Antiveduto Gramatica

The 4th Earl of Rosebery, 139 Piccadillly, London, where it probably hung in the Front Drawing Room;
The 5th Earl of Rosebery, Dalmeny House, 1888, where listed in the Hall at Dalmeny, 'a painting of an Angel and Child';
Thence by direct family descent.

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting has a very old lining and perhaps the original narrow stretcher without wedges. This has nevertheless held the painting firmly, without uneven tension or strains on the paint surface. It seems also miraculously to have escaped damage. The base edge is a little cockled but even the edges in general seem to have been preserved. There are traces of various old superficial drips mainly near the base but these have not loosened the paint or permeated the old varnish. This is quite dark and may have accreted several layers in the distant past. There is a certain amount of blanching in the background, so that it is hard to tell if there is perhaps some very old darker repaint in the lower background behind the legs of the child and in a patch in front of the angel's leg or in the foreground, although the craquelure continues unaltered in these places. There is one small recent scuff in the lower right background behind the figures, and a few little dabs of comparatively recent darkened paint in the background near the ankles, also apparently superficial. It is just possible that this painting has never been cleaned at all. The extraordinarily intact glazing visible across all the modulations in the face of the child or in the flesh painting elsewhere, and the apparently untouched, unworn, even tenor of the paint across the surface suggests that might be the case. It certainly seems to have been spared the bustle that can afflict pictures, and to have remained apart over centuries. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

This composition was one of Antiveduto Gramatica's most popular and numerous replicas and workshop variants of it are known, the best one being long considered that in the Museo Nazionale, Palermo.¹  That, as well as other versions listed by Papi,² were thought to derive from a lost original by Antiveduto; almost certainly identifiable with the present work which is published here for the first time.

The biographer Giovanni Baglione first records that Antiveduto painted a work of this subject for the roman church of Sant'Agostino: "Et è di sua inventione l'Angelo Custode, che vestito a bianco tiene, e guida un' anima per le mani, sì come se ne vede uno nella Sagrestia di S. Agostino di sua mano'.³  Baglione's text informs us that the design (or 'inventione') was Antiveduto's own, that the painting in Sant'Agostino was not the only known version of the composition ('se ne vede uno' would suggest there were others), and that it was by Antiveduto's own hand (something which cannot be said for other versions which are more likely to have been executed in the studio). The popularity of the composition, as attested to by the numerous replicas, is probably due to the diffusion of the painting's iconography. The known versions appear to divide into two groups (the present work belonging to the former): in some of them the child holds the angel by the hand whilst in others he holds a small rope and anchor (the child's head surmounted by a small flame and the Eucharist held in his left hand). As Papi has observed, Antiveduto has painted a visual representation of a soul being led to enlightenment: the faithful follower, personified by the young innocent child, is being led and shown the way of the Truth and the Light by an angel-like figure, dressed in white. As remarked upon by Malignaggi, light is the attribute of God and it illuminates, and therefore guides, the enlightened.⁴

We are grateful to Dott. Gianni Papi for endorsing the attribution to Antiveduto Gramatica after inspecting the painting in the original. Dott. Papi has dated the painting to the middle of the second decade of the 17th century by comparison with Antiveduto's Saint Dorothy (private collection), where the handling of the hair and saint's physiognomy find parallels in the guardian angel here.⁵

1. G. Papi, Antiveduto Gramatica, Soncino 1995, pp. 101-2, cat. no. 29, reproduced fig. 16. Although Papi considered the Palermo painting to be a copy in his 1995 monograph, he had previously published the work as an autograph Antiveduto (G. Papi, "Note al Gramatica e al suo ambiente", in Paradigma, vol. 9, 1990, pp. 107-27) and has more recently reverted to this opinon.
2. Workshop versions include those in Marseille, Musée des Beaux-Arts; Rome, Santa Pudenziana; Casamari, Museo dell'Abbazia; Madrid, El Pardo (on loan from the Museo del Prado); Bourg-en-Bresse, Musée de Brou (on loan from the Louvre); Ile de Ré; that sold in Auch en Gascogne, Briscadieu, 11 December 1988: for reproductions see H.P. Riedl, Antiveduto della Grammatica (1570/71-1626). Leben und Werk, Berlin 1998, figs. 85-91.
3. G. Baglione, Le Vite de' Pittori Scultori et Architetti..., Rome 1642, ed. Rome 1935, p. 293: "And of his own invention is the Guardian Angel, who is dressed in white and holds, and guides a soul by the hands, such as you can see in the painting of his hand in the Sacristy of S. Agostino". The painting in Sant'Agostino is mentioned in guidebooks of 1674 and 1686, and by 1763 it was recorded as hanging in the sacristy. Giovanni Baglione wrote his Vita of Antiveduto Gramatica shortly after the artist's death in 1626 so it is probably reliable.
4. D. Malignaggi, "Antiveduto della Grammatica", in XI Catalogo di opere d'arte restaurate (1976-1978), Palermo 1980, pp. 124-28; and Malignaggi, "Antiveduto della Grammatica", in Pittori del Seicento a Palazzo Abatellis, exhibition catalogue, Milan 1990, pp. 96-97.
5. Papi, op. cit., pp. 96-97, cat. no. 19, reproduced in colour plate XII.