Alessandro Turchi, called l'Orbetto Verona 1578 - 1649 Rome, and Studio

The catalogue illustration is quite representative. The paint surface is not dirty but the varnish layer is slightly uneven. There is a horizontal canvas join approximately 15cm. from the top. The canvas has been relined and mounted onto a new stretcher. The painting does not appear to have suffered much from wear; particularly in the principal figures which were solidly painted and retain their impasto, especially in the flesh tones. A few retouchings are visible under ultra-violet light but these occur mainly in peripheral areas and in the dark shadows, not on the figures. More substantial restoration occurs on and around the canvas join along the upper edge, and the putti here have been reworked. Overall, however, the painting is in good condition – particularly for a canvas of this size – and can be hung as is. The simple gilt wood frame has some surface knocks and scratches but is structurally sound.
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Turchi was nicknamed 'l'Orbetto' due to the fact that he used to accompany his father who was blind. Though born in Verona, Turchi moved to Rome as a young man and remained there for much of his adult life. He received numerous commissions from churches to paint altarpieces and though he is perhaps better known today for his small paintings on slate, Turchi was accustomed to working on a very large scale.

This painting repeats a known composition by Alessandro Turchi, the prime version of which was formerly in Palazzo Guinigi, Lucca (where it was erroneously ascribed to Rutilio Manetti), and was more recently sold, Rome, Christie's, 17 December 2003, lot 509 (oil on canvas, 200 by 230 cm.). That painting was probably executed once Turchi had arrived in Rome and Dott.ssa Daniela Scaglietti Kelescian - who had firsthand knowledge of that work - suggested a date of execution close to the artist's altarpiece of Madonna and Child appearing to Saints Francis of Assisi and Carlo Borromeo in the church of San Salvatore in Lauro, Rome, itself datable to the second half of the 1610s.¹  The composition evidently enjoyed some popularity for two other versions - besides Turchi's prime original - are known. A reduced replica by Turchi himself (96 by 134 cm.), in which the figures of Christ and the Apostles are brought closer to the picture plane, is in the Convento di Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome.²  A second painting, of similar dimensions to the present work (198 by 242 cm.), was sold as 'Studio of Alessandro Turchi' in these Rooms on 6 April 1977, lot 113, and is now in the Bob Jones University collection in Greenville, South Carolina.³

We are grateful to Dott.ssa Daniela Scaglietti Kelescian for proposing, on the basis of photographs, that this painting may be a collaborative work between Turchi and his workshop.

1.  See G. Peretti, in D. Scaglietti Kelescian ed., Alessandro Turchi detto l'Orbetto (1578-1649), exhibition catalogue, Verona, Museo di Castelvecchio, 19 September - 19 December 1999, pp. 104-5, cat. no. 17, reproduced in colour.
2. This version is known to Dott.ssa Scaglietti Kelescian and published by L. Carloni, in Quadri dal silenzio – Dipinti da conventi e istituti religiosi romani – Selezione da una schedatura, exhibition catalogue, Roma, Museo Nazionale di Palazzo Venezia, 18 December 1993 - 18 January 1994, p. 18, no. 6.
3. See S. Pepper, Bob Jones University Collection of Religious Art. Italian Paintings, Greenville 1984, p. 126, cat. no. 127, reproduced on p. 290, fig. 127.1, as 'Studio of Alessandro Turchi'.