Mirabello Cavalori

Zuckermandel collection;
By whom sold, Munich, Galerie Hugo Helbing, 5-6 June 1930 (as by Francesco Salviati).

I.H. Cheney, Franceso Salviati, A dissertation in the Department of Fine Arts, New York 1963, p. 487 (as by Francesco Salviati);
L. Mortari, Francesco Salviati, Rome 1992, p. 160, no. 180 (as Venetian School).

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 on panel has received two horizontal reinforcements across the back. These reinforcements are unlikely to be original, but were probably applied in the 17th or 18th century. The panel seems to be made from four or possibly five sections of wood, joined vertically. The panel is more or less flat, and the paint layer is stable throughout. The original panel joins are very secure and have given rise to only a few intermittent losses. The painting is well restored, and should be hung in its current condition. The retouching is hard to detect under ultraviolet light, but with the naked eye, it seems that the pale grey curtain behind the figure may have received restoration to reduce some interference of the original ground color. The retouches are very accurate where they are visible under ultraviolet light in the hands. While this is certainly not a picture without restoration, and in fact some areas may have been quite broadly restored, the painting looks well and I approve of the retouches.
"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."

Though Luisa Mortari erroneously describes this Portrait of a Seated Man Holding a Book as by an anonymous Venetian artist (see Literature), the the handling, dress, scale, and composition all point to a Florentine source in direct line with Mirabelo Cavalori. Cavalori was a successful painter of both portraits and religious scenes, but surviving works by him are rare. Born in Salincorno, near Montefortino, he was active mainly in Florence, where Francesco Salviati, who was also highly active at that time, would have been a direct influence. His linear and Mannerist portrait style does indeed bear marked similarities with that of Salviati, and this work has been previously given to him (see Provenance). Cavalori's best known works are Lavinia at the Altar, and A Wool Factory, both of which he painted circa 1570-2 to decorate the Studiolo of Francesco I de' Medici in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence.

The sitter provides us with no clues as to his identity: he is elegantly dressed but not ostentatiously so and he rests his right hand upon a red leather bound book, a not so subtle allusion to his erudition. Furthermore, the careful handling of light as it plays off of the cheeks and skin of the sitter are entirely characteristic of Cavalori and the group of artists who, in the 1560s, helped define a new mode of expression in Mannerist portraiture as they infused a greater naturalness into the stoic formal conventions of the genre.

Carlo Falciani endorses the attribution to Cavalori, calling it a major addition to the artist's oeuvre, and dates it to the first half of the 1560’s (private correspondence, 2011).