Valerio Castello

Anonymous sale ('Property of a Private Collector'), New York, Sotheby’s, 11 January 1990, lot 51, for $159,500;

Where acquired by the present owner.

C. Manzitti, Valerio Castello, Turin 2004, pp. 162–63, no. 152, reproduced;

G. Zanelli in Valerio Castello 1624–1659. Genio Moderno, M.C. Gallo, L. Leoncini, C. Manzitti and D. Sanguineti (eds), exh. cat., Genoa 2008, pp. 216 and 309, no. 68, reproduced in colour.

Genoa, Museo di Palazzo Reale, Teatro del Falcone, Valerio Castello 1624–1659. Genio Moderno, 15 February – 15 June 2008, no. 68.

Rediscovered from a private collection in 1990, this dramatic depiction of The Judgement of Solomon is a powerful expression of the elegant lyricism that defined the work of Valerio Castello’s maturity. Identified by Camillo Manzitti as a tour-de-force of baroque design,¹ the figures, masterfully arranged along two crossing diagonals formed by the figure of Solomon and the honest mother carrying her child, are executed with a vigorous and painterly brushwork, typical of the artist’s highly individual style.

The subject, originating from The Book of Kings in the Old Testament (3: 16–28), recounts how two women, living in the same house and each the mother of an infant son, came to Solomon. One of the infants had died, and both mothers were claiming the surviving boy to be theirs. In order to establish the truth, Solomon ordered for a sword to be brought, proclaiming that the child be divided in two, as the only fair way of settling the argument. Only one of the mother’s agreed, while the other renounced her claim, begging Solomon to give the child to the other woman so he could live, therefore revealing herself as the rightful mother.

The short-lived Valerio Castello is considered one of the most original Genoese artists of the mid-seventeenth century. Born into a family of artists, he trained in the workshops of Domenico Fiasella and Giovanni Andrea de’ Ferrari before traveling to Milan and Parma. Assimilating influences from figures like Correggio and Parmigianino, as well as from the colony of northern painters that settled in Genoa during the mid-seventeenth century, Castello developed a distinctive dynamic and painterly style, clearly exemplified in this work.

Manzitti dates this picture to the mid-1650s, and compares it to the only other known iteration of this subject, developed in a vertical format, in a private collection.²

¹ Manzitti 2004, pp. 162–63, no. 152, reproduced.

² Oil on canvas; 160 x 131.5 cm.; Manzitti 2004, no. 149 pp. 160-61, reproduced