Corrado Giaquinto

Elton John (b. 1947), London;

His sale, London, Sotheby's, 30 September 2003, lot 32;

Where acquired by the present owner. 

This newly identified work by Corrado Giaquinto is likely to have been executed in the early stages of his career during his stay in Rome in 1727–53. Its modest size and apparent relationship to an unattributed work of identical dimensions and subject in the collection of Temple Newsam, suggest the works may once have been pendants, possibly commissioned as part of a decorative scheme.¹ Moreover, they may has been conceived as overdoors intended to have been seen from a low viewpoint . Stylistic similarities can be drawn between the pair and a decorative cycle of twelve mythological scenes in the collection of Marchese Giulio de Luca, Molfetta, dated 1732–33.²

Born in Molfetta, near Bari, Giaquinto first trained in Naples in the studio of Nicola Maria Rossi (1690–1758) and possibly of Francesco Solimena (1657–1747), developing a grandiose style and smooth painterly technique. In 1727 he left Naples for Rome, where he resided until 1753, apart from brief sojourns in Turin in 1733 and 1735. His style combines both Baroque and academic styles, influenced by artists such as Sebastiano Conca (1680–1764) and Francesco Trevisani (1656–1746), from whom he inherited their colourful palette and elegant rococo forms.³ In 1753 Giaquinto was summoned by Ferdinand VI of Spain (1713–1759) to Madrid where he succeeded Jacopo Amigoni (1682–1752) as court painter. In 1762, after nine years at the Spanish court, Giaquinto moved back to Naples where he continued working for the Spanish monarchy until his death.

We are grateful to Dr Francesco Petrucci and Prof. Nicola Spinosa for endorsing the attribution to Corrado Giaquinto on the basis of digital images.

¹ Inv. no. LEEAG.1982.0012; oil on canvas; 61.5 x 76 cm.; https://www.vads.ac.uk/digital/collection/NIRP/id/33430/

² P. Amato, Corrado Giaquinto, Rome 2002, p. 56.

³ F. Petrucci, 'Corrado Giaquinto, San Filippo Neri', in Quaderni del Barocco, 22, 2014, p. 8.