of the brushwork remains strong and dramatic. There are various pentimenti visible in the centre in the drapery of the sleeve. 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."

Barely three years after Pasinelli's death, Giovan Pietro Zanotti (1674-1765), wrote in his biography of his teacher "Fece dopo questa una Sibilla molto più grande del vero per li Signori Budrioli, che serve di compagna ad un'altra di mano di Domenico Maria Canuti, Maestro al Mondo ben cognito; mà però, che in quest operazione fà conoscere dover di gran lunga cedere al nostro Lorenzo [He did after this a Sibyl of much larger scale than life for the Budrioli family, that serves as a mate to another [painting of a Sibyl] by Domenico Maria Canuti, a widely known master; but in this work he had to admit that he had to concede victory to our Lorenzo] (see Literature)." The painting was clearly important to Pasinelli and he asked his competitor Canuti's own pupil Giuseppe Maria Rolli to engrave the picture which, except for a rarely published (autograph?) canvas in a private collection, Bologna, is the only way the composition was known until the present canvas' recent reappearance (see Fig. 1).

Indeed the two Sibyls make an interesting and telling pair. Canuti's canvas is in a private collection, Bologna¹ and depicts a turbanned female figure, distractedly looking heavenwards while a "genius" enters at the left of the canvas to give her inspiration. This kind of figure was certainly a "classical" Bolognese type, having antecedants in the works of Domenichino and Canuti's own masters Guercino and Reni. Pasinelli rather depicts a much more earthbound figure, bare-chested and actively engaged with the small putto that arrives to give her ideas. His colouration and elegance of line in the present canvas look forward to the next generation of Bolognese artists, many of whom were his pupils (for example, dal Sole, Creti, Milani and Burrini), while the composition is inspired by a drawing by his own master, Simone Cantarini.² 

1. See S. Stagni, Canuti, Rimini 1988, p. 200, cat. no. 48, reproduced plate XXX.
2. Royal Library, Windsor Castle, see Baroncini, under Literature, reproduced. CXIIIa.