Old Masters Day Sale
Old Masters Day Sale
Property from a European Private Collection
Auction Closed
December 5, 12:50 PM GMT
Estimate
60,000 - 80,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Property from a European Private Collection
PIER FRANCESCO MOLA
Coldrerio 1612 - 1666 Rome
Portrait of a bearded man, possibly the artist's father
oil on canvas
62.2 x 47.6 cm.; 24½ x 18¾ in.
Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby's, 17 January 2005, lot 154, for $140,000;
With Robilant + Voena, London and Milan;
From whom acquired by the present collector.
F. Petrucci, 'Mola e il suo tempo', in Mola e il suo tempo. Pittura di figura a Roma dalla Collezione Koelliker, F. Petrucci (ed.), exh. cat., Milan 2005, p. 61, reproduced p. 63;
F. Petrucci, 'Un nuovo dipinto di Pier Francesco Mola. Euclide con un discepolo', in Svizzeri a Roma nella storia nella cultura nell'economia dal Cinquecento ad oggi, Arte e Storia, vol. VIII, 2007 p. 216;
F. Petrucci Pittura di ritratto a Roma, il '600, Rome 2008, vol II, p. 354, reproduced vol. III, fig. 483;
F. Petrucci, Pier Francesco Mola, Rome 2012, p. 261, cat. no. A29, reproduced p. 149.
Dottor Francesco Petrucci proposes that this portrait, datable to circa 1660–65, may depict the artist's father, the architect Giovan Battista Mola (1585–1665), in the guise of a biblical figure or an ancient philosopher. He specifically compares the physiognomy with that in the portrait of Giovan Battista in the Accademia di San Luca, Roma.1
As Petrucci notes, the canvas could correspond to a work of the same size listed in the 1712 inventory of Cardinal Giovan Battista Costagui: 'una testa di vecchio, in tela da testa, del Mola.' The work reappears in the 1715 inventory. Petrucci also notes that Cardinal Fesch is recorded in 1841 as owning a painting by Mola described in much the same way: 'Demi-figure représentant un vieillard, ouvrage où l'expression s'unit à une savante imitation de la nature, par Mola.'
1 G. Incisa della Rocchetta, La collezione dei ritratti dell'Accademia di San Luca, Rome 1979, p. 41, cat. no. 106, reproduced p. 144.