Bartolomeo Cavarozzi

The Collection of Antonio Vives, Madrid, 1939;

Private collection;

The Barbara Piasecka Johnson Collection, 1989.

Warsaw, The Royal Castle, Opus Sacrum, 10 April – 23 September 1990, no. 28 (as Caravaggio);

Rome, Palazzo Ruspoli, Caravaggio. Come nascono i Capolavori, 26 March – 24 May 1992, no. 6 (as Caravaggio);

Thessaloniki, Royal Palace, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio and His first Followers, 16 April – 15 June 1997 (as Caravaggio); 

Madrid, The Prado and Bilbao, Nuseo de Bellas Artes, Caravaggio, 21 September– 23 November 1999 and 28 November 1999 – 31 January 2000 (as Caravaggio);

Bergamo, Accademia Carrara di Belle Arti, La Luce del Vero, Caravaggio, La Tour, Rembrandt, Zurbarán, 10 September – 17 September 2000, no. 1 (as Caravaggio);

Rome, Palazzo Venezia, Caravaggio e il genio di Roma, 1592–1623, 10 May – 31 July 2001, no. 20 (as attributed to Caravaggio);

Seville, Hospital de Los Venerables, 29 November 2005 – 28 February 2006, and Bilbao, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 20 March – 18 June 2006, De Herrera a Velázquez; el primer naturalismo en Sevilla, no. 21 (as Caravaggio);

Trapani, Museo Pepoli, Caravaggio, L'immagine del divino, 15 December 2007 – 14 March 2008, no. 3 (as Caravaggio);

Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada, Caravaggio and His Followers in Rome, 17 June – 11 September 2011, no. 53 (as Caravaggio).

Possibly J. Ainaud de Lasarte, 'Ribalta y Caravaggio', in Anales y Boletín de los museos de arte de Barcelona, Madrid 1947 pp. 385–86, cat. no. 16;

M. Gregori, 'Il Sacrificio di Isacco: un inedito e considerazioni su una fase savoldesca del Caravaggio', in Artibus et Historiae, X, 1989, vol. 20, pp. 99–142 (as Caravaggio);

M. Gregori, in J. Grabski (ed.), Opus Sacrum, Catalogue of the Exhibition from the Collection of Barbara Piasecka Johnson, Warsaw 1990, pp. 166–173, cat. no. 28 (as Caravaggio, noting the many affinities with the St John the Baptist in Toledo);

M. Marini, 'Caravaggio y España: momentos de Historia y de Pintura entre la Naturalezza y la Fe', in Caravaggio, exhibition catalogue, Milan 1990 (as Caravaggio); 

M. Gregori in Caravaggio. Come nascono i Capolavori, exhibition catalogue, Florence  1991, pp. 152–73, cat. no. 6, reproduced in colour (as Caravaggio);

M. Cinotti, Caravaggio: La vita e l'opera, Bergamo 1991, p. 200, cat. no. 18;

F. Bologna, L’incredulità del Caravaggio e l’esperienza delle 'cose naturali', Turin 1992, pp. 320–21 (as Cavarozzi and datable 1601–02, when the Caravaggism of Cavarozzi came into contact with that of early Simon Vouet);

M. Gregori, Caravaggio, Milan 1994, p. 13, reproduced in colour p. 15 (as Caravaggio, circa 1597–98);

M. Gallo, 'Il Sacrificio di Isacco di Caravaggio agli Uffizi come meccanica visiva della satisfacio', in S. Macioce (ed.), Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, La vita e le opere attraverso i documenti. Atti del convegno internezionale di studi, Novembre 1995, Rome 1996, pp. 331–32, reproduced p. 360 (as attributed to Caravaggio);

S. Sciuti et al., 'Analisi non distruttive e riflettografie a infrarossi su alcuni dipinti del Caravaggio esposti in Palazzo Ruspoli', in M. Gregori (ed), Come dipingeva il Caravaggio: atti della giornata di studio, Milan 1996, pp. 70, 73, 82–85 (as Caravaggio);

M. Marini in M. Gregori (ed.), Come dipingeva il Caravaggio: atti della giornata di studio, Milan 1996, p. 140, note 6 (as Caravaggio);

M. Gregori in, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio and His first Followers, exhibition catalogue, Thessaloniki 1997, pp. 74–82 (as Caravaggio);

