Bartolomeo Schedoni

Salocchi collection, Florence, in 1958.

N. Roio, "Bartolomeo Schedoni e Leonello Spada: Alcune opere sconosciute di due 'caravaggisti' padani", in Valori Tattili, Jan. 2013, pp. 52-23, reproduced p. 53, fig. 5.

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 is very attractive, although it is dusty and in need of some help to the frame. The condition is remarkably good throughout. The painting may be dirty, but it still has a very attractive finish. The retouches are very isolated and sparingly applied on the outer edges of the background. It seems that there are hardly any retouches within the figure group. The varnish is very fluorescent under ultraviolet light, but in this case it does not seem that it is intended to block any ultraviolet light examination. The canvas has probably been lined. It is certainly a very old lining, but it is still clearly effective. The stretcher is similarly antique.
"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 Holy Family, published for the first time by Nicosetta Roio in 2013 (see Literature), was known previously in a version at the Musée du Louvre, Paris (inv. no. 661).  The Louvre canvas is slightly smaller in size than the present painting and differs also in its inclusion of a tromp l’oeil label in the background, upper left.¹  Federica Dallasta and Cristina Cecchinelli date the Louvre painting between 1610 and 1612, finding it stylistically comparable with Schedoni’s Penitent Magdalene of 1609, in the Landesmuseum, Oldenburg and his  Charity to the Blind of 1611, in the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples.

Schedoni paints the scene with an intense naturalism and the figure of the Christ Child, whose attention appears to have been caught in mid-turn, engages the viewer with striking immediacy.  He illuminates the scene from upper left, casting Saint Joseph in soft shadow and bathing the Virgin and Child in light, creating a virtuosic play of light among the folds of drapery.³

 

1.  For the Louvre painting, measuring 42 by 35 1/8  in; 106.5 by 89.2 cm.,  see F. Dallasta and C. Cecchinelli, Bartolomeo Schedoni, Pittore Emiliano Modena 1578, Parma 1615, Parma 1999, p. 165-166, reproduced p. 101, fig. A.
2.  Ibid., pp. 141 and  158, cat. nos. 41 and 61, reproduced p.345, fig. 41 and 354, fig. 61A respectively.
3.  Ibid., p. 165.