(Profile of the work of Erich Schleier)
I was recently able to examine this small copper painting from life. I realized the very fine pictorial drafting. In my opinion it is a small but autographed reduction to four figures of a multi-figure composition by Giovanni Lanfranco on the theme ofAdoration of the Pastors, which is also related to two similar compositions by Sisto Badalocchio and a famous prototype by Domenichino (now in Edinburgh, Scottish National Gallery). The large painting by Lanfranco (oil on canvas, 72×92 cm) was found in 1961, and perhaps still is, with some heirs of the Chigi family.
I know this painting only from a good black and white photograph given to me in 1961, when I was preparing an article on another Adoration of the Pastors (Alnwick Castle, Dukes of Northumberland, painted for the Marquis Clemente Sannesi in about 1615-16), by Giuliano Briganti, who I believe was making an appraisal of the Chigi collection (in Formello?) at that time together with Franco Di Castro, perhaps for a inheritance division. In this broader painting, the figure of St. Joseph is also represented, lying down on the right in front of the Virgin; two shepherds who always approach from the right to adore the Child; and finally four shepherds to the left, one of whom is standing and playing the piva.
There was a seventeenth-century copy of this Chigi painting, already in a private collection in Arpino, which I know from a black and white photo also provided to me by Giuliano Briganti. To the right are other figures of shepherds and, above, a hovering putto.
At first (1962) I published the Chigi painting erroneously as a seventeenth-century copy by Sisto Badalocchio. But already in my unpublished degree thesis (1966) I corrected this error, defining the Chigi painting as a seventeenth-century copy of a lost painting by Lanfranco (the so-called "Night X”, unfortunately known to us only through copies, but perhaps the prototype of this whole series of works). And so I republished it in the Lanfranco exhibition catalog (2001).
In the meantime, I have doubts whether the Chigi painting could also be an original by the master of the time of the "Annibalesque revival", therefore around the years 1615-16.
It is impossible, however, to make a firm judgment until one has seen the picture.
Proof of the notoriety of the composition of the “Night X” by Lanfranco is provided by the fact that Giuseppe Passeri copied the composition either from the original or from a copy in a red chalk drawing, now in Düsseldorf (Museum Kunstpalast, inv. n. 2754).
Our small reduction, in horizontal format, of the central group of the large painting, is not the only one existing. There is in fact another in the form of a tondo, of which at least three examples are known, two of which are seventeenth-century copies. The tondo I published in the 2001 exhibition catalogue, which in 1945 was at the Newhouse Galleries in New York with the attribution to Giuseppe Maria Crespi, is the best version and is probably an original. The measurements are 25,85 cm in diameter, but we do not know if it is painted on copper or on canvas.
In the Newhouse tondo the gesture of the Virgin's right hand, which lifts the white cloth of the newborn, follows the prototype of the Chigi painting, while in our copper the fingers are less folded and closed, they are more raised in a precious, graceful gesture, a little ' mannered (in all similar, even if in counterpart, to that of the great Leonessa altarpiece). We see a similar, but not identical gesture in a copy of the Newhouse painting, which in 1988/90 was in a private collection in Bologna.
The other difference, which separates both the Newhouse painting and our copper from the Chigi painting, lies in the fact that in the latter painting the newborn seems to be almost depicted without his hands and arms, or at least the right arm is not visible. Furthermore, in the Newhouse small picture, the facial expression is indifferent as in the Chigi picture, while in our copper the Child's expression is more lively and looks up towards his mother, following the gesture of the two outstretched hands, which are also similar in the Newhouse version. The Newhouse picture follows the Chigi prototype in that the leftmost angel, seen almost frontally, is depicted without his hands joined in prayer, while in our copper we see the two joined hands, but barely sketched and executed almost timidly.
The framework of the "Night X” and its small derivations must then be seen in relation to two other versions of the Nativity, one by Lanfranco himself and one by Sisto Badalocchio. Lanfranco's painting is the famous, large one Nativity o Night (oil on canvas, 124,6 x 179,2 cm), painted for Marquis Clemente Sannesi c.1616, described by Bellori and Passeri, now in Alnwick Castle, Dukes of Northumberland. The resemblances, albeit vague, concern the pose of the Child and the gesture of the right hand of the Virgin, which holds the Child, and the group of women on the right, at the height of Jesus. NightSannesi is freer, lively and dynamic.
From a compositional point of view, however, the painting on copper (40 x 64 cm) in the National Galleries of Ancient Art, Palazzo Corsini is much closer. In 1962, when I published it as a work by Badalocchio, it was on loan at the Provincial Gallery of Bari; then it returned to Rome and was cleaned in 1993 by Maura Giacobbe Borelli. It was a gift from a member of the Colonna family, a butler, to Pope Clement XII Corsini. In the Corsini inventory of 1750 it is listed as "di Lanfranco". It was accepted as a Badalocchio work by Massimo Pirondini in 1995 and then by Giuseppe Berti (and Pirondini) in 2004, with a date of around 1615. Alessandro Cosma (2011) publishes the picture with a color plate as «Sisto Badalocchio (?)».
Badalocchio's copper seems to be a partial derivation from Night X by Lanfranco, as regards the general structure of the composition, rather static: the central group with the Virgin, the Infant and the two angels (but the Child's pose is more frontal and looks at the spectator; the Virgin's drapery differs both in their shape both for the color), the piper and the figure of St. Joseph on the right in the foreground. On the other hand, the young shepherd standing right, looking over his shoulder at the Child, does not appear in the Night X del Lanfranco, but in another Nativity also on copper by Badalocchio, in a vertical format (Patrizi Collection, Rome), where the central group with the Virgin and the angels and the piper also appears very similar, while the figure of Saint Joseph on the right in the foreground is different. One could also think that Badalocchio in the Corsini copper combined compositional and figurative elements both of the Patrizi copper and of the Night X of Lanfranco. Although it is not sure whether Corsini copper comes first and then Patrizi copper or vice versa. This question remains open, but it has no importance for the judgment on our branch.
A small one should also be mentioned in this context Nativity on copper rather close to the group of paintings discussed here and which I believe can be attributed with a certain probability to Sisto Badalocchio. The painting, badly damaged due to many drops of color (17 x 23 cm), is located in the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo and was cataloged in 1995 as a "Bolognese school, mid-XNUMXth century".
Giovan Pietro Bellori writes in his biography of Lanfranco, after mentioning the paintings made for Count Orazio Scotti in Piacenza around 1610: «and for the service of the duke (RanuccioFarnese) (he made) other small paintings of rare style».
I think this precise inventory indication can also be applied to our little copper.
There are other small paintings on copper that Lanfranco painted around 1615-16 at the time of the «Annibalesque revival», i.e. of his rapprochement with the ways of his master Annibale Carracci, especially with his neo-Correggio works of the late 90s (painted in Rome) . However, they are not as small as ours Nativitybut somewhat larger. We mention the delicious Madonna of the Walk (42 x 31,8 cm) from the Shanks Collection of Andalusia, Pa (currently on loan to the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Conn.) and the celebrated Annunciation to Mary of St. Petersburg, Hermitage, painted for Cardinal Alessandro Peretti Montalto (74 x 54,5 cm). Both works are distinguished by a graceful, delicate, refined and elegant style, which refers to certain ways of Hannibal.
This phase of the "Hannibal revival" goes from 1614 to 1618-19. In these years Lanfranco obtained a large number of commissions both in Rome and outside, he had great success and became, after having participated in the realization of the frieze of the Sala Regia in the papal palace of the Quirinale, the favorite painter of Pope Paul V and Cardinal Scipio Borghese.
The first works in which this new style is manifested, in which Lanfranco abandoned the influences of Ludovico Carracci and Bartolomeo Schedoni, whose works he had seen in Piacenza in the years 1610-12, influences that are visible in the works dating from around 1610 to 1613 , I am the great shovel scattered with the Death of St. Alexis, painted in Rome in 1614 for a chapel in the Cathedral of Piacenza (dispersed in Paris after about 1810, but known from a faithful drawing by the workshop of Lanfranco conserved in the Louvre); the picture, signed and dated 1614, depicting Rinaldo's Farewell ad Armida painted for the Marquis Clemente Sannesi (Zurich, Kunsthaus, acquired a few years ago by the Galerie Canesso in Paris); and the Pietà, signed and dated 1614 (Cesena, Cassa di Risparmio Foundation) .
Image of the work on the cover:
Giovanni Lanfranco (Parma 1582 – Rome 1647) – Madonna with Child and two angels – Oil on copper, 16 x 21 cm – Bibliography: Unpublished
