DENYS CALVAERT | The Immaculate Conception

Acquis à Paris, commerce d'art, 1968

Rennes, 2012, n°25 (notice par Olivia Savatier Sjöholm)

Laid down and cut around the figure and inserted onto a rectangular sheet. There is a light brown stain in the Madonna forehead and left eye, and a cracked almost oblique line (about 4 cm long), from the Madonna right arm to the beginning of her draped mantle. Some old foxing scattered and slight staining. Media strong. Sold unframed.
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An early drawing by Calvaert, executed solely in red chalk, the Adrien sheet, which bears an old attribution to the artist, is a preparatory study for the central figures of the Madonna and Child in the altarpiece of the Immaculate Conception, now in the church of Sant'Antonio Abate, Bologna (fig. 1).  Among other minor differences from the final painting, this rather finished study shows the Christ Child to the left of the composition, rather than the right.  This change is also recorded through another study by Calvaert, highly finished but still an intermediate drawing with differences from the painted version, formerly in the collection of Sir John Witt, and now in a private collection.¹  The ex-Witt drawing, which strangely bears an old attribution to a disciple of Barocci, Antonio Viviani (1560-1620), is slightly smaller than the Adrien drawing, and is executed in red chalk heightened with white, on paper washed brown.  Both drawings bear witness to Calvaert's indefatigable working method, and his habit of frequently rethinking his compositions throughout his preparatory process, reversing figures and developing compositions through a series of meticulously executed, highly finished sheets.²  As Olivia Savatier Sjöholm rightly noted in her Rennes exhibition catalogue entry for the present drawing, Calvaert seems to make changes to his compositions until the very last moment: 'Comme à son habitude, Calvaert a encore perfectionnné la composition lors du passage à la peinture...'.  

The painting was originally executed for the sacristy of the church of Santa Lucia, where it is mentioned in loco by Cavazzoni in 1603, in his guide to the city of Bologna.³  The biographer Carlo Cesare Malvasia's suggestion that the Immaculate Conception should be dated to Calvaert's early career seems to be accurate.  Malvasia rightly pointed out that the altarpiece shows a strong stylistic debt to Lorenzo Sabatini (circa 1530-1576),⁴ an influence that is not, however, evident in the preparatory drawings, which are highly characteristic of Calvaert's graphic oeuvre.  A native of Antwerp, Calvaert settled in Bologna in the early 1560s, and after leaving the workshop of Prospero Fontana (1512-1597), he joined forces with Lorenzo Sabatini, with whom he probably travelled first to Florence, and later, in 1572, to Rome, where he collaborated on the decoration of the Sala Regia, in the Vatican, entrusted to Sabatini by the Bolognese Pope, Gregorio XIII, Boncompagni.

^1. Sold, New York, Sotheby's, 14 January 1992, lot 21; see S. Twieshaus, Dionisio Calvaert (Um 1540-1619), Die Altarwerke, Berlin 2002, under no A 3, reproduced fig. 4

^2. See W. Kloek, 'Calvaerts oefeningen met spiegelbeeldigheid', Oud Holland, no. 107, 1993, I, pp. 59-74

^3. F. Cavazzoni, Pitture et sculture et altre cose notabili che sono in Bologna e dove si trovano, Bologna 1603, published in R. Varese, 'Una guida inedita del seicento', Critica d'Arte, 103, 1969, p. 18

^4. C.C. Malvasia, Le pitture di Bologna, (1686) ed. Alfa, Bologna 1969, p. 256