SEBASTIANO RICCI | The Holy Family with the infant Saint John the Baptist

William Spencer Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire (1790–1858), Chiswick House, London, where it hung in the East Saloon by 1845 and in the West Ante Room by 1863;
Removed from Chiswick House, probably in 1892, and thence by descent at Chatsworth, Derbyshire, where it is recorded in 1933 (as Andrea Schiavone);
Thence by descent to Andrew Cavendish, 11th Duke of Devonshire (1920–2004);
The Chatsworth Collection Sale, London, Christie's, 27 June 1958, lot 14 (as Ricci), for £6,500 to Leggatt;
With Leggatt Bros., London;
By whom sold to Kenneth William James Mackay, 3rd Earl of Inchcape (1917–1994) by 1961;
By whom sold, London, Christie's, 1 July 1966, lot 55, for £6,800 to Leggatt;
With Leggatt Bros., London;
By whom sold to Bobby Wills (1918–2004), Farmington Lodge, Gloucestershire;
His posthumous sale, London, Sotheby’s, 5 July 2005, lot 19;
Private collection, Spain;
Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's, 9 December 2015, lot 21;
Where acquired by the present owner.

London, Leggatt Bros., The Inchcape Collection, 1961, no. 31. 

T. Faulkner, History of Brentford, Ealing and Chiswick, London 1845, p. 402, as hanging in the East Saloon at Chiswick House (as Andrea Schiavone, 'a beautiful picture');
F. Thompson, Catalogue of Paintings in the Collection of the Duke of Devonshire, MS. typescript 1933, inv. no. 617 (as Andrea Schiavone);
J. Daniels, Sebastiano Ricci, Hove 1976, p. 27, cat. no. 88, reproduced fig. 193 (as Sebastiano Ricci);
J. Daniels, L'opera completa di Sebastiano Ricci, Milan 1976, p. 114, cat. no. 287, reproduced p. 113, fig. 287 (as Sebastiano Ricci);
A. Scarpa, Sebastiano Ricci, Milan 2006, p. 222, cat. no. 225, reproduced p. 536, figure 386.

The following condition report is provided by Henry Gentle who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's: Sebastiano Ricci The Holy Family Oil on canvas, in a gilt frame. The original canvas is recently lined. The canvas is stable with good tension. Under raking light raised warp and weft of the canvas is evident. The paint layer is in very good original condition with very well preserved paint texture. Under u-v light a scattering of minor restorations can be detected concentrated mostly to the tree trunk on the left hand side. There is the remains of an old varnish in situ that fluoresces under u-v light. Its removal would improve the overall tonality and reveal colours, such as the pure lapis lazuli of the Madonna's dress, that retain their vibrancy and saturate well. Fine details to the figures and the crispness of the sculptural highlights of the fabric , in particular, are unaffected by any previous conservation intervention. Overall, in very good preserved condition.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Recorded at Chiswick House in the nineteenth century, it is possible that this painting was commissioned by Sebastiano Ricci's first English patron, Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington (1694 - 1753). George Vertue, who visited Chiswick with Lord Burlington in 1734, recorded 'many rooms with pictures – finely adorn'd. Statues. Busts. &c. Seb Ricchi' and three large overmantels depicting Venus and Cupid, Bacchus and Ariadne, and Diana and Endymion remain there today. Ricci’s success in England, where he worked between 1712 and 1716, was considerable. For Burlington, he painted a number of pictures, including the monumental canvases of mythological subjects that are still at Burlington House today (now the Royal Academy of Arts, London). Ricci’s painterly brilliance, which owes much to his Venetian forerunners, was recognised by collectors and connoisseurs across Europe. Demand for his work was strengthened by his travels both within and outside Italy.  Attributed to Andrea Schiavone by Faulkner (see under Literature), and considered by Gustav Glück to be possibly by Sir Anthony van Dyck after Titian (1929), the painting was first identified as a work by Ricci by Otto Benesch (1939), a view subsequently endorsed by Ellis Waterhouse (1948), who believed it to be by Ricci after a Titian design (information recorded in the manuscript inventory of the Devonshire collection at Chatsworth).

This intimate scene depicting The Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist in a Landscape was tentatively identified by Daniels as The Rest on the Flight into Egypt but, given that the Christ Child is older and the Baptist is also present, it might represent what is often called 'The Return from Egypt'. The painting is quintessentially Venetian in character and Ricci has had particular recourse to Titian's pastoral religious scenes. Not only is the composition, setting and iconography very Titian-like but so is the rounded facial type of the Madonna: compare, for example, that in Titian's Madonna and Child with Saint Catherine and the Infant Baptist of circa 1530 in the National Gallery, London.¹

The painting's indebtedness to Titian may have been at the behest of the patron who commissioned the work and this, together with the fact that it is in a fine English 18th-century carved and gilt wood frame, lends support to the hypothesis that the picture was executed for an English patron. Whether it was Lord Burlington who commissioned the painting – the second Christie's sale catalogue claims as much – must remain an open question. In any event it is recorded as hanging in the East Saloon at Chiswick House by 1845, and in the West Ante Room in 1863. It was probably removed from there in 1892 and is recorded at Chatsworth in 1933. By 1939 The Holy Family was hanging on the walls of the Red Velvet Room, which must have suited the warm tones of the painting particularly well.

A reduced replica, on paper, attributed to Joseph Goupy by Daniels, is in a private collection, Milan. 

¹  H. Wethey, The Paintings of Titian, vol. I, The Religious Paintings, London 1969, fig. 35.