Giovanni Francesco Caroto

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 on panel is unreinforced. There is an old join running vertically through the center of the face and a repaired crack in the panel in the lower right corner. No retouches are clearly visible under ultraviolet light, except on the profile of the shoulder in the far right. It seems more than likely that the varnish applied to the work does not allow identification of retouches under ultraviolet light. There are probably careful and effective retouches beneath this varnish that were added to address thinness and cracking. While the condition may not be particularly good, the work looks well and could be hung in its current state.
"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This arresting portrait, unpublished until now, is typical of the work of the Veronese painter, Giovanni Francesco Caroto.  The soft contours of the flesh and smooth treatment of the eyes contrasts with the rapid, broad brushstrokes representing the silk gown in a way that is entirely characteristic of Caroto.  The composition is known in a second version of the same dimensions, once in the collection of Prince Leopold of Prussia (1865-1931), which was published in 1972 in the Bolaffi dictionary of Italian painters and engravers as a work by Giovanni Cariani.¹ When compiling their catalogue raisonné in 1983, Rodolfo Pallucchini and Francesco Rossi excluded the possibility of that version being by Cariani on account of its distinctly Veronese quality and noting its affinity instead with Caroto’s style.²  The present painting varies very slightly from the published version in the loops of ribbon at the sitters right shoulder, the folds of her puffed sleeve and the length of the ringlets at the right side of her face.

 

1. "Cariani Giovanni," in Dizionario Enciclopedico Bolaffi dei pittori e degli incisori italiani, Turin 1972, vol. III, p. 60. 
2. R. Pallucchini and F. Rossi, Giovanni Cariani, Bergamo 1983, p. 364, cat. no. V66 (the published image is cropped, omitting the lower section of the sitter’s bodice).