Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione called Il Grechetto

A. Orlando, Dipinti genovesi. Dal Cinquecento al Settecento. Ritrovamenti dal collezionismo privato, Turin 2010, p. 87, reproduced in colour.

The following condition report is provided by Hamish Dewar who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's. UNCONDITIONAL AND WITHOUT PREJUDICE Structural Condition The canvas has been lined and this is ensuring an even and secure structural support. There is what would appear to be a canvas join which runs horizontally across the painting and is approximately 14 cm above the lower horizontal framing edge. There is a second join approximately 56 cm below the upper horizontal edge which is identifiable on the reverse of the lining canvas. Paint Surface The paint surface has a reasonably even varnish layer and inspection under ultraviolet light shows several areas of retouching, the most significant of which are: 1) a band of retouching approximately 8 cm in depth running up from the lower horizontal framing edge and a similar band approximately 8 cm in depth running down from the upper horizontal framing edge, 2) lines of retouching covering the two canvas joins mentioned above, 3) a number of scattered retouchings in the dark shadows between the various birds and animals, 4) retouchings on the left and right vertical framing edges with a larger area coming out from the left vertical framing edge which measures approximately 12 x 10 cm and is in the dark shadows to the left of the duck, 5) retouchings on the head of the dog in the lower right of the composition, and 6) quite extensive retouchings in the sky particularly in the pale clouds, the great majority of which seem considerably larger than is really necessary and if required could be reduced with more careful inpainting. There may be other retouchings beneath the varnish layers which are not identifiable under ultra violet light. Summary The painting would therefore appear to be in reasonably good and stable condition and no further work is required.
"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."

Castiglione's painting shows Noah calling the animals into the Ark just before the Great Flood (Genesis 7, verses 1-9). It is a theme to which the artist returned on a number of occasions throughout his prolific career, in painted, graphic and engraved form.¹  This painting has been dated by Dr. Timothy J. Standring to circa 1659 (written communication to the owner, dated 18 November 2008), that is to a relatively late phase in Castiglione's career. Dr. Standring considers the present canvas to be entirely autograph. The "astonishingly spontaneous and painterly passages" evident throughout the picture are consistent with those found in Castiglione's paintings of this period.

The upright format of the painting is unusual in Castiglione's oeuvre, particularly for renditions of this subject, but it is not unique: one of the artist's first treatments of the subject is an etching, of vertical format, produced in Genoa in the late 1630s. In the ensuing decades he developed the theme in a number of variations, in both vertical and horizontal formats, in dry brush drawings on paper as well as in large canvas paintings. The composition here is directly related to two other variants on the theme - both of horizontal format and of equally large dimensions - in Dresden, Gemäldegalerie, and Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.²  The stooping figure of Noah is almost identical in each painting: he is shown wearing a red cloak, standing before the entrance to the Ark, flanked by a donkey laden with goods and a variety of animals whom he appears to be instructing. The chief difference between the three versions lies in the type and disposition of the animal pairs. Though generally very different, the monkeys (one in profile, one full frontal) are in both this and the Vienna picture (though in the latter they have been swapped around); the donkey, laden with wares and ducking behind a mound, is present in all three versions; and most obviously of all the head of a stag, which closes off the composition so effectively on the right, is a motif that also appears in the Vienna painting. The copper vessels, sieve and glazed earthenware jug on the donkey's back recur in numerous other paintings by Castiglione, though differently arranged, and may plausibly have been props in the artist's studio. It is not unusual for Castiglione to repeat specific figures or elements in his compositions: another such example is The Entry of the animals into the Ark in a Genoese private collection, which is signed and dated 1654, from which the figure of Noah and a man holding an urn are borrowed for a painting of the same subject in Nantes (though the man has been changed into a woman).³  The large white horse in that painting is repeated by Castiglione, also in profile, in other works, including The Animals leaving the Ark in the Pallavicini collection (as well as in its variant in another private collection).⁴

Both the Dresden and Vienna paintings have been dated circa 1650 which would suggest that the present work was executed around the same time. The painting technique of the present work does seem more consistent with works dating from the first half of the 1650s: compare, for example, Noah's drapery - with its broad, deep folds and sharp highlights - with those in The Sacrifice of Noah (Chiavari, Casa di Riposo 'Pietro Torriglia'), a work that is signed and dated 1653.⁵  The painting's dramatic skies and rich colour palette also find parallels in works of around this date, especially the painting of the same subject that is dated a year later (mentioned above). There too, the overall earthy tone is highlighted by bright touches of blue and red. The brushwork is spontaneous and free, Castiglione's distinctive parallel strokes differentiating between the texture (feathers or fur) and form of the various animals in the foreground. In his communication to the owner, Dr. Standring draws parallels with the present painting and a Sacrifice of Noah in a Genoese private collection, which is signed and dated 1659.⁶  Though a work of great intensity, demonstrating incredible confidence and freedom of execution, that painting repeats the composition of an earlier picture (in Chiavari, mentioned above), which was executed six years earlier. This serves to underline Castiglione's working method during the 1650s and the extent to which he borrowed elements from earlier designs for his re-interpretation of familiar subjects.

We are grateful to Dr. Timothy J. Standring for his assistance in cataloguing this lot. Dr. Standring plans to publish the painting in his forthcoming catalogue raisonné on the artist.

 

1.  Paintings of this subject executed in the artist's maturity, from the late 1640s onwards, include those at Nantes, Musée des Beaux-Arts; Dresden, Gemäldegalerie; Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum; Rome, Pallavicini collection (and its variant in a Genoese private collection): for a list of paintings of this subject by Castiglione see F. Lamera, in Il Genio di Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione il Grechetto, exhibition catalogue, Genoa, Accademia Ligustica di Belle Arti, 27 January - 1 April 1990, p. 133, under cat. no. 21. A drawing of the same subject is in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle (inv. RL 3903; published in exh. cat., op. cit., cat. no. 41, reproduced fig. 160). His earliest signed engraving of the subject is in the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi (inv. 100907; see exh. cat., ibid., p. 230, cat. no. 90, reproduced fig. 218). He also treated the theme in monotypes - a medium invented by Castiglione himself - an example of which is in the collection of the Duke & Duchess of Devonshire at Chatsworth (ibid., p. 245, cat. no. 101, reproduced fig. 229).
2.  Dresden, inv. no. 659, oil on canvas, 145 by 195 cm., reproduced in colour in Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister Dresden. Vol. I. Die Ausgestellten Werke, Cologne 2005, p. 83. Vienna, inv. no. 1645, oil on canvas, 94 by 126 cm., perhaps with some studio participation, reproduced in Die Gemäldegalerie des Kunsthistorisches Museums in Wien. Verzeichnis der Gemälde, Vienna 1991, plate 195, no. 1645.
3.  For the 1654 painting see exh. cat., ibid., p. 133, cat. no. 21, reproduced in colour p. 91, fig. 107.
4.  For the Pallavicini painting see T.J. Standring, "Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione il Grechetto", in La Pittura a Genova e in Liguria dal Seicento al primo Novecento, Genoa 1987, p. 164.
5.  See exh. cat., ibid., p. 131, cat. no. 19, reproduced in colour on p. 89, fig. 105.
6.  Ibid., p. 147, cat. no. 30, reproduced in colour p. 102, fig. 119.