Giovanni Battista Pace

Rest on the Flight into Egypt

No reserve

Reserves

This lot has been withdrawn

Lot Details

Description

Property of a Private Collector, Sold Without Reserve

Giovanni Battista Pace

active in Rome, circa 1665

Rest on the Flight into Egypt

oil on canvas

canvas: 19⅛ by 25½ in.; 48.6 by 64.8 cm.

framed: 27⅞ by 34½ in.; 70.8 by 87.6 cm.

Please note this lot has been withdrawn.

Private collector, Switzerland;
Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's, 5 July 1989, lot 9 (as Giovanni Battista Pace);
There acquired by Andrew Bell, London;
By whom sold privately, New York, Sotheby's, 1991;
Where acquired by the present owner.

E. Schleier, in Pier Francesco Mola, 1612-1666, exhibition catalogue, Milan 1990, pp. 321-322, cat. no. IV.14, reproduced (as Pier Francesco Mola);
H. Brigstocke, "Pier Francesco Mola, Rome, Musei Capitolini" in Burlington Magazine 132, no. 1042 (January 1990), p. 64, reproduced fig. 69 (as Giovanni Battista Pace);
R. Cocke, "The Drawings of Michele and Giovanni Battista Pace," in Master Drawings 29, no. 4 (Winter 1991), pp. 349, 351, 361 note 2 (as Giovanni Battista Pace).

Rest on the Flight into Egypt is a rare early work by the eighteenth-century painter, draughtsman, and engraver, Giovanni Battista Pace. The painting likely dates to circa 1665, when Pace worked most closely with Pier Francesco Mola, to whom the Rest on the Flight into Egypt has been erroneously attributed in the past. Pace and Mola worked closely during the 1660s, complicating the task of differentiating between their hands. The two men's artistic affinity is underscored by Richard Cocke’s suggestion that Pace based this composition on a lost drawing executed by Mola.¹ The loose handling of the figures, whose ample draperies obscure any anatomical definition, and the landscape elements are, however, characteristic of Pace’s work.

1. R. Cocke, “The Drawings of Michele and Giovanni Battista Pace,” in Master Drawings 29, no. 4 (Winter 1991), p. 351.