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Artist

Ludovico Carracci

Year
Bologna 1555 - 1619
Price range
250,000 – 3,000,000 USD +
Bolognese artist Ludovico Carracci is one of the most significant figures in the development of the Italian Baroque, promoting the shift away from mannerism towards naturalism.

Like his younger cousin, Annibale Carracci (1560–1609), Ludovico hailed from Bologna where he remained for almost all of his life. His significance is owed to the crucial role he played in taking Bolognese painting away from what was then perceived as the artificiality of Mannerism and, instead, basing his art on a naturalism which was aligned to the cultural agenda laid out by the Council of Trent. This was known as the Carracci reform. In 1582 he founded the Accademia dei Desiderosi, the ‘Carracci Academy’, along with his cousins Annibale and Agostino to instruct artists in their new method. So characteristic was the house style that some of Ludovico’s early paintings are almost indistinguishable from those by his more famous cousin Annibale.

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Selected artworks
Market

Top 3 auction prices

5,227,500 $
2000
6,705,342 $
2018
13,597,695 $
2006

Details

The sales are: Christie’s New York – 27 Jan 2000 lot 74, Christie’s London – 5 Jul 2018 lot 36 (5,071,250 GBP), and Christie’s London – 6 Jul 2006 lot 45 (7,400,000 GBP).
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Further Reading

Alessandro Brogi, Ludovico Carracci (1555-1619): Addenda, Bologna, 2016.

Alessandro Brogi, Ludovico Carracci (1555-1619), Bologna, 2001.

Gail Feigenbaum and Andrea Emiliani, Ludovico Carracci, exh. cat. Bologna, 1992.

Carlo Cesare Malvasia, Felsina Pittrice: Live of the Bolognese Painters, 1678, trans. ed. Elizabeth Cropper, Washington D.C., 2012.

Notable Exhibitions

Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada, The Noble Art of the Carracci and their School: A Selection of Drawings and Prints, 31 May 2013 – 1 January 2014. Curated by Sonia Del Re.

Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, Ludovico Carracci: The Vision of Saint Francis, 18 November 2010 – 18 February 2011. Curated by Eve Straussman–Pflanzer.

Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, Captured Emotions: Baroque Painting in Bologna, 1575-172516 December 2008 – 3 May 2009. Curated by Andreas Henning and Scott Schaefer.

New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Birth of Baroque: The Carracci at the Metropolitan7 July – 17 September 2000. Curated by Keith C. Christiansen and Suzanne Boorsch.

Bologna, Museo Civico Archeologico–Pinacoteca Nazionale, Ludovico Carracci, 25 September – 12 December 1993; travelled to Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum, 22 January – 10 April 1994. Curated by Andrea Emiliani.

Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, The Age of Correggio and the Carracci, December 19, 1986 – February 16, 1987; travelled to Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale, 10 September – 11 October 1086; and New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 19 March – 24 May, 1987. Curated by Beverly Louise Brown and Sydney J. Freedberg.

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