Giovanni Pratesi: The Florentine Eye
Giovanni Pratesi: The Florentine Eye
Cesare Dandini
Lucretia
Auction Closed
March 22, 07:15 PM GMT
Estimate
30,000 - 40,000 EUR
Lot Details
Description
Cesare Dandini
Florence 1596 - 1657
Lucretia
oil on canvas
unframed: 125.5 x 105.5 cm.; 49⅜ x 41½ in.
framed: 159 x 139 cm.; 62⅝ x 54¾ in.
Where acquired by the present owner in 1996.
S. Bellesi in Luce e Ombra. Caravaggismo e naturalismo nella pittura toscana del Seicento, P. Carofano (ed.), exh. cat., Pisa 2005, p. 68, reproduced;
V. Sgarbi in Il male: Esercizi di pittura crudele, V. Sgarbi (ed.), exh. cat., Turin 2005, pp. 16 and 150–51, no. 89, reproduced in colour;
G. Cantelli, Repertorio della pittura fiorentina del Seicento. Aggiornamento, Pontedera 2009, pp. 23 and 69, reproduced in colour pl. XXI;
F. Baldassari, La pittura del Seicento a Firenze: indice degli artisti e delle loro opere, Milan 2009, p. 253;
M. Fleischer in Lust am Schrencken. Ausdrucksformen des Grauens, M. Fleischer (ed.), exh. cat., Vienna 2014, pp. 71 and 77, no. 36, reproduced in colour;
S. Bellesi in Plasmato dal fuoco. La scultura in bronzo nella Firenze degli ultimi Medici, E. Schmidt, S. Bellesi and R. Gennaioli (eds), exh. cat., Florence 2019, pp. 146–48, no. 5, reproduced in colour.
Historically attributed to Pierre Mignard (1612–1695), this painting was identified in 1996 by Sandro Bellesi as a mature work of the Florentine Baroque painter Cesare Dandini, renowned for his refined and elegant skills. Datable to the first half of the 1640s, this dramatically charged and theatrical composition depicts the Roman heroine Lucretia at the moment of her suicide following her rape by Sextus Tarquinius (Ovid, Fasti, 2:725–852). The dazzling palette employed for the luxuriant draperies contrasts with the porcelain quality of Lucretia’s flesh tones and dark background, heightening the dramatic intensity of the scene.
As raised by Bellesi on the occasion of the exhibition Plasmato dal fuoco. La scultura in bronzo nella Firenze degli ultimi Medici, this work is indebted to contemporary sculptural models popularised in Florence during this period.1 The figure’s energetic gestures and S-shaped pose can be compared to known compositions in marble and bronze by Giambologna and his followers, such as the celebrated Rape of the Sabine Women, in the Piazza della Signoria, Florence.2 Two other autograph versions of this composition are recorded by Bellesi: one in the Luzzetti Collection, Florence; the other in a private collection bearing an attribution to Nicolas Régnier.3
1 Bellesi 2019, p. 148.
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3 Bellesi 1996, p. 181.
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