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Lot Essay
Donatello Biagi Maino (loc. cit., 1989) was the first to identify these modelli as preliminary for the two large pendentives (figs. a and b) of the dome in the Church of Santa Maria della Vita, Bologna. This decoration in fresco was the most ambitious project of Gaetano's career, undertaken at a time when the artist was at the height of his powers. The modello for the half of the cupola fresco above the main altar, The Assumption of the Virgin with the precursors of Christ, is in the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, Missouri, and that for the other half, The Sacrifice of Manoah and Cain, is in the Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, Indiana (see M. Cazort, in the catalogue of the exhibition, Bella Pittura, op. cit., nos. 49-50). Modelli for the two other pendentives have not been traced.
The contemporary Bolognese observer, Marcello Oretti, records in his Cronica o sia diario pittorico (ms., 1764-84) that Gaetano started his work in the Church in 1776 and that this was unveiled on 10 September 1779 (M. Cazort, ibid., p. 71, under no. 49). Renovation of the Church in the Via Clavature, not far from Gaetano Gandolfi's house in the Via San Donato, was started in 1775 on commission of the arch-confraternity.
In addition to the four modelli, numerous drawings for the project are known (they were first united in the exhibition in Ottawa, op. cit., 1993, pp. 71-73 and pp. 91-95, nos. 49-52 and 77-88). Except for some differences in the drapery of the putti, the present works differ from the frescoes in that the mirror, an attribute of Prudence, is not depicted frontally as in the fresco but tilted forwards, thus facing the beholder below.
The contemporary Bolognese observer, Marcello Oretti, records in his Cronica o sia diario pittorico (ms., 1764-84) that Gaetano started his work in the Church in 1776 and that this was unveiled on 10 September 1779 (M. Cazort, ibid., p. 71, under no. 49). Renovation of the Church in the Via Clavature, not far from Gaetano Gandolfi's house in the Via San Donato, was started in 1775 on commission of the arch-confraternity.
In addition to the four modelli, numerous drawings for the project are known (they were first united in the exhibition in Ottawa, op. cit., 1993, pp. 71-73 and pp. 91-95, nos. 49-52 and 77-88). Except for some differences in the drapery of the putti, the present works differ from the frescoes in that the mirror, an attribute of Prudence, is not depicted frontally as in the fresco but tilted forwards, thus facing the beholder below.