Francesco Albani

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 work has been restored and is in beautiful condition. The copper plate on which it is painted is flat and unreinforced. The paint layer is stable. No restorations are visible to the figures. There seem to be a few small retouches in the dark colors of the upper background and on the left. The condition throughout is impressive.
"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."

We are grateful to Prof. Catherine R. Puglisi for confirming this painting to be an autograph work by Albani, based on firsthand inspection.

The composition is identical to another copper by the artist, of almost the same dimensions, sold in these rooms on 25 January 2007, lot 42.  Small, highly finished cabinet pictures were a specialty of Albani’s production and proved to be enormously popular with collectors, especially in France.  Many were painted on copper, a technique he had learned during his years working in the studio of Denys Calvaert, a Flemish artist who had settled in Bologna and operated a successful workshop.  This devotional image of the Holy Family appears to have been particularly popular and it is known in a number of variations.  Another example, in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, shows the same grouping of the central figures, but with the addition of two adoring angels seen in profile at the left side, suggesting that it may have been conceived as a Flight into Egypt.¹  Another variant is in the collection of the Earl of Yarborough at Brocklesby park which includes the same two angels, but depicts the Madonna with her head turned towards Joseph who leans on a carved stone plinth and rests his head on his left hand.²

Stylistically, the Holy Family would appear to date from Albani’s sojourn in Rome circa 1608-10.  During the summer of 1609, he worked in close proximity to Domenichino on frescoes for the Palazzo Giustiniani in Bassano di Sutri (now Palazzo Odescalchi, Bassano Romano).  The influence of Domenichino’s Latona Nursing Apollo and Diana is perceptible in the present composition in the physiognomy and direct gaze of the Madonna. 

A Holy Family by Albani of the present composition was in the collection of Lucien Bonaparte in the early 19^th century and was engraved by Antonio Banzo in 1812.³  The painting sold at auction in 2007 was assumed to be identifiable with the Bonaparte painting, though the appearance of the present autograph version now makes this less certain.

1.  See C.R. Puglisi, Francesco Albani, New Haven and London 1999, p. 111, cat. no. 32.V.a, reproduced pl. 54.
2.  Ibid, p. 111, cat. no. 32, reproduced pl. 53.
3.  See Choix de gravures à l'eau-forte d'après les peintures originales...de la galerie de Lucien Bonaparte, London 1812, no. 102, engraved by Banzo, no. 45.