Attributed to ORAZIO GENTILESCHI* (1563-1639)

Details

Attributed to ORAZIO GENTILESCHI* (1563-1639)

The Rest on the Flight into Egypt

oil on canvas
55 1/8 x 66½in. (140 x 169cm.)

Provenance

possibly George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, by whom given to
The Countess of Shrewsbury, Avington
Richard Grenville, 2nd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, Stowe, by 1838; sale, Christie's, Stowe House, Sept. 13, 1848, lot 152 (18 gns. to P. Norton)
Montague Parker, Whiteway, Devonshire, by descent to
Harold Farquhar, London; sale, Sotheby's, London, Dec. 13, 1950, lot 5 (#44 to Speelman)
with Thos. Agnew & Sons, London, by whom sold in 1951 to
J. Paul Getty, Sutton Place, Guildford, Surrey, by whom donated to the museum in 1971

Literature

H.R. Forster, The Stowe Catalogue Priced and Annotated, 1848, p. 164, no. 152
A.H.C. Gardner, George Villiers, Second Duke of Buckingham 1628-1687, 1903, pp. 30, 151, 194-195, 198, 296
C.R. Cammell, The Great Duke of Buckingham, 1939, pp. 345-346
Art Prices Current, XXVIII, 1950-51, p. 60, no. 1399
W.R. Valentiner and P. Wescher, The J. Paul Getty Museum Guidebook, 1954, p. 25
J.P. Getty and E. Le Vane, Collector's Choice. A Chronicle of an Artistic Odyssey through Europe, 1955, illustrated opposite p. 89
H. Voss, Orazio Gentileschi; four versions of his 'Rest on the Flight into Egypt', Connoisseur, 144, Dec. 1959, pp. 163-165, fig. 2
Birmingham, City Museum and Art Gallery, Catalogue of Paintings, 1960, pp. 59-60
Catalogue of the exhibition, Italian Art and Britain, London, Royal Academy, 1960, pp. 144-145
D. Cooper, Great Private Collections, 1963, p. 184, illustrated p. 185
J.P. Getty, The Joys of Collecting, 1965, pp. 31, 104-106
M. Rosci, Orazio Gentileschi, "I Maestri del Colore", 1965, p. 5
C. Musgrave, Sutton Place, Guildford: The English Home of Mr. Paul Getty, Connoisseur, 161, March 1966, p. 147, illustrated
Catalogue of the exhibition, Old Masters from the City of Birmingham, London, Wildenstein & Co., Nov. 11-Dec. 12, 1970, no. 11
B. Fredericksen, Catalogue of the Paintings in the J. Paul Getty Museum, 1972, pp. 44-47, no. 46. illustrated
C. Anson, The Picture Collection at Stowe, Apollo, June 1973, p. 596, illustrated p. 598, note 75
B. Fredericksen, The J. Paul Getty Museum, 1975, pp. 70, 94
B. Nicolson, The International Caravaggesque Movement, 1979, p. 52 R.W. Bissell, Orazio Gentileschi, 1981, pp. 167, 185, 186-87, no. 59, fig. 120, listed under Authentic Works, but the attribution questioned in the text
B. Nicolson, Caravaggism in Europe, ed. L. Vertova, 1990, I, p. 113, as Orazio Gentileschi

Exhibited

London, Thos. Agnew & Sons, Autumn Exhibition of Fine Pictures by Old Masters, Oct.-Dec., 1951, no. 26

Lot Essay

The suggestion in the 1848 catalogue of the Stowe sale, annotated by H.R. Forster, that the present lot was in the collection of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, is possibly incorrect. There was a romantic tradition that this and a number of other pictures from Avington were given by Villiers to his mistress the Countess of Shrewsbury who lived at Avington. Though by no means certain, Bissell (loc. cit.) thinks this is a possibility.

The present lot exists in at least four other versions all with different backgrounds: in the Louvre, Paris; in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; and in the City Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham. Of the three versions, their sequence has been analyzed by H. Voss (loc. cit.) who regards the Birmingham picture as the earliest, followed by the present lot, the Vienna painting next, and the Louvre painting last. Bissell, however, disagrees with this sequence, asking why Gentileschi "would choose to move from the open arrangement of the composition at Birmingham - which he found satisfying enough to repeat twice - to the more stilted disposition of the figures in the present example" (op. cit., p. 187). Furthermore, Bissell notes that it cannot be discounted that the present lot "might be by the hand of an excellent 17th century copyist, perhaps even Francesco Gentileschi."

A fifth version was sold at Parke-Bernet Galleries, , New York, March 13, 1957, lot 15 (not illustrated), and a sixth, partial version with the Madonna and Child only, at Christie's, Rome, Dec. 4, 1991, lot 72