C. R. Puglisi, Caravaggio, London 1998, p. 397, cat. no. 8 (as doubtfully attributed to Caravaggio and an attribution to Cavarozzi considered more likely);

M. Gregori in Caravaggio, exhibition catalogue, Madrid 1999, pp. 92–93, (as Caravaggio);

M. Marini, 'Caravaggio y España: momentos de Historia y de Pintura entre la Naturaleza y la Fe', in C. Strinati and R. Vodret (eds), Caravaggio, exhibition catalogue, Madrid 1999, pp. 30–32, 46, n. 13, reproduced p. 31 (as Caravaggio, circa 1600–02);

M. Gregori in La Luce del vero. Caravaggio, La Tour, Rembrandt, Zurbarán, exhibition catalogue, Cinisello Balsamo 2000, pp. 82–87, cat. no. 1, reproduced in colour pp. 83–85 (as Caravaggio);

J. Spike, Caravaggio, New York/London 2001, pp. 340–41, cat. no. 94 (under 'Other works attributed to Caravaggio'; 'The work is evidently by the same hand as the Saint John the Baptist in Toledo…a work whose attribution is debated between Cavorozzi and Caravaggio');

M. Marini in C. Strinati (ed.), Caravaggio e il genio di Roma, 1592–1623, exhibition catalogue, Milan 2001, pp. 42–43, cat. no. 20, reproduced in colour (as attributed to Caravaggio);

M. Marini, Caravaggio pictor Praestantissimus. L’iter artistico completeo di uno dei massimi rivoluzionari dell’arte di tutti i tempi, Rome 2001, pp. 474–75, cat. no. 57 (as Caravaggio);

A. E. Pérez Sánchez and B. Navarrete (eds), De Herrera a Velázquez; el primer naturalismo en Sevilla, Bilbao 2005, pp. 170–71, cat. no. 21, reproduced in colour (as Caravaggio);

F. Bologna, L’incredulita del Caravaggio e L’esperienza delle ‘cose naturali’, Milan 2006, pp. 320–321, cat. no. 48 (as Cavorozzi, closely inspired by early Simon Vouet);

M. Marini, Michaelangelo da Caravaggio 1602: ‘La notte di Abramo’/Michelangelo da Caravaggio 1602: ‘The night of Abraham’, Rome 2007, pp. 90–93, reproduced (as Caravaggio);

D. Mahon (ed.), Caravaggio, L'immagine del divino, exhibition catalogue, Rome 2007, unpaginated, cat. no. 3, reproduced in colour (as Caravaggio);

S. Schütze, Caravaggio: The Complete Works, Cologne 2009, p. 289, cat. no. 71, reproduced in colour (under 'Catalogue of Attributed Paintings', citing Gregori’s acceptance of the work as an autograph Caravaggio, 'an attribution that is also accepted by Marini but has yet to gain wide support');

M. Marini, 'La luce del Caravaggio e la natura di Spagna', in A. Zuccari (ed.), I Caravaggeschi, Percorsi e protagonisti, Milan 2010, vol. I, p. 216–18, 242, n. 7, reproduced in colour (as attributed to Caravaggio);

M. Pupillo, 'Bartolomeo Cavarozzi', in A. Zuccari (ed.), I Caravaggeschi, Percorsi e protagonisti, Milan 2010, vol. II, pp. 356 and 359, n. 33 (as Cavarozzi, painted in Spain);

M. von Bernstorff, Agent und Maler als Akteure im Kunstbetrieb des frühen 17 Jahrhunderts; Giovanni Battista Crescenzi und Bartolomeo Cavarozzi, Roemische Studien der Bibliotheca Hertziana, vol. 28, Munich 2010, pp. 155–60, reproduced p. 158, fig. 69 and colour plate 11a (as Cavarozzi);

R. E. Spear, 'Caravaggiomania', in Art in America, December 2010, vol. 98, p. 120, reproduced in colour (as Cavarozzi); 

R. E. Spear, 'Caravaggio and his Roman followers', review of the Ottawa–Fort Worth exhibition in the Burlington Magazine, September 2011, vol. CLIII, no. 1302, p. 635 (as Cavarozzi);

D. Franklin and S. Schütze (eds), Caravaggio and His Followers in Rome, exhibition catalogue, Florence 2011, pp. 275–77, 321, cat. no. 53, reproduced in colour p. 273 (listed as by Caravaggio but an alternative attribution to Cavarozzi is listed in the catalogue);

W. Prohaska, review of 'Agent und Maler als Akteure im Kunstbetrieb des frühen 17 Jahrhunderts; Giovanni Battista Crescenzi und Bartolomeo Cavarozzi, Der Maler und sein Agent: eine Doppelmonographie zu Cavarozzi und Crescenzi', in Kunstchronik, 66, 5, May 2013, p. 246 (as Cavarozzi);

G. Papi, 'Gli anni oscuri di Bartolomeo Cavarozzi', in Storia dell'arte, vol. 135, May–August 2013, p. 79 (as by Cavarozzi, painted circa 1615–16).

