Francesco Lupicini

Anonymous sale, Zurich, Galerie Koller, 26 March, 2004, lot 3048, where acquired by the present owner. 

"The following condition report has been provided by Henry Gentle, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. The canvas is lined and the paint surface is stable. There is a repaired damage through the shoulder of the orange tunic and down into the bald pate of the seated Elder. Under ultraviolet light a scattering of minor restorations can be seen across the paint surface, particularly to the flesh tones of Susanna and the putto. Some darker passages, the water and the shadow of the fountain basin, have been compromised and reinforced and some of the darker ground has become dominant through the thinly painted sky. The painting is in a very good preserved condition, the colours are strong and saturate well. The varnish is not discoloured. Offered in a plain moulded gilt wood frame in good condition."
"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."

There are surprisingly few concrete records of the artist Francesco Lupicini and his work, and yet what few details there are seem somewhat confused. The confusion begins at his birth, there being two births of a Francesco Lupicini recorded in Florence within three years of each other, one in 1588 the other in 1591. Furthermore, most of his paintings have at some point or another been wrongly attributed to a different member of his family; the Caduta della Manna in the church of Carmine di Pistoia, for example, was mistakenly attributed to Giovambattista (his brother and also a painter). Francesco's father, also Francesco, was an engineer (to Francesco I de Medici), his brother Giovambattista, as mentioned above, a painter and another brother, Bacio, a sculptor. While there is almost no mention of Francesco in contemporary records in Italy, references to his brother Giovambattista are common and much of Francesco's work has lived wrongly under an attribution to him until relatively recently.

One of the few references to Francesco, however, is from a Spanish source which mentions a 'Francesco Lupicino pintor'¹ in Zaragoza and which claims that he died there in 1652.  This 'Francesco Lupicino' was commissioned for an altarpiece for the convent of San Miguel de Los Navarros in Zaragoza² and another commission, which is still in situ, was for a series of canvases depicting the story of the True Cross in the chapel of St. Helena in the cathedral of La Seo. He appears to have arrived in Spain soon after 1632, the final reference to him in Florence being from that year as a member of the Accademia, with whom he reportedly had a turbulent relationship. His character is described in a letter of 1629 from Andrea Commodi:

Lupicino ha buon animo ma cattiva borsa per i molti intrighi che si ritrova havere. 

We are grateful to Dott'ssa. Francesca Baldassari for endorsing the attribution to Francesco Lupicini following first hand inspection of the original. Dott'ssa Baldassari has compared the execution of this painting with that of his best known work, Martha and Mary rebuking Mary Magdalene, in Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.³

1. See A. Pérez-Sánchez, Pintura italiana del s. XVII en España, Madrid 1965, p. 40.
2. See M. Abizanda, Documentos para la historia artistica y literaria de Aragon, vol. III, Zaragoza 1932, p. 259.
3. See Die Gemäldegalerie des Kunsthistorischen Museums in Wien, Vienna 1991, plate 201.