Lot n° 171
Estimation :
10000 - 20000
EUR
Result with fees
Result
: 46 368EUR
Simon VOUET (Paris 1590-1649)
Saint Catherine of Alexandria and Saint Catherine of Siena
Pair of canvases (enlarged on the sides by about 5 cm).
Lifting, scratches and some missing.
64.5 x 37 cm
See reproductions
Provenance:
Jandolo Collection, Rome until 1955
Bibliography:
Ettore Sestieri, Cenni sullo svolgimento dell'arte di Bernardo Cavallino, L'Arte, XXIII 1920, p. 253
Exhibition Pittura italiana del Seicento e del Settecento,Florence, Palazzo Pitti, 1922, catalogue (curator of the exhibition: M. Nugent, publisher Bestetti & Tumminelli), p. 570.
Claudia Recife, Ancora del pittore Bernardo Cavallino, Emporium 113, no. 648, 1951, p. 265
Ann Percy, 1965, her thesis, p. 70, no. 107 (attribution denied to Cavallino)
Ann Percy, catalogue of the exhibition Bernardo Cavallino of Naples 1616-1656, The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Kimbell Art Museum, 1984-1985, p. 243, no. 182 (idem)
Nicolas Spinosa, Altre aggiunte a Bernardo Cavallino e ad Antonio De Bellis in Studi in onore di Maria Pia Di Dario Guida, Paparo
Editore, Napoli 2021 (as Cavallino)
When these paintings reappeared at the Palazzo Pitti exhibition in Florence in 1922, they were on a single canvas; the two saints were on either side of a central void, surmounted by a dove (fig. 1). In view of the period photograph, it is possible to assume that these were enlargements to give the impression of a sketch for an imposing altarpiece.
They were then attributed to Bernardo Cavallino (1616-1656) by Ettore Sestieri (op. cit.). In her monographs of the 1970s and 1980s, Ann Percy, a specialist in Cavallino, refused to attribute them to this painter, stating that she knew them only from the 1922 photograph. Professor Nicolas Spinosa, who published a monograph on Cavallino in 2013, reaffirms the authorship to this artist, in a recent article (he has not yet been able to examine this pair in person, however).
It seems to us that this pair falls under the ambience of 1620s Caravaggism rather than the elegance and refined coloring of 1640s Neapolitan painting. Vouet's name in his Italian period comes to mind: the modelling, the deep-set eye sockets, the subtle orange-red and emerald-green harmony of the mantle on the wheel recall the half-body saints that Simon Vouet painted during his Roman sojourn (for example, Saint Cecilia, The SuidaManning Collection, Austin -Texas-, Blanton Museum of Art, more elegant because it was done in another context, that of the collector's painting). At this time, Vouet was particularly interested in the theme of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, whom he depicted about ten times, most of the time in a half-body position and in a pair with another saint. Each time, he varies the pose and creates a new image. The other figure, St. Catherine of Siena, with a slightly more baroque expression, reflects the relationship between the French painter and Giovanni Lanfranco.
Very few sketches of compositions by Simon Vouet have come down to us: we can only cite those for the destroyed altarpiece in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome (private collection, catalogue of the exhibition Simon Vouet (les années italiennes 1613/1627), Nantes, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Besançon, Musée des Beaux-arts et d'Archéologie, 2008-2009, pp. Another Apotheosis of St. Francis of Paola, exhibited at TEFAF in 2018 at
Lullo Pampoulides (fig. 2; 65 x 48 cm), is particularly close to our pendants in the way the drapery is hollowed out, the hands very tapered, the view taken slightly da sotto. The Saint Catherine of Alexandria could also be compared with the figure of the allegory of Memory, on the right in the Capitoline Picture Gallery in Rome.
We thank Mr. Arnauld Bréjon de Lavergnée for examining this pair and for confirming the attribution to Simon Vouet. He will include it in the catalogue raisonné of the artist currently being published. As a hypothesis and conditional, he indicates that the very narrow format corresponds to the figures of saints on either side of the altarpiece and on the pilasters of the Alaleoni chapel at San Lorenzo in
Lucina in Rome. Simon Vouet was commissioned to do this decoration in September 1623 and received payment a year later for painting seventeen religious scenes in caissons. The four figures of saints now in place are by Marco Benefial and were commissioned in 1736. It is questionable whether they replace Vouet's damaged compositions or whether the spaces were left empty until that date.
Nicola Spinosa , après examen des tableaux le 17.11.2021, a bien voulu nous confirmer qu’il considère ces tableaux comme étant de la main de Bernardo CAVALLINO vers 1634-35 lorsque l’artiste travaille dans l’atelier d’ Artemisa Gentileschi à Naples et regarde les tableaux envoyés par Vouet 10 ans plus tot.
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