Bartolomeo Schedoni

Joshua Charles Vanneck, 4th Baron Huntingfield (1842–1915), Heveningham Hall, Yoxford, Suffolk (his posthumous sale, London, Christie's, 25 June 1915, lot 113 (as Schiavone), where unsold;

Thence by descent to his nephew, William Vanneck, 5th Baron Huntingfield (1883–1969);

By whom sold, Heveningham Hall, Suffolk, Knight, Frank and Rutley, 19 July 1915, lot 200 (as Schiavone), for £8–8s. to Field;

With Julius Weitzner, New York;

With Victor Spark, New York;

With Frederick Mont, New York, from whom acquired, circa 1956, by

Paul Leonhard Ganz (1910–1976), New York;

From whom acquired in 1968 by a private collector;

By whom anonymously sold ('Property of a Private Collector'), New York, Sotheby's, 28 January 1999, lot 240, for $700,000, when acquired.

Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art; New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Age of Correggio and the Carracci. Emilian painting of the sixteenth and seventeenth century, 19 December 1986 – 24 May 1987, no. 191;

New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, on loan 1987–1997.

R. Manning, in F.J. Cummings (ed.), Art in Italy 1600–1700, exh. cat., Detroit 1965, p. 95, no. 93, reproduced;

R. Kultzen, 'Variationen über das Thema der Heiligen Familie bei Bartolomeo Schedoni', in Münchner Jahrbuch der Bildenden Kunst, vol. XXI, 1970, pp. 167–79 (see especially pp. 168–69);

R.E. Spear, 'Princeton: Italian Baroque paintings', in The Burlington Magazine, vol. CXXII, no. 930, September 1980, p. 719;

D. Miller, in The Age of Correggio and the Carracci. Emilian painting of the sixteenth and seventeenth century, exh. cat., Washington 1986, pp. 527–28, no. 191, reproduced p. 527;

F. Dallasta, 'Dipinto sconosciuti di Bartolomeo Schedoni', in Aurea Parma, no. LXXVI, vol. I, 1992, p. 70;

E. Negro, in La scuola dei Carracci. Dall'accademia alla bottega di Ludovico, Modena 1994, pp. 240 and 246, under n. 1;

E. Negro and N. Roio, Bartolomeo Schedoni 1578–1615, Modena 2000, p. 80, no. 24.4, reproduced.

ENGRAVED

M. Soyer for C.P. Landon, Annales du Musée et l'école des Beaux-Arts, 2nd coll., pt. anc., III, 1818, p. 67, and pl. 33.

This small painting on panel exemplifies Schedoni's ability to imbue an oft-depicted subject with magical intimacy and atmosphere, with a style of execution that is at once fluid and refined. As a young artist, Schedoni saw great success and quickly became the favoured artist at the ducal courts of two of the most important families in Emilia: the Este family in Modena from about 1600 to 1607, followed by the Farnese family in Parma from about 1607 until his premature death in 1615. Although Schedoni had signed a contract to work exclusively for Ranuccio I, Duke of Parma at the Farnese court when he returned from Modena in 1607, the number of cabinet pictures that Schedoni produced after this time, such as this work and a number of Madonna and Child designs, suggests that he was most probably executing these paintings outside of court commissions for a lively private market in the city. These paintings were perhaps a useful alternative source of income for Schedoni, who reportedly incurred debts from gambling and fighting – chaotic elements of his personal life which appear at odds with the sweetness and delicacy of his artistic production. 

On stylistic grounds, this painting may be dated to around 1610, comparable to such works as The Holy Family in glory adored by saints, in the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples, commissioned by Magnanino Magnanini and completed in 1611, in which the Correggesque figures of the Virgin and Child in the upper part of the large altarpiece correspond closely to those here.¹ Other small cabinet paintings that date to these years, such as The Holy Family with an angel, painted for Ranuccio Farnese, sold at Sotheby's, New York, 30 January 1997, lot 71; The Holy Family with Saint John the Baptist, sold at Sotheby's, New York, 18 October 2021, lot 19; or The Rest on the Flight into Egypt, sold in these Rooms, 7 December 2016, lot 13, share the rather loose and thick application of paint seen here in some of the drapery, St Joseph's hair, and the strokes denoting the landscape, reflecting a rapid method of execution.

In this work, a sort of supernatural light illuminates the figures from the left-hand side, articulated with strong dashes of white highlights, and a delicate, luminous rendering of the flesh and faces of the Virgin and Child and young St John, which are contrasted with the reverently bowed head of St Joseph, in darkened profile. In the other half of the composition, Schedoni has chosen to focus on a nocturnal landscape, suffused by moonlight, which simultaneously heightens the presence of the Holy Family and increases the scene’s inherent sense of profound mystery. The broad, wet-in-wet brushstrokes that define the glassy and reflective surface of the water, along with the detail of a small boat containing figures, sailing on the lake, grant this unusual landscape a narrative all of its own, reminiscent of works by Dosso Dossi or Federico Barocci, through the lens of Correggio's pervasive legacy, and anticipating Guercino's small-scale paintings from the end of the 1610s. Indeed, Schedoni's absorption of influences, including from the Old Masters in the Este and Farnese collections, may go some way to explain why this painting was listed as 'Schiavone' in the sales from Heveningham Hall in the early 20th century.

Many of the best autograph examples of Schedoni's work are executed on panel. Schedoni frequently made multiple replicas of his paintings, but it is probable that he had a workshop that executed a number of less refined replicas, almost all of which were on canvas. This painting is the highest quality of five other versions of the composition, the autograph statuses of which have previously been questioned: a painting in the Gemäldegalerie, Dresden (oil on canvas, 41.5 x 52 cm.); one in the Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig (oil on canvas, 44.8 x 59.5 cm.); another in the National Gallery, Prague, which is reduced and so now in upright format (oil on panel, 36 x 34.5 cm., inv. no. O 11896);² another in the Museo di Casa Martelli, Florence (oil on canvas, 27.5 x 36.5 cm., inv. no. 68); and a painting believed to be a copy, seen only by Denis Mahon, in a private collection on the Isle of Bute.

¹ Oil on canvas, 298 x 179 cm.; Negro and Roio 2000, pp. 78–79, no. 21, reproduced; https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/sacra-famiglia-con-i-santi-lorenzo-francescod%E2%80%99assisi-pellegrino-giovanni-battista-bartolomeo-schedoni/DAH4HESD8LwM8w?hl=it

² Negro and Roio 2000, pp. 79–80, nos 24.1–24.3, all reproduced p. 80.