Old Masters

Old Masters

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 75. Sold Without Reserve | MASTER OF THE ANNUNCIATION TO THE SHEPHERDS | PORTRAIT OF A SCHOLAR.

Property from a Distinguished Private Collection, Sold Without Reserve

Sold Without Reserve | MASTER OF THE ANNUNCIATION TO THE SHEPHERDS | PORTRAIT OF A SCHOLAR

Lot Closed

June 11, 03:30 PM GMT

Estimate

15,000 - 20,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Property from a Distinguished Private Collection, Sold Without Reserve

MASTER OF THE ANNUNCIATION TO THE SHEPHERDS

active in Naples circa 1620-1640

PORTRAIT OF A SCHOLAR


oil on canvas

canvas: 52 by 46 in.; 132.1 by 116.8 cm.

framed: 59 by 53⅛ in.; 150 by 135 cm.

Purchased from the descendant of an early owner by John Chaundy, Oxford, England; From whom purchased by George Shea in 1889;

By whom given to the General Theological Seminary, New York, in 1890-2010;

Acquired by the present owner, 2010, for $20,000.

G. Shea, Some Facts and Probabilities Relating to the History of Johannes Scotus, Surnamed Duns, and Concerning the Genuineness of the Spagnoletto Portrait Belonging to the General Theological Seminary of the United States, Cambridge 1890, pp. 1-31, passim.;

N. Spinosa, Pittura del Seicento a Napoli. Da Caravaggio a Massimo Stanzione, Naples 2010, p. 331, cat. no. 293;

A. della Ragione, Il vero nome del Maestro dell’annuncio ai pastori, Naples 2018, pp. 37, 44, reproduced p. 34, fig. 5, and p. 58, fig. 47.

Although his firm identity has been elusive, the Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds is one of the most interesting and individual artists working in Naples in the first half of the 17th Century, and his output represents a cohesive body of work of very high quality. Nicola Spinosa will publish the present work in his monograph on the artist (forthcoming in 2020/21) as cat. no. 60b, an autograph version of a painting by the Master in the Royal Collection, Hampton Court (inv. RCIN 404967).1 


For many years, the present work was in the collection of the General Theological Seminary where it was considered a depiction of the theologian John Duns Scotus by Giuseppe de Ribera, as was the canvas at Hampton Court. However, the connection of the Hampton Court painting to Duns Scotus was doubted as early as 1958, and the subject would appear to represent an unspecified scholar or philosopher, the type of image then popular amongst Neapolitan collectors.2 In a 1983 article in The Burlington Magazine, Giuseppe di Vito pointed out the strong similarities between the Hampton Court version of the "Duns Scotus" portrait and figures portrayed in three paintings given to the Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds, active in Naples circa 1620-40, and influenced by the works of Ribera. These include the figure of the rabbi in Christ Among the Doctors in Powerscourt House, Dublin; the rabbi in another painting of this subject in the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples; and Man in Meditation in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich.3


We are grateful to Nicola Spinosa for endorsing the attribution in full to the Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds, and for his observations on the painting.


1. Other versions of varying quality are in the collections of the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Pau; Bodleian Library, Oxford; Earl of Wemyss, Gosford House; Merton College, Oxford; and formerly the Houston Gallery, Wells, Somerset in 1967.


2. F. Bologna, Francesco Solimena, Naples 1958, p. 29, where he ascribes the Hampton Court version to Francesco Fracanzano.


3. See G. di Vito, "The Author of 'Duns Scotus' at Hampton Court, in Burlington Magazine, November 1983, pp. 685-6.