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Lot Essay
This imposing Susannah and the Elders is an important work by Francesco Lupicini, an enigmatic figure of the Florentine Seicento whose artistic output has only recently been reconstructed by art historians following the emergence of several notably fine pictures, revealing a painter of considerable creative force.
Lupicini’s previous obscurity was largely due to a paucity of biographical information and his omission from the Notizie of Filippo Baldinucci (1625-1696), the official biographer of Florentine painters. This exclusion can be attributed, in part, to the fact that Baldinucci never met Lupicini, and that the latter left his native city for Spain in 1635. The few sources available to art historians reveal a temperamental character who appears to have been frequently embroiled in fractious relations with both patrons and his fellow artists. After his departure for Spain, Lupicini settled in Zaragoza, where he executed a series of canvases depicting the story of the True Cross for the chapel of Saint Helena in the cathedral of La Seo, works that still survive in situ.
Dott.ssa Francesca Baldassari, to whom we are grateful for confirming the attribution of the present picture, compares its execution with that of Lupicini’s most celebrated work, Martha and Mary rebuking Mary Magdalene, in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (fig. 1). She considers both works to date to the artist’s years in Florence and that the present canvas reveals the influence of Matteo Rosselli and Giovanni Biliverti, two of the leading artistic figures of the Florentine Seicento.
Many of Lupicini’s paintings have at some point been wrongly attributed to other artists; for example, the canvas of Manna falling from heaven in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Pistoia was mistakenly attributed to Giovanni Battista Lupicini (1575-1648), thought to have been a cousin of Francesco. It was only in 1986, on the occasion of the great exhibition, held in Palazzo Strozzi, devoted to the arts in Florence from Ferdinand I’s patronage to the age of Cosimo III, that Francesco’s works were correctly reattributed to him. Since then, a number of striking pictures by the artist have appeared on the market, including the present work which, remarkably, was acquired by the present owner on the same day that a Penitent Magdalen also by the artist was sold in these Rooms from the collection of Joseph McCrindle (3 December 2008, lot 218, for £103,250). This was followed by the rediscovery of a fine copper panel portraying David with the head of Goliath (with Rob Smeets Gallery, Geneva, 2016) and, more recently, the appearance of a highly engaging self-portrait in a Paris auction (Ader, 24 June 2019, lot 8, for €192,000). In addition, a Young Saint John the Baptist in the Galleria Palatina, Florence, was identified by Francesca Baldassari in 2009.
Lupicini’s previous obscurity was largely due to a paucity of biographical information and his omission from the Notizie of Filippo Baldinucci (1625-1696), the official biographer of Florentine painters. This exclusion can be attributed, in part, to the fact that Baldinucci never met Lupicini, and that the latter left his native city for Spain in 1635. The few sources available to art historians reveal a temperamental character who appears to have been frequently embroiled in fractious relations with both patrons and his fellow artists. After his departure for Spain, Lupicini settled in Zaragoza, where he executed a series of canvases depicting the story of the True Cross for the chapel of Saint Helena in the cathedral of La Seo, works that still survive in situ.
Dott.ssa Francesca Baldassari, to whom we are grateful for confirming the attribution of the present picture, compares its execution with that of Lupicini’s most celebrated work, Martha and Mary rebuking Mary Magdalene, in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (fig. 1). She considers both works to date to the artist’s years in Florence and that the present canvas reveals the influence of Matteo Rosselli and Giovanni Biliverti, two of the leading artistic figures of the Florentine Seicento.
Many of Lupicini’s paintings have at some point been wrongly attributed to other artists; for example, the canvas of Manna falling from heaven in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Pistoia was mistakenly attributed to Giovanni Battista Lupicini (1575-1648), thought to have been a cousin of Francesco. It was only in 1986, on the occasion of the great exhibition, held in Palazzo Strozzi, devoted to the arts in Florence from Ferdinand I’s patronage to the age of Cosimo III, that Francesco’s works were correctly reattributed to him. Since then, a number of striking pictures by the artist have appeared on the market, including the present work which, remarkably, was acquired by the present owner on the same day that a Penitent Magdalen also by the artist was sold in these Rooms from the collection of Joseph McCrindle (3 December 2008, lot 218, for £103,250). This was followed by the rediscovery of a fine copper panel portraying David with the head of Goliath (with Rob Smeets Gallery, Geneva, 2016) and, more recently, the appearance of a highly engaging self-portrait in a Paris auction (Ader, 24 June 2019, lot 8, for €192,000). In addition, a Young Saint John the Baptist in the Galleria Palatina, Florence, was identified by Francesca Baldassari in 2009.