GINEVRA CANTOFOLI | A SEA-NYMPH, PROBABLY GALATEA

The Honorable Mrs. Lister-Kay, Ballinlea, near Dalkey, Co. Dublin (according to a label on the reverse);

Arthur and W. Sévérine Frankel;

By whose estate sold, New York, Sotheby's, 22 January 2004, lot 40 (as "Attributed to Michele Desubleo");

There acquired by Luigi Koelliker, Milan and London;

By whom sold, London, Sotheby's, 4 December 2008, lot 196;

There acquired by the present owner.

Italian Cultural Institute, Diacromie. Dialogie e Derive. Collezione Koelliker, exhibition catalogue, London 2006, n.p., reproduced in color;

M. Pulini, "1656. Ritratto di Ginevra Cantofoli pittrice," in J. Bentini and V. Fortunati, eds., Elisabetta Sirani 'pittrice eroina' 1638 - 1665, exhibition catalogue, Bologna 2004, pp. 134 - 41;

M. Pulini, "Un'altra donna pittrice nel Seicento," in Avvenire, 19 December 2004, p. 22;

M. Pulini, Ginevra Cantofoli : la nuova nascita di una pittrice nella Bologna del Seicento, Bologna 2006, cat. no. 18, pp. 60-61, 104-06, reproduced in color on cover, on p. 61, fig. 62, on p. 72, and on p. 105.

Ginevra Cantolofi trained with Andrea Sirani, the father of her fellow painter and friend Elisabetta Sirani. Although many of her paintings are lost, she specialized in female figures and her appearance is known thanks to a self portrait¹; the features of many of her female figures resemble her own. The present Sea-nymph is one of her masterpieces, and most likely depicts Galatea who was a popular subject in seventeenth-century painting. Here she wears a crown of diverse mollusk shells and holds a coral, though she typically appears riding a shell chariot pulled by dolphins. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Galatea transformed her mortal lover Acis into a river spirit after he was killed by the jealous Cyclops, Polyphemus. The nymph's white, almost transparent skin demonstrates that Cantofoli was familiar with classical texts describing Galatea, whose name means "milk-white."

1. Cantofoli, Allegory of Painting,signed, oil on canvas, 98 by 74 cm. Private collection.