FRANCESCO ALBANI | TOILET OF VENUS

Anonymous sale, London, Bonhams, 25 April 2018, lot 127 (as Circle of Francesco Albani);

Where acquired by the present owner. 

Even during his lifetime, Francesco Albani's reputation was high not only in Italy but also outside, especially in France and England. In his brief life of the painter, written within forty years of Albani's death, the French critic Roger de Piles observed that '...as he [Albani] usually painted on a small scale, his paintings are scattered like precious gems throughout Europe. They have commanded a high price, especially recently. They have become very much in fashion, and being learned and enjoyable, they please everyone'.¹ This particular composition perfectly reflects Albani's fame, for it was famous in all three countries, notably in France, where an expanded and adapted version of The Toilet of Venus formed part of the so-called ‘Louvre Cycle’, which entered that museum as a purchase by Louis XIV in 1684.

In addition to the above mentioned Louvre prototype, a nearly contemporary variant of equal prominence is that which formed part of the Borghese Cycle, today in the Galleria Borghese, Rome (fig. 1). The present version of The Toilet of Venus is one of a number of the subject which Albani made at various points during his career, no doubt owing to the popular success of the Louvre and Borghese cycles. 

The ultimate source of inspiration for Albani for the composition itself must be considered Annibale Carracci’s Venus adorned by the Graces (National Gallery of Art, Washington), a panel that Carracci, Albani’s teacher in Bologna, executed circa 1590-95.

We are grateful to Catherine Puglisi for endorsing the attribution to Albani, on the basis of photographs.

1. R. de Piles, Abregé de la vie des peintres, avec des reflexions sur leurs ouvrages, Paris 1699, p. 333.