Giovanni Battista Salvi, called Sassoferrato

With Piero Corsini, New York;

From whom acquired.

C.D. Dickerson, in From the Private Collections of Texas, European Art, Ancient to Modern, exhibition catalogue, R. Bretell and C.D. Dickerson (eds.), New Haven and Fort Worth 2009, p. 160, cat. no. 22, reproduced in color p. 161.

Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum, From the Private Collections of Texas: European Art, Ancient to Modern, 22 November 2009 - 21 March 2010, no. 22.

Giovanni Battista Salvi, more commonly known as Sassoferrato, after the town in which he was born, learned the rudiments of painting from his father Tarquino before embarking on a trip to Rome. There he studied the works of his contemporaries, including Guido Reni and the Carracci. Sassoferrato became known mostly for his private devotional paintings such as the present work. Many of his compositions--particularly those of the Madonna--exist in numerous versions, attesting to his great popularity during his lifetime.

Though Raphael is often cited as his greatest influence, as he replicated many of the great master's compositions, the present work takes inspiration from a painting by Domenichino now in the Palazzo Pallavicini-Rospigliosi, Rome (fig. 1). Domenichino's canvas is much larger and grander, depicting Cecilia full-length and set in a large landscape space, while Sassoferrato has created a more intimate setting for the Saint. The cherubim accompaniment has been replaced by an elegant still life of flowers and a small book, while she sits indoors and is cropped in a way that brings the viewer into her space, with a curtain and window reminiscent of a Renaissance portrait.

Traditionally it has been said that Sassoferrato encountered Domenichino in Naples in the 1630s, and given Sassoferrato's affinity for the older artist it is quite likely they had a close working relationship, though this is not specifically documented. Domenichino's painting of Saint Cecilia was painted earlier than this canvas, in the late 1620s, and remained in Rome, so Sassoferrato probably encountered the painting once he had settled there in 1641.

The martyr Cecilia, patron saint of church music, enjoyed enormous popularity in the seventeenth-century Rome, particularly after her body was unearthed there in 1599. This resulted in numerous paintings dedicated to her, notably Domenichino's cycle of frescoes depicting scenes from her life in San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome, and Stefano Maderno's moving sculpture of her corpse in Santa Cecilia in Trastevere.

Fig. 1 Domenichino (in collaboration with Antonio Barbalogna), St. Cecilia, oil on canvas, 250 by 120 cm., Palazzo Pallavicini-Rospigliosi, Rome.