The Madonna and Child with Saints Dominic and Catherine of Siena
Provenance
with P&D Colnaghi, London, 1974; acquired by
Mrs. Tescher; sold at
Sotheby’s, New York, Important Old Master Paintings, 17 June 1982, lot 139; acquired by
Private Collection, United States, until 24 April 2018; by gift to the following
Charitable Trust until 2024;
acquired by Private Collection, United States
Exhibitions
South Hadley, Massachusetts, Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, on loan 1984–2020
Exhibitions
Riccardo Lattuada, ‘Corrado Giaquinto e/o Geremia Rovari nella Parrocchiale di Nettuno e altre opere di Giaquinto inedite o poco note a Poggiardo, a Washington e altrove’, in Elisa Debenedetti, ed., Studi sul Settecento Romano, Rome, 2022, vol. 38, p. 12.
This sparkling bozzetto was painted by Corrado Giaquinto during the peak of his creative powers in the 1740s when he painted his great masterpiece, the decoration of the nave of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome. Throughout his career, Giaquinto, who was born in Molfetta in Southern Italy in 1703, balanced the brilliant colorism and dramatic elegant virtuosity which comes out of his early exposure to the Neapolitan sprezzatura of Francesco Solimena with a classicism and refinement which he adopted in Rome. It was in Rome where he sealed his reputation as one of the greatest painters of his day, before being brought to Madrid as court painter for King Ferdinand VI.
In remarkable condition, this bozzetto exemplifies the qualities which made such small works by Giaquinto so avidly collected in their own right. At the same time, its relationship to two altarpieces by Giaquinto illustrates the two sides of the artist. Both are of the same subject and almost identical composition. One, measuring 238 x 152 cm, is in the Collegiata of San Giovanni in Nettuno, a seaside town near Rome. Historically this was always regarded as the only fully autograph treatment of this composition. The other is in the parish church of the Transfiguration of Christ in the Southern town of Poggiardo, near Lecce (fig. 1).
Following recent studies by Susanna Inouye, Maria Giovanna Di Capua, Lucio Galante and Riccardo Lattuada, the Poggiardo altarpiece, to which this bozzetto is closest, has now been reinstated as a fully autograph work. Indeed, in a recent article, Lattuada argues that the radiant light effects, the forceful modeling of the figures and the shimmering, brilliant palette place the Poggiardo altarpiece before the painting in Nettuno. Lattuada finds the Nettuno painting more architecturally cramped, overly attentive to surface detail and more classical in its sensibility, and sees Giaquinto reacting to the measured, Roman style of Sebastiano Conca. Our bozzetto is clearly connected to the Poggiardo painting and so may date to the early 1740s, while the Nettuno altarpiece was executed later and is dateable to the late 1740s.
There is a related drawing in the Museu Nacional d’Arte de Catalunya, Barcelona which shows the entire composition (fig. 2). This may be a later production. Of higher quality is a single figure study for Saint Dominic which was with P & D Colnaghi in 1984.
The subject was especially popular in the eighteenth century, partly due to the greater influence of Spain in Italy. Saint Dominic was a Spanish saint which had inspired a fervent international following since the Middle Ages, but churches in Rome, Naples and Venice promoted the cult of the great Dominican saints, especially Saint Dominic himself and Saint Catherine of Siena, both of whom feature in this painting. Giaquinto painted a number of Dominican altarpieces including one for the church of Saint Dominic in Molfetta and one in Santa Sabina in Rome. Interest in Saint Dominic was further promoted in the late 1720s by the Dominican Pope, Benedict XIII Orsini, whose best-known act of patronage was the construction of the Spanish Steps in Rome. The attributes of Saint Dominic include a dog with flaming torch, the blazing light of true faith, and also a reference to the nickname of the Dominicans as the ‘Domini canes’ on account of their vigor in hunting down heresy. Saint Catherine is shown here taking the Crown of Thorns and holding a lily, her principal attributes. Both saints wear the white tunic and scapular and black cloak traditionally worn by members of the order.