Property from a European Private Collection
Corrado Giaquinto
Allegory of Africa
Lot Closed
December 9, 04:21 PM GMT
Estimate
20,000 - 30,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Property from a European Private Collection
Corrado Giaquinto
Molfetta 1703 - 1766 Naples
Allegory of Africa
oil on canvas
unframed: 48.7 x 64.8 cm.; 19⅛ x 25½ in.
framed: 61.5 x 77.5 cm.; 24¼ x 30½ in.
Don Antonio Villacieros y Benito, Conde de Villacieros, probably when serving in the Spanish Embassy in Rome around 1940–50, and certainly by 1958;
Thence by descent through two generations to the present owner.
P. Amato, Corrado Giaquinto, Il Convegno Internazionale di Studi su Corrado Giaquinto (1703–1766), Molfetta 19–20 December 1981, Mezzina 1985, p. 83, under nos 14–15.
Undoubtedly painted as one of a set of The Four Continents, this canvas depicting an Allegory of Africa can be dated on stylistic grounds to around 1745–50, prior to Giaquinto's trip to Spain in 1753. Another painting from the same set, representing an Allegory of Asia, was until recently in the same family collection.
D'Orsi (see Literature) suggests that Giaquinto may have painted two different series of The Four Continents. Two other paintings by Giaquinto, of almost identical dimensions to the present work, which represent Allegories of Europe and America,1 are today in the Musée du Nouveau Monde, La Rochelle. And another version of the present composition, though with a different background, is recorded in a private collection in Altamura, Puglia.2
1 https://agorha.inha.fr/inhaprod/ark:/54721/00326301; and https://agorha.inha.fr/inhaprod/ark:/54721/00326306