Domenico Cresti, called Passignano

Possibly Marchese Filippo Niccolini (1655-1738), Florence;
With Reid and Lefevre, London, by 1959;
Private collection, London;
From whom acquired by the present collector.

Possibly F. Baldinucci, Notizie de' professori del disegno da Cimabue in qua, Florence 1728, p. 72, and in revised edition, F. Ranalli (ed.), Florence 1974, vol. IV, p. 307 (as in the collection of Marchese Filippo Niccolini);
A. Martini, “Un singolare dipinto del Passignano”, in Paragone, 109, January 1959, pp. 55-58, reproduced fig. 34 (as with Reid and Lefevre);
D. Heikamp, “Federico Zuccari a Firenze”, in Paragone, 205, March 1967, pp. 56, 66-67, note 62;
R. Contini, Bilivert, Florence 1985, p. 63, note 174;
J.L. Nissman in Il Seicento Fiorentino, Arte a Firenze da Ferdinando I a Cosimo III: Pittura, G. Guidi and D. Marcucci (ed.), Florence 1986, p. 119, reproduced p. 118;
M. Rocke, Forbidden friendships: homosexuality and male culture in Renaissance Florence, New York 1986, reproduced on the cover;
F. Baldassari, La Pittura del Seicento a Firenze, Indice degli artisti e delle loro opere, Turin 2009, p. 229;
S. Bellesi, Catalogo dei Pittori Fiorentini del ‘600 e ‘700, Florence 2009, vol. I, p. 115, reproduced vol. II, p. 176, fig. 363;
E. Bugerolles and D. Guillet in Raphael to Renoir: drawings from the collection of Jean Bonna, exhibition catalogue, New York 2009, p. 124, under cat. no. 56, reproduced fig. 59.

 

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 is a very busy and detailed composition, but it seems to have been painted rapidly. All of the lively energy in the work is still very well preserved. The varnish is slightly dull, but there is no reason to clean the work. If the varnish were freshened, the work would be ready to hang. There are hardly any restorations of note. There is one line of restorations in the top of the tower, and three or four larger restorations on the top edge in the center. Elsewhere in the sky, the retouches are limited to fairly small spots. Small random dots have been applied in the figures. There is also a line of restorations running vertically down the right side through the village beneath the hills, the wall of the castle and into the figures in the lower right corner. There is another group of restorations in the right leg of the acrobat standing with his back towards the viewer on the left side, and one other vertical restoration in the left thigh of the figure in the hat in the lower left. There is very little weakness in the darker colors, and the sky is surprisingly well preserved.
"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 painting, with the direct and frank approach to its subject matter, should be considered perhaps the most important artistic example of homoerotic art of the late Mannerist period.  A deep appreciation for the beauty of the male body is woven throughout this large and inventive composition.  In the foreground, densely arranged groups of nude figures bathe and relax in the cool waters of the Arno River in Florence.  A few remnants of their discarded clothing are strewn about, and their smooth, soft skin glistens in the midday sun.  The curving musculature and the varied forms of their interwoven bodies provide a pleasing contrast to the lines and crenellation of San Niccolò’s architecture in the background, including the old grain mill and the Porta that was erected in 1324 and remains standing today. Although it has some historical precedent, this painting is a near unique visual document that provides a modern audience with a sympathetic insight into an otherwise largely ignored aspect of Italian society at the very opening of the seventeenth century.

