A knight and his page: a fragment

Details

Attributed to Paolo Caliari, il Veronese (Verona 1528-1588 Venice)
A knight and his page: a fragment
oil on canvas
36 5/8 x 29 1/8 in. (93 x 74 cm.)

Literature

F. Sansovino and G. Stringa, Venetia città nobilissima et singolare, etc., Venice, 1604, p. 183.
C. Ridolfi, Le Meraviglie dell'arte, Venice, 1648, rev. edn., D. von Hadeln, ed., 1914, p. 301 and note.
M. Boschini, Le Minere della pintura, etc., Venice, 1664, p. 355.
Idem, Le Ricche minere della Pittura, etc., Venice, 1674, p. 14.
C.C. Patina, Tabellae selectae ac explicitae, Padua, 1691, pp. 101-2, illustrated.
B. Dal Pozzo, Le Vite de' pittori, degli scultori et erchitetti veronesi, Verona, 1718, rev. edn., L. Magagnato, ed., 1967, p. 80.
A.M. Zanetti, Descrizione di tutte le pubbliche pitture della città di Venezia, Venice, 1733, p. 322.
Idem, Della pittura veneziana, Venice, 1771, p. 166.
G.A. Moschini, Guida per la città di Venezia, Venice, 1815, II, p. 314.
E. Cicogna, delle iscrizioni Veneziane raccolte ed illustrate, Venice, 1834, IV, p. 152.
F. Zanotto, Nuovissima guida di Venezia, Venice, 1856, p. 430.
P. Caliari, Paolo Veronese. Sua vita e sue opere, Rome, 1888, pp. 225 and 268.
F.H. Meissner, Veronese, Leipzig, 1897, p. 44, fig. 29.
D. von Hadeln, Venetianische Zeichnungen der Spätrenaissance, Berlin, 1926, fig. 55.
M. Piacentini, 'Dipinti e disegni italiani in Atene', in L'Arte, 1941, pp. 3-19.
H.E. Tietze and E. Tietze-Conrat, Drawings of the Venetian Painters in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, New York, 1944, no. 2034.
F. Tucci-Savo, 'Dipinto inedito di Paolo Veronese', Arte Figurativa Antica e Moderna, May-June 1954, p. 34.
R. Pallucchini, 'Veronese Paolo', in Enciclopedia Universale dell'Arte, XIV, Venice and Rome, 1966, p. 725.
T. Pignatti, Le pitture di Paolo Veronese nella chiesa di San Sebastiano in Venezia. Con una notizia tecnica sui restauri di L. Tintori, Milan, 1966, pp. 42 and 97-8, fig. 5.
R. Marini, Tuta la pittura di Paolo Veronese, Milan, 1968, no. 104.
T. Pignatti, Veronese, Venice, 1976, I, no. 76, II, fig. 156.
R. Pallucchini, Veronese, Milan, 1984, p. 170.
T. Pignatti and F. Pedrocco, Veronese. Catalogo Completo, Florence, 1991, no. 45.
T. Pignatti and F. Pedrocco, Veronese, Milan, 1995, I, pp. 124-5, no. 85, illustrated.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis

Lot Essay

This is the only known fragment from a lost picture of Saint Sebastian before Diocletian that Veronese painted for the Church of San Sebastiano in Venice. It is known from an engraving by Cochin, published in Patina op. cit., 1691, and from a number of later copies in the Gallerie Accademia, Venice; the Galleria Nazionale, Parma; the Pinacoteca, Rovigo; and in a private collection in Mantua, among others (see Pignatti, op. cit., 1976, II, figs.157-61). From these full-scale versions we can see that the knight and page, depicted in the fragment, were originally placed just to the right of centre in the canvas, by the feet of the Emperor, who is seated on a raised throne on the right. A preparatory sketch for the figure of the knight, as well as the figure of Saint Sebastian, exists in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (no. V.30, see Piacentini, loc. cit., and Pignatti loc. cit, 1966).

The painting originally hung on the North wall of the Church and covered a damaged fresco, also by Veronese. It is suspected that the damp that caused the deterioration in the fresco also ultimately led to the disintegration of the canvas. The last recorded mention of the canvas in situ, is by Zanotto, loc. cit., in 1856.

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