Circle of Annibale Carracci

Lucien Bonaparte, 1st Prince of Canino and Musignano (1775–1840), France;

By whom donated to Jean de Sellon, Seigneur d'Allaman and Count of the Holy Roman Empire (1736–1810), Switzerland, by 1795;

By descent to his son, Count Jean-Jacques de Sellon (1782–1839), rue des Granges, Geneva;

Marguerite Augusta Gautier-van Berchem (1892–1984), Geneva;

Thence by descent.

Catalogue Raisonné des 215 Tableaux les plus capitaux du Cabinet de Monsieur le Comte de Sellon 'd'Allaman, dont une partie se voit dans son hôtel à Genève, et l'autre dans son château d'Allaman, en Suisse pays de Vaud [...], Geneva 1795, p. 6, no. 12 (as Agostino Carracci);

Catalogue complet de la galerie de tableaux du Comte de Sellon. 578 nos. Catalogue de tableaux appartenant à Monsieur le Comte de Sellon à Genève [...], Geneva 1798, n. p., no. 19 (as Agostino Carracci);

J.-J. de Sellon, Nouveaux mélanges politiques, moraux et littéraires, Geneva 1838, vol. III, p. 348 (as Agostino Carracci). 

This jewel-toned painting on copper is closely related to The Holy Family with the infant Saint John the Baptist of circa 1597–98, better known as The Montalto Madonna, by Annibale Carracci (1560–1609), today in the National Gallery, London.¹ Prior to that picture's re-discovery at Sotheby's in 2003, after which it sold in these Rooms for £789,600,² the composition was only known through engravings, namely that by Cornelis Bloemart the Younger (1603–1692) made in the late 1630s,³ as well as numerous contemporary painted replicas. Few of these replicas compare to the quality of the present painting, though, attesting to both the skill of the artist who executed this work, as well as their likely proximity to Annibale himself.

This notion is corroborated by the strong similarities between this painting's composition and that of The Montalto Madonna, which only differs significantly in its inclusion of two small figures in the background, upper left. Such resemblance could suggest that the artist produced a tracing from the original painting itself, perhaps by placing oiled transparent paper on the surface of the picture to allow for the reproduction of contours with charcoal and ink.⁴ Indeed, the cumulative effect this process had on the condition of The Montalto Madonna was already apparent by the time that Giovan Pietro Bellori (1613–1696) saw the work sometime before the publication of his Vite in 1672.⁵ Throughout this period, the painting had descended in the family of Cardinal Alessandro Peretti Montalto (1570–1623), who commissioned the work, before being sold around 1655 on the extinction of the Peretti-Montalto line, then passing into the collection of Lorenzo di Jacopo di Lorenzo Salviati (d. 1674).

Note on Provenance

The first known owner of the present painting – referenced in the inscription on its reverse – was Lucien Bonaparte, 1st Prince of Canino and Musignano (1775–1840) and younger brother to Napoleon (1769–1821). Lucien was a politician and diplomat of the French Revolution and the Consulate. He served as Minister of the Interior from 1799 to 1800 and as the President of the Council of Five Hundred in 1799. He amassed a respectable collection of Old Masters and commissioned, among other significant works, the heroic Saint Mary of Egypt by Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725–1805), now in the Chrysler Museum, Norfolk.⁶ This was Greuze's last major commission and can be counted among his largest canvases.

Lucien donated the present picture to Jean de Sellon, Seigneur d'Allaman and Count of the Holy Roman Empire (1736–1810). Jean was an avid art collector and had amassed at least 215 paintings by 1795, as attested to by the catalogue of his collection written that year. Another catalogue was compiled in 1798, by which time this number had grown to 578 works (see Literature for references to both catalogues). The painting later passed, along with much of the rest of Jean's collection, to his son, Count Jean-Jacques de Sellon (1782–1839): a notable writer, philanthropist, art collector, and pacifist. Jean-Jacques shared his father's passion for collecting and continued to grow the family holdings, but instead focused on contemporary Swiss landscape painters. Upon his death, part of the Sellon collection was bequeathed to the Geneva Museum of Art and History.

¹ Inv. no. NG6597; oil on copper, 35 x 27.5 cm.; Annibale Carracci | The Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist | NG6597 | National Gallery, London.

² London, Sotheby's, 10 July 2003, lot 35, for £789,600.

³ An impression of this engraving is now in the British Museum, London: museum no. U,1.73; engraving, 393 x 277 mm.; https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_U-1-73 .

⁴ Other tracing methods that may have been employed in the production of replicas are outlined in L. Keith, 'Annibale Carracci's Montalto Madonna', in National Gallery Technical Bulletin, vol. 29, 2008, p. 54.

⁵ G.P. Bellori, Le vite de' pittori, scvltori et architetti moderni, Rome 1672, p. 84; for a translated version, see G.P. Bellori, The lives of the modern painters, sculptors and architects, A.S. Wohl, H. Wohl and T. Montanari (trans.), Cambridge 2005, p. 101.

⁶ Inv. no. 71.652; oil on canvas, 181.6 x 145.4 cm.; https://chrysler.emuseum.com/objects/27072/saint-mary-of-egypt?ctx=c52ef36b84d7222ec9c1df341a20c5426dc042d4&idx=1.