Lot 7
  • 7

Luca Giordano

Estimate
40,000 - 60,000 USD
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Description

  • Luca Giordano
  • Saint Anne and the young Virgin blessed by God the Father and the Holy Ghost with Saints Sebastian, James the Greater, Ignatius and another male saint
  • oil on canvas
  • 52 3/4  by 27 5/8  in.; 134 by 70.2 cm.

Provenance

Lucano, Rome;
Dr. and Mrs. Richard H. Rush, Rye, New York;
By whom (anonymously) sold, New York, Sotheby Parke-Bernet, 6 December 1973, lot 79;
There acquired by E. Sacerdoti;
Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 8 July 1977, lot 110;
Where acquired.

Exhibited

New York, Finch College Museum of Art, Neapolitan Masters of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, 31 October - 15 December 1962, no. 27;
New York, Finch College Museum of Art, The Richard H. Rush Collection, 25 February - 25 April 1971, no. 31.

Literature

R. Manning, in Neapolitan Masters of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, exhibition catalogue, New York 1962, cat. no. 27, reproduced (as a bozzetto for the altarpiece in Santa Maria in Campitelli, Rome);
M. Milkovich, in Luca Giordano in America: paintings, drawings, prints, exhibition catalogue, Memphis 1964, p. 40;
O. Ferrari and G. Scavizzi, Luca Giordano, Catalogo delle Opere, Naples 1966, vol. 2, pp. 144-45, reproduced vol. 3, fig. 278;
O. Ferrari, Bozzetti italiani dal Manierismo al Barocco, Naples 1990, p. 159;
O. Ferrari and G. Scavizzi, Luca Giordano. L'opera completa, Naples 1992, vol. I, p. 314, cat. no. A384, reproduced vol. II, p. 668, fig. 492;
O. Ferrari and G. Scavizzi, Luca Giordano, Nuove ricerche e inediti, Naples 2003, p. 73, under cat. no. A0161;
G. Scavizzi, Luca Giordano, his life and work, Naples 2017, p. 160, reproduced p. 163, fig. 56.

Condition

The canvas is either unlined or has a thin relining. The overall condition of this painting is very healthy. The detailing and shading throughout are well preserved. The surface is dirty, and would likely respond well to a cleaning. It would also brighten considerably. UV light reveals only a few small scattered retouches in the outer edges of the composition. In a carved and gilt wood frame.
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Catalogue Note

This painting is a bozzetto for Giordano’s altarpiece of 1685 in the chapel of Saint Anne in Santa Maria in Campitelli, Rome.  The artist made numerous revisions to the final composition, most notably removing the figures of the three male saints seen here in the foreground and replacing them with the single figure of Saint Joseph at lower right and a kneeling angel at the left side.  Another bozzetto for the project, considered by Ferrari and Scavizzi to be an earlier rendition, shows a more defined architectural setting which Giordano simplified in the present sketch and the final work.1  

1.  See O. Ferrari and G. Scavizzi, Naples 2003, under Literature, p. 182, reproduced fig. A0161.