Christ Among the Doctors

Details

Giovanni Battista Merano (Genoa 1632-1698 Piacenza)
Christ Among the Doctors
oil on canvas
51 5/8 x 80 in. (131.2 x 203 cm.)

Provenance

Private collection, Novi, 2000;
Private collection, Paris.
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 10 July 2008, lot 11.

Literature

A Journey through Taste: Exhibition of Old Master Paintings from the Spier Collection and other Loans, exhibition catalogue, London, John Lishawa & Co., June - July 2004, cat. no. 17, reproduced in colour (as Domenico Fiasella);
M. Newcome Schleier, "More Merano", in Paragone, year LVI, no. 667, vol. 63, September 2005, pp. 66-67, and p. 71, footnote 19, reproduced plate 39.

Exhibited

London, John Lishawa & Co., A Journey through Taste: Exhibition of Old Master Paintings from the Spier Collection and other Loans, June - July 2004, no. 17 (as Domenico Fiasella).

Special notice

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Lot Essay

A pupil of Giovanni Andrea de Ferrari and Valerio Castello, Giovanni Battista Merano studied closely the works of Correggio and Parmigianino in Parma, where he went in the 1650s. His earliest known painting is a monogrammed Crucifixion with Saints Lawrence and George in the Palazzo Ducale, Genoa, datable to circa 1652. Like his contemporary Domenico Piola, who had also studied with Valerio Castello, Merano's activity in Genoa greatly increased in the 1660s and by 1670 he was taking on accomplished pupils such as Giovanni Maria delle Piane. In the 1680s Merano travelled to Piacenza where he was patronised by Duke Ranuccio II Farnese, from whom he received an annual stipend. He also had patrons in Novi, where genoese nobleman owned country retreats

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