The following condition report is provided by Sarah Walden who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's: Bartolomeo Cavarozzi. Sacrifice of Isaac. This painting has a recent lining and stretcher, and is protected behind by a Perspex backboard. The texture has been well preserved, uncrushed and with impasto often intact. In the past the stretcher bar lines became fairly marked at one time, with some brittleness around the outer edges on all sides, although particularly along the base edge with small knocks near the middle of the left edge. As with large paintings generally there are some old accidental damages, mainly in the background, which are now firmly secured by the lining: a horizontal line (about 4 inches long) above the head of the angel, two old vertical creases and/ or partial tears in the upper right background, a three cornered tear under Abraham's hand on Isaac's head with a vertical that rises through his hand into the background for another 12 inches, with one other three cornered tear in Isaac's shadow. At lower right near the base edge on Isaac's arm and hand there is also a carefully retouched knock, with slight retouching in his loin cloth and in the shadow across his forehead. Other small touches can be seen under ultra violet light in his leg beneath the knife, occasionally in Abraham's head, around the end of his beard, little touches in the ram's head, a touch around one of the angel's fingers and light touches around the back of the angel's head, perhaps muting a pentiment? Other pentimenti such as along the line of Isaac's shoulder can be seen in places. The magnificent overall condition however has been finely preserved in the quite recent restoration, with the Caravaggiesque chiaroscuro richly intact, with remarkably little wear. 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."

This masterpiece of early naturalism was painted around 1617, probably in Spain, by Bartolomeo Cavarozzi, one of Caravaggio’s most successful and accomplished followers. Such are its quality and dramatic impact that for several years after its rediscovery in 1987 the painting was associated with Caravaggio himself and it has been exhibited as such numerous times in the recent past. The cinematographic intensity of the spot-lit scene is tempered by a serenity unexpected in a depiction of one of the Old Testament's most enigmatic and potentially catastrophic episodes which is recounted in Genesis 22. The unusually good condition allows us to appreciate the full extent of the painterly bravura in the sublime chiaroscuro effect, the modelling and foreshortening, the shimmering textures, and the remarkable still-life elements. The painting is nothing short of the summa of the artist’s œuvre and attains a quality never to be surpassed either by his contemporaries nor by Cavarozzi himself. The beauty of the work will without doubt encourage scholars to re-evaluate Cavarozzi's fundamental impact in the development of both the Caravaggesque movement and seventeenth-century painting generally.

The composition had been known for many years from old copies and was first associated with Caravaggio by Juan Ainaud de Lasarte (see Literature). The large number of copies attests to the importance of the composition and the effect it had on contemporary painters so it was understandable that the presumed lost original was proposed to be by Caravaggio, particularly when the composition was viewed through the distorting prism of a copy.¹ When the prototype – undoubtedly the present picture – was finally discovered in Spain it was hailed by Mina Gregori (see Literature, 1989) and others as the lost Caravaggio, and datable circa 1598, thereby preceding the celebrated painting of the same subject from 1603 by Caravaggio, today in the Uffizi in Florence (see fig. 1). Conjectural hypotheses advanced the idea that the painting made its way from Rome to Naples and left soon after for Spain with the collection of Don Pedro Téllez y Girón, Duke of Osuna and Viceroy of Naples from 1616–20. Before his time in Naples Osuna had been Viceroy of Sicily and is known to have made numerous trips to Rome, during one of which he could have acquired the present work. This would account for the copies known in Naples. The painting’s first stop would have been in Valladolid (where a copy is known nearby in Peñafiel), Osuna’s native city, before possibly being recorded as part of the dowry of Dona Antonia Cecilia Fernandez de Hijar on the occasion of her marriage to Don José Fuentebuena (or Fombuena), later Marqués of Lierta.²

