The Presentation of the Virgin at the Temple

Details

CARLO ALBERTO BARATTA (1754-1815)
The Presentation of the Virgin at the Temple
with inscription 'Carlo Baratta' (lower centre)
black chalk, pen and brown ink, grey wash, heightened with white, black chalk and pen and brown ink framing lines, on blue prepared paper
16 3⁄8 x 10 ¾ in. (41.6 x 27.2 cm.)

Provenance

Santo Varni (1807-1885), Genoa (L. 3531 with related inscription on the mount).
Dubini Hoepli collection, Milan; sale, Finarte, Milan, 21 April 1975, lot 242.
Private collection, London.
Flavia Ormond, London, 1994.
John O’Brien (1931-2023), Charles Town, WV. (L. 4230), by whom acquired from the above; his sale, Sotheby’s, New York, 27 January 2021, lot 247.
Acquired at the above sale.

Literature

M. Newcome Schleier, ‘Several drawings and paintings by Baratta, the last gasp of the Genoese baroque’, Paragone, LXIV, no. 111, September 2013, pp. 58-59, pl. 42a.

Conditions of sale

Brought to you by

Leo Webster Specialist

lwebster@christies.com +44 (0)20 7389 2013

Lot Essay

This drawing by the Genoese painter Carlo Alberto Baratta is a preparatory study for an altarpiece with The Presentation of the Virgin at the Temple in the church of Santa Maria Assunta in Camogli, near Genoa. An intermediate oil sketch on paper for the same commission is in a private collection (Newcome Schleier, op. cit., p. 58, ill.). The style and technique of this work recall other preparatory drawings by the artist, including a study for the decoration of a vault in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (inv. 1988.250; C.C. Bambach, N. Orenstein, W.M. Griswold, A. Pesenti, Genoa. Drawings and Prints, 1530-1800, exh. cat., New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1996, no. 1, ill.).

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