Pietro della Vecchia

Possibly Orléans Collection;
Baron Lazzaroni, Rome;
From whom purchased by Sir George Donaldson (1845-1925), London;
From whom purchased by Vernon James Watney, Cornbury Park, Oxfordshire;
Thence by descent to Oliver Vernon Watney, Esq., Cornbury Park, Oxfordshire;
By whose Estate sold ("Sold by Order of the Trustees and Beneficiaries of The Late O.V. Watney, Esq."), London, Christie's, 23 June 1967, lot 49, to Miscelli;
With H. Shickman Gallery, New York;
Linda C. Rose;
By whom sold ("Property of a Private Collector, New York"), New York, Sotheby's, 1 June 1990, lot 48, where bought in and subsequently purchased by the present collector.

A Catalogue of Pictures and Miniatures at Cornbury and II Berkeley Square, 1915, no. 86;
B. Aikema, Pietro della Vecchia and the Heritage of the Renaissance in Venice, Florence 1990, p.150, under cat. no. 211, version F.

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This work has been recently restored. If its marvelous frame were touched up in a few places, the work could be hung in its current condition. The canvas has been lined with glue. The paint layer is clean and although it has a warm patina, it does not seem that further cleaning would be necessary. The texture of the canvas and the paint is very lively. The paint layer itself seems to be in beautiful condition. There is a milky quality to this work when viewed under ultraviolet light. While this is sometimes associated with a "screen" varnish, in this case, it seems unlikely that any significant retouches are hidden beneath this opaque varnish. Under ultraviolet light, one can see some isolated retouches in the sky on both sides of the head. There is most noticeably a horizontal line of retouches in the center of the work, suggesting that it was folded at some point; however, the line of restoration addressing this crease is very thin. The condition is very impressive.
"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."

Pietro della Vecchia came from a prominent Venetian family.¹  His early work was heavily influenced by Carlo Saraceni and Saraceni's pupil, Jean Leclerc, and it is thought that Della Vecchia may have initially trained with them. After a probable brief sojourn in Rome, circa 1621-22, he is thought to have worked, circa 1625, in the studio of Alessandro Varotari, called Padovanino, and from him would have derived a reverence for the great Venetian Cinquecento masters such as Titian and Giorgione.

Some of Della Vecchia's most celebrated works are his secular subjects - character heads and half-length warriors. The popularity of this impressive composition is attested to by the number of surviving versions, examples which can be found in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; the Musée du Louvre, Paris; and the Gemäldegalerie, Dresden.²  Bernard Aikema dates the Vienna picture to circa 1640 or shortly before.  A detailed description of a painting by Della Vecchia in La carta del navegar pitoresco (1660) by Marco Boschini, the art critic/dealer and friend of the artist, appears to describe this very composition: "Con un pugnal là una figura tresca,/ E tien bizaro in testa un bareton;/ De raso bianco la veste un zipon:/ Figura in suma aponto zorzonesca." ³

This painting was once owned by the prominent art collector and dealer, Sir George Donaldson (1845-1925).  It was acquired from him by Vernon James Watney who at the time owned Cornbury Park in Oxfordshire, formerly the home of Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon.  According to the 1915 catalogue of the Watney collection (see Literature), Donaldson had acquired the painting from Baron Lazzaroni in Rome and it was said to have once been in the Orléans collection.

1.  The artist was widely known as "Pietro Muttoni" until recently, a mistaken identification first proposed by Luigi Lanzi (1732-1810) in his Storia pittorica della Italia, 1795/96, based on a confusion with the name of a collector, Muttoni.
2.  See Aikema, Pietro della Vecchia and the Heritage of the Renaissance in Venice, Florence 1990, under cat. no. 211, versions A-J.
3.  "There a figure threatens with a dagger,/ And has covered his head with an extravagant beret;/ Of white cloth is his vest:/ In brief a truly Giorgionesque figure," see Aikema, ibid., p. 44, and footnote 30.