Revisionist scholarship has proposed a more likely solution to the painting’s attribution and history. It is in fact far more likely to have been painted by Cavarozzi in Spain soon after his arrival there in 1617. That would certainly account for the overwhelming majority of the copies being in that country, many of them recorded in and around Toledo. The painting’s links to Spain, however, go further for it displays remarkably close stylistic affinities with a Saint John the Baptist in the cathedral in Toledo (see fig. 2). Also ascribed by some to Caravaggio but today overwhelmingly thought to be a beautiful work by Cavarozzi, the Toledo picture shares with the present work the same model used for the figure of Isaac and is imbued with an interest in light and texture that displays an evident understanding of Caravaggio’s radical innovations but, like the present work, points to a marked stylistic development and evolution in the Caravaggesque style. It also confirms to what extent Cavarozzi’s art had matured since his early works in Rome.

Born in Viterbo in 1587, Cavarozzi arrived in Rome in circa 1600. He soon came into contact with the Crescenzi family, who would become his most important patrons: not only would Cavarozzi study in the academy of art established by Giovanni Battista Crescenzi (1577–1635) but he eventually assumed the name of Bartolomeo del Crescenzi. He moved into the family palazzo near the Pantheon, where he was probably trained by the late-mannerist painter Cristoforo Roncalli, known as Pomarancio, who was also closely associated with the Crescenzi family. Pomarancio's influence can be felt in Cavarozzi's earliest known work, dated 1608, a Saint Ursula and her Companions, today in the church of San Marco in Rome.³ Compared with Cavarozzi’s later Caravaggesque phase it is a rather dull work which embodies that turn-of-the-century style of Roman art which had not yet embraced or understood Caravaggism. Little is known of Cavarozzi’s œuvre during the first half of the 1610s but by around 1615 he had fully adopted Caravaggio's manner. His best pictures from this period include: The Disputation of Saint Stephen, in a private collection, which fuses the influences of Caravaggio and Pomarancio; the Supper at Emmaus, in the Getty, Los Angeles; and a Saint Jerome with two angels from 1617, in the Pitti Gallery, Florence, in which an angel very similar to the one in the present work can be seen.⁴ The latter masterfully displays the raking light which defines the tenebrist style but is imbued with a gentleness which strays from the usual tension and action of Caravaggio's paintings. The still-life elements and figures are portrayed in the same naturalist spirit as Caravaggio but with a softer and more graceful lyricism, much as in the present work.

Towards the end of 1617 Cavarozzi travelled with Crescenzi to Madrid in the retinue of Cardinal Antonio Zapata Cisneros (1550–1635) for an unknown period of time, though he is recorded back in Rome by 1621. Crescenzi and Cavarozzi were to have a lasting effect on Spanish art: the former became an arbiter of taste at the court in Madrid, helping with the decorations of the Escorial and being awarded the title of Marchese de la Torre and Knight of Santiago by King Phillip III; the latter was to influence subsequent artists key to the Spanish school, among them Zurbarán, Velázquez and Murillo, in part through his Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine from 1617–19 in the Prado, but mostly by introducing his unique interpretation of the Caravaggesque vision which offered a more accessible alternative to Caravaggio's violence. Though there is no documentary evidence, stylistically everything points to the aforementioned Saint John the Baptist in Toledo (fig. 2) being by Cavarozzi, an idea first proposed by Longhi as long ago as 1943.⁵ The fact that Cardinal Zapata himself was the administrator of the Toledan Archdiocese and governor of the cathedral surely lends weight to a stylistic attribution which is entirely convincing. The handling of the background foliage of the Saint John is entirely in keeping with the still-life elements in Cavarozzi’s work, both in the various versions of the Lament of Arminta and in the Supper at Emmaus, while the physiognomy of the youth, the play of shadows and the three-dimensionality of the folds all point to the same hand as the author of the Getty Emmaus.⁶ Gianni Papi has in fact convincingly proposed that the 'Master of the Acquavella Still Life', Cavarozzi's supposed collaborator who specialised in still lifes, was Cavarozzi himself.⁷ The still-life elements in the Saint Jerome, Lament of Arminta and Emmaus do indeed point to an accomplished and independent painter of still life, and support Papi's theory that they are by Cavarozzi’s own hand. The case is made all the more explicit in the careful realism of the present work, for example in the shadow from the curls on Abraham’s neck, the great care taken to describe the wide range of textures in the folds of drapery but also in the ram’s wool, the figures' hair and beard, and in the angel’s wings. The quality of the smouldering log, lower right, is of the very first order, comparable to the best still lifes from any period.

Though the attribution to Caravaggio for the present work proposed by Gregori and others cannot be upheld, comparison with Caravaggio’s painting of the same subject (fig. 1) provides a useful example of how Caravaggio and Cavarozzi’s interests varied. The latter did not necessarily see the Uffizi picture, which had been painted for Cardinal Maffeo Barberini around 1603 in Rome, but he did benefit from witnessing his contemporaries’ reactions to Caravaggio's revolutionary style in the years before his departure for Spain. While the two pictures show the same moment on Mount Moriah, when the angel of the Lord stopped Abraham from taking his son's life, the artistic interpretation could not be more different. The Uffizi picture, set in daytime, stands out for its violence and physical harshness, particularly in the tension running through Abraham's body and arms as the screaming Isaac is pinned down. The angel, pointing towards Canaan, the Promised Land which Abraham has now earned for himself and his offspring, takes on a more human appearance than in the present work, his wings just visible, his strong arms bare. Cavarozzi’s interpretation shows to what extent he had absorbed Caravaggio’s style and made it his own: darkness, surely indicative of Abraham's confusion, is all around him; the movements are gentle, with a surprising calm dominating the scene as the ethereal angel silently holds back Abraham’s arm. Both Abraham and Isaac have their faces in shadow and away from the light source which pierces the composition from the right. By contrast, it is almost exclusively the elements of salvation, both spiritually and physically, which are directly illuminated: the serene face of the angel who prevents the murder; the ram which the angel ushers into the scene and which will be sacrificed in the place of Isaac; Abraham’s hands, one of which holds the knife which is moments away from killing Isaac, the other which holds Isaac still; the small meticulously observed pyre, lower right, which will consume the sacrifice.

The spiritual message of the story lends itself well to the psychological intensity of the baroque aesthetic. Through the drama of the acute pain and fear both father and son must have been experiencing, the viewer is drawn into the potential meaning of the events which took place on Mount Moriah: the sacrifice of the son is an obvious prefiguration of the Crucifixion, with the wood of the pyre to be replaced in the future by the wood of the Cross. The sheep also plays its role: in this case it will be sacrificed instead of Isaac but in the future it would be Jesus, the lamb of God Himself, who would be sacrificed to redeem mankind’s sins. The Apostle Paul identified the story as the ultimate exemplum of Faith (Hebrews 11: 17–19). While today it may raise uncomfortable questions about the nature of a deity who would demand such an act from his faithful servant, the seventeenth-century mind, steeped in post-Tridentine theology, would instead have focused on Abraham’s submission and obedience through faith. He was to be proved right for it was his very obedience which resulted in the ultimate blessing for Abraham: God announced that ‘by your offspring shall all the nations of the earth gain blessing for themselves, because you obeyed my voice’ (Genesis 22: 18). For the Old Testament mind, that was some reward for a man who not long before believed that he and his wife Sarah would die childless.

 

1. Alfred Moir, in his Caravaggio and His Copyists, New York 1976, pp. 117–18, lists 16 copies, only a handful of which are in Italy and the rest in Iberia. Bernstorff, see Literature, lists a further three. One copy, sold Rome, Christie’s, 13 April 1989, lot 188, was exhibited by D. Mahon et al. as an autograph second version of the present work and as by Caravaggio (see Mahon, under Literature, cat. no. 4).
2. See Ainaud de Lasarte, under Literature, p. 386, note 73, who quotes V. Carderera, Discursos practicables del nobilísimo Arte de la Pintura, Madrid 1866, p. 215 ff: 'Un quadro de Abraham y sacrificio de Isaac di Michael Angelo Carabaggio', valued at 200 libbre.
3. See D. Sanguineti, Bartolomeo Cavarozzi, 'Sacre Famiglie' a confronto, exhibition catalogue, Turin 2005, p. 14, reproduced fig. 1.
4. Ibid., pp. 16–17, reproduced respectively figs 3, 5 and 6.
5. See R. Longhi, 'Ultimi studi sul Caravaggio e la sua cerchia', in Proporzioni, 1, 1943, p. 54, note 69.
6. Sanguineti, op. cit., p. 15, reproduced fig. 2.
7. See G. Papi, 'Riflessioni sul percorso caravaggesco di Bartolomeo Cavarozzi', in Paragone, 1999, vols 5–6–7, pp. 85–96.