Valerio Castello

Barons Ajroldi di Robbiate, Lombardy;

Thence by descent to General Baron Luigi Ajroldi di Robbiate (1868-1937);

Thence by descent to a private collector, Germany;

By whom anonymously sold, Vienna, Dorotheum, 13 April 2011, lot 456;

Where acquired by the present owner.

M. Domanengo, in Domenico Piola, 1628-1703, Percorsi di pittura barocca, exhibition catalogue, D. Sanguineti (ed.), Genoa 2017, p. 119, under cat. no. 8, reproduced.

M. Domanengo, in Domenico Piola, 1628-1703, Percorsi di pittura barocca, exhibition catalogue, D. Sanguineti (ed.), Genoa 2017, p. 119, under cat. no. 8, reproduced.

Valerio Castello executed this dramatic composition in the 1540s, when he was among Genoa's foremost painters. The rich color palette, energetic brushwork, and dynamic compositional arrangement derive from works by Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony Van Dyck. The two Flemish artists both spent formative periods in Genoa, where they produced grand works for the city's ecclesiastic and aristocratic elite. Their Genoese legacy wielded a particularly strong influence on Castello, who blended aspects of their art with artistic trends he encountered when working in Milan and Parma early in his career.

Castello produced two bozzetti, or painted sketches, for the present painting. Both in private collections, they reveal his experimental working method: the process by which he readjusted the figural forms and their internal arrangement before settling on their disposition in the present painting.¹ The artist depicted the Holy Family's flight into Egypt on at least one other occasion, rendering the scene in a vertical format (Genoa, Palazzo Bianco, inv. no. PB 382).²

¹ One, formerly in the collection of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, is in a private collection, Genoa; the second was sold at the Dorotheum, 17 April 2013, lot 173. On these, see C. Manzitti, Valerio Castello, Turin 2004, pp. 170-171, cat. nos. 172-173, and Domanengro 2017, p. 119, under cat. no. 8.

² A replica of this version is in a private collection, Genoa. For these, see Manzitti 2004, cat. nos. 170-171, and Domanengro 2017, p. 119, under cat. no. 8.