The renowned Tuscan painter Domenico Cresti, called Passignano, completed this impressive painting in Florence in 1600 during a very prosperous period of his career. The steady supply of commissions that Passignano received throughout his lifetime were almost all religious, mythological, and historical in subject. Thus, as a genre scene, The Bathers at San Niccolò remains a unique example within Passignano’s corpus, yet passages within the painting still echo elements from earlier in the artist’s career.  For example, in the late 1570s Passignano assisted his teacher, Federico Zuccari (1542-1609), in completing the ceiling of the Duomo in Florence.  One section of the ceiling he is thought to have worked on was the Inferno scene, which includes a number male nude figures in various acrobatic poses, similar to the athletic postures of the men in the present work.  Furthermore, the two male figures that dominate the immediate foreground of the present work recall Passignano’s semi-nude and muscular males that serve as repoussoir elements—details placed in the immediate foreground to increase the sense of depth in the image—for the frescoes in the Salviati Chapel in San Marco (c. 1589).  Rather than augment the sense of depth, however, the two figures in The Bathers at San Niccolò envelop the foreground and serve as anchors for the inventive perspective that Passignano has employed. 

The historical precedence for this subject matter and setting can be found in works of the masters that preceded Passignano as well in the works of Zuccari, with whom the artist began working in the 1570s.  Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci were known to have explored the tradition of executing figure studies at public baths, and this practice of drawing directly from life and nature was perhaps one of Federico Zuccari’s most lasting influences on Passignano. Indeed, the spontaneity of the groupings of the figures in the painting, as well as the individuality of their appearances and poses seem to suggest that Passignano was making studies and observations directly from the Florentine life around him.  In fact, a number of red chalk nude studies that mirror many of the poses found within The Bathers at San Niccolò can be found in a number of collections, including the Uffizi and the Musée du Louvre (fig. 1).  Finally, one would be remiss to not mention that Zuccari himself completed a drawing of bathers on the banks of at San Niccolò in the 1570s (fig. 2), and even if Passignano was familiar with this work of his teacher’s, he transformed the scene into a grand composition of his own accord. 

The sensual theme portrayed may seem unusual, but some have suggested that a point of reference for this subject matter be the Battle of Càscina, a clash between the Florentine and the Pisan armies. In his chronicle of the battle, Filippo Villani notes that as the Florentine army advanced to Cascina, just outside of Pisa, on an unbearably hot day, they decided to remove their burning armor and recover from the heat by bathing in the waters of the Arno.  With their guard down and defenses relaxed, Pisan spies reported the situation to their commander who then set out to launch a surprise attack on the Florentines.  The Florentines, however, were warned of this surprise attack through a distant trumpet and quickly armed themselves to meet the Pisans back on the road.  Refreshed and revitalized, the Florentines quickly returned to the battlefield, ultimately defeating the worn and tired Pisan forces.  In 1504, Michelangelo was commissioned to create a fresco for the Florentine Room of the Great Council depicting the Battle of Cascinà.  While he never completed the fresco, he did complete a number of studies and a full sized cartoon for the work.  The cartoon no longer remains intact, but its original format is known through numerous engravings of the work, including that of Michelangelo’s pupil Aristotele da Sangallo (fig. 3).  This engraving demonstrates Michelangelo’s intention of capturing the pivotal moment of the nude Florentine army leaping out of the Arno river to re-arm themselves.  The dynamism and vitality of the figures woven throughout the engraving have counterparts within The Bathers at San Niccolò.

In his 1959 article, Alberto Martini notes Mina Gregori’s suggestion that the present painting could possibly be the one referenced in Baldinucci’s recordings of the works of Bilivert.¹  In his early writings, Baldinucci had drawn a connection between a painting by Bilivert in the Marchese Filippo Niccolini collection (formerly in the Riccardi collection) and another painting in the Niccolini collection by Domenico Passignano he describes as “figure la città di Firenze col fiume d’Arno e diverse femmine in atto di bagnarsi”.² While on the one hand it can be suggested that perhaps Baldinucci only knew of the painting by Passignano but never saw it in person and assumed the swimmers were female, J.L. Nissman on the other hand has suggested that Baldinucci might have conflated the Passignano painting with another painting known to be in the Niccolini collection of Cloelia and the Tiber, which is a scene that often includes a number of female swimmers.³   

1. See Martini, under Literature.
2. See Baldinucci, under Literature.
3. See Nissman, under Literature.