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Lot Essay
Born in Coldrerio near Como in 1612, Pier Francesco Mola moved to Rome with his family as a young boy. He was to remain there all his life except for two periods of absence, 1633-1640 and 1641-1647, when he was in Northern Italy finishing his training and launching his career. Despite a lack of firm documentation, he appears to have visited Venice and Bologna, where he spent two years with Francesco Albani (probably 1645-1647) and became strongly attracted to the work of Guercino. Although his earlier fame rested on landscape painting (with a marked Venetian influence), his move to Rome in 1647 led to a number of commissions for frescoes and altarpieces that required the creation of a grander, more monumental style, the most significant of these being the large Joseph greeting his brethren in the Palazzo Quirinale (1656-1657). In 1659 Mola entered a protracted and unsuccessful lawsuit against Don Camillo Pamphili for work done at the latter's summer palace at Valentino. Despite this, he continued to attract important patrons, such as Pope Alexander VII and the Colonna family, and produced some increasingly dramatic and powerful works, among them the Vision of Saint Bruno (1662-1663). Elected President of the Accademia di San Luca in 1662, he was forced to resign the following year due to ill-health (caused in part by the legal dispute with the Pamphili) and he died four years later.
In a private letter, dated 21 October 1992, to the present owner, Dr. Erich Schleier suggests dating the picture to the early 1650s, that is shortly after Mola's return to Rome, at a time when the grander figural style evident in his public works was also reflected in private commissions such as the present lot (see, for example, the magnificent Barbary Pilate, signed and dated 1650, Musée du Louvre, Paris). This new grandeur was, however, fused to the deep knowledge of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century North Italian painting that he had acquired in the preceding decades. The former is apparent here in the rich, saturated palette and painterly rendering of the fabrics, which recall the art of Veronese, while the overall composition - with figures depicted half-length and set close to the picture plane - reveals Mola's interest in Bolognese baroque art, and particularly that of Guercino, whose influence can also be seen in the facial type and subtlety of expression of the bearded artist. The boy - whose costume also looks back to Veronese and sixteenth-century Venetian history painting - recurs at slightly different ages in two other works datable to this period: Portrait of a Boy with a Dove (Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto) and The Expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael (Galleria Colonna, Rome).
The subject of this composition is not immediately apparent, but its poetic mood suggests that it may best be understood as an allegory. A number of other paintings (some of similar size and format) that are generally attributed to Mola and dated to the 1650s and 1660s, have also be interpreted in this way. Such works include The Death of Archimedes (Busiri-Vici collection, Rome), A philosopher with a young man (Duke University, Durham, North Carolina), Homer Dictating (Galleria Nazionale, Palazzo Corsini, Rome) and Socrates teaching young boys (Museo Civico di Belle Arti, Lugano). In the present work, the youth gently rests his hand on the shoulder of the artist, who has turned and looks directly at him. Each holds a drawing and it is here that the nature of the interaction between the two appears to lie. The artist points to a red-chalk portrait study drawn from life, while that held by the youth depicts a drawing of a figure with one arm raised. The latter can be identified as a sketch by Annibale Carracci--now in the collection of Queen Elizabeth II, Windsor Castle--for an apostle, possibly Saint John the Evangelist, in the Apostles at the Tomb (fig. 1), a fresco executed circa 1605-1606 by Annibale and Francesco Albani for the Herrera Chapel, San Giacomo degli Spagnoli, Rome (subsequently transferred to canvas and now in the Museu d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona). Given Mola's contact with Albani in the 1640s, it is possible that he may have had access to the drawing at that time. The Carracci were renowned for the emphasis they placed on the mastery of drawing from life in the training of artists and its importance in the successful depiction of noble themes, and, as such, the sketch may be seen as exemplifying this principle. Thus the young boy, whose historical costume suggests his role might indeed be allegorical, may be seen more as a muse, who offers the artist an example of this ideal of drawing as a source of inspiration for him in his own draughtmanship.
Despite its apparent comment on the importance of drawing, it is interesting, however, to observe how the style of the present work nonetheless betrays Mola's strong allegiance to Venetian art. As has been mentioned, the rich glowing colors and fluid application of the pigments are indicative of this interest. Also typically Venetian is the atmospheric rendering of light, evident here in the soft modelling of the faces and the description of the surface of the sheet in the boy's hand. This is noteworthy for, in sixteenth-century Italy, Venetian art, with its preference for rich color and warm light, was generally considered the antithesis of Tuscan and Roman painting, which placed greater emphasis on strong design or drawing. These two traditions - of 'colore' and 'disegno' - lay at the heart of an artistic debate that continued into the Baroque Age. Towards the end of the seventeeth century, this debate focused on the art of the Carracci family, and in particular the works produced by Annibale and Agostino after they moved to Rome in 1595. Significantly, these works, such as the frescoes in the Galleria Farnese, were widely praised for bridging the schism between the two schools of painting. Thus, by including a drawing by Annibale in this work, Mola appears to be alluding not merely to the latter's importance as a master draughtsman, but also to his preeminence as an artist with the rare ability to fuse both drawing and color. And, in the rich, painterly execution of his own composition, Mola too presents the viewer with a similar harmonious marriage of these same two artistic traditions.
In a private letter, dated 21 October 1992, to the present owner, Dr. Erich Schleier suggests dating the picture to the early 1650s, that is shortly after Mola's return to Rome, at a time when the grander figural style evident in his public works was also reflected in private commissions such as the present lot (see, for example, the magnificent Barbary Pilate, signed and dated 1650, Musée du Louvre, Paris). This new grandeur was, however, fused to the deep knowledge of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century North Italian painting that he had acquired in the preceding decades. The former is apparent here in the rich, saturated palette and painterly rendering of the fabrics, which recall the art of Veronese, while the overall composition - with figures depicted half-length and set close to the picture plane - reveals Mola's interest in Bolognese baroque art, and particularly that of Guercino, whose influence can also be seen in the facial type and subtlety of expression of the bearded artist. The boy - whose costume also looks back to Veronese and sixteenth-century Venetian history painting - recurs at slightly different ages in two other works datable to this period: Portrait of a Boy with a Dove (Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto) and The Expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael (Galleria Colonna, Rome).
The subject of this composition is not immediately apparent, but its poