Master to Master: The Nelson Shanks Collection
Master to Master: The Nelson Shanks Collection
Giovanni Maria Morandi
The Rest on the Flight to Egypt
Auction Closed
January 27, 08:24 PM GMT
Estimate
8,000 - 12,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Giovanni Maria Morandi
Florence 1622 - 1717 Rome
The Rest on the Flight to Egypt
oil on canvas
canvas: 29 1/4 by 21 3/4 in.; 74.2 by 55.2 cm.
framed: 38 by 30 3/8 in.; 96.5 by 77.1 cm.
By whose estate sold, Washington, D.C., Weschler's, 8 March 1997, lot 64 (as Italian School, early 19th Century);
There acquired.
E. Schleier, "Giovanni Maria Morandi, The Rest on the Flight to Egypt," in Colnaghi, Old Master Paintings, 2010, pp. 60, 62, reproduced p. 63, fig. 3.
According to his biographer Lione Pascoli, Giovanni Maria Morandi received his early training in his native Florence under the tutelage of Giovanni Biliverti; however, as a very young man he moved to Rome where he had been called by Jacopo Salviati, Duca di Giuliano.1 His long career was spent principally in Rome, where he produced altarpieces and portraits, and his style reflects the classicizing manner then prevalent in the papal city rather than any Florentine trends.
The present painting is one of the rare cabinet pictures produced by Morandi for his Roman clientele. Erich Schleier notes its relationship to two other paintings of the same subject: one larger painting formerly with Colnaghi in 2010, as well as another picture in the Pallavicini collection in Rome, which is nearly the same size. The Colnaghi and Pallavicini paintings share some compositional connections. Schleier notes, however, that the figures of Joseph in the Colnaghi canvas and this canvas are close, although the saint holds a book in the former. He further makes a stylistic comparison to the Saint Joseph in this Flight to the figure of Saint Peter in a canvas in Belvedere Ostrense, which is signed and dated 1688.
1. L. Pascoli, Vite de' pittori, scultori, ed architetti moderni, Rome 1736, vol. II, p. 126.