Lot 153
  • 153

Corrado Giaquinto

Estimate
100,000 - 150,000 USD
bidding is closed

Description

  • Corrado Giaquinto
  • Medea Rejuvenating Aeson
  • signed and inscribed by the artist on the reverse: Arazzi/ Medea/ CG.
  • oil on unlined canvas

Condition

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 painting has not been restored for many years. At present the canvas is un-lined and the reverse reveals an inscription and some spots of white filling added later. However, the paint layer itself is quite severely cracked and is extremely dirty. Although it seems that the condition is very good, despite the very uneven surface, there will be need for structural work but it is possible that lining the canvas could be avoided. It is very hard to positively identify any restoration however there are a couple of areas under the ultraviolet light, for instance between the two figures on the lower edge and in the lower center, which presumably are restorations. However, it is also likely that there are retouches around the edges and in other areas as yet undetected. It is a little unclear about the real condition of some of the darker colors in the upper background on the left and in the lower portion of the picture, but with careful conservation a very fresh and lively paint layer will be revealed.
"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."

Catalogue Note

Called by Ferdinand VI  in 1753 to the court of Madrid, Corrado Giaquinto was to spend nearly a decade in Spain, years that were to be amongst the most productive, creative, and influential of his career.  His position as the preeminent artistic figure in the country was confirmed by his appointment as Primer Pintor del Rey as well as director of the Academia di San Fernando, newly formed by the art-loving Ferdinand.  Almost all official artistic endeavors during his time in Spain were either supervised, approved or undertaken by Giaquinto, and as a result his style would exercise considerable influence on the younger generation of his fellow painters, including? amongst others? the young Francisco de Goya.  Along with his many roles at court, Giaquinto was also charged with the running of the Real Fábrica de Tapices y Alfombras de Santa Bárbara, the royal Spanish tapestry factory, located in Madrid.  There, in addition to more mundane responsibilities, he was charged with creating designs for manufacture, just as his immediate successors Mengs, and most famously Goya, would be later.1  The inscription "Arazzi" on the reverse of the canvas, in the artist's own hand, confirms that the present painting is a design for just such a wall-hanging, apparently never produced. 

The painting of bozzetti for many of his projects was typical of Giaquinto, and during his Spanish sojourn they became particularly free and immediate in their handling.  Using a gray ground, he painted rapidly but surely in bright colors, and his oil studies of these years have a particular beauty.  A number of other such studies have also survived unlined, and also bear similar inscriptions like the present canvas and in a similar order: the place or project for which they were intended, the subject, and finally the artist's signature in initials.2  Such care appears to have been typical of Giaquinto who was working simultaneously on numerous projects.   The subject of the present painting is derived from Ovid's Metamorphoses, book 7, when the sorceress Medea calls upon various deities to rejuvenate the father of her lover, Jason.

1.  For a discussion of some of Giaquinto's activity with the Santa Barbara factory, please see L. de Frutos Sastre, "Giaquinto copista y Giaquinto copiado: Participación de Corrado Giaquinto en la Real Fábrica de Tapices de Santa Bárbara," in Corrado Giaquinto y España, exhibition catalogue, Madrid 2006, pp. 57-73.
2.  These include a number of paintings still in the Spanish Royal collections (split between the Casita del Prínicpe, Escorial and the Palace of Zarzuela) amongst them a set of oil studies of Virtues and Muses which Corrado painted as designs for the decoration of the Escalera Principal in the Palacio Real, Madrid (see Madrid exhibition op. cit., p. 229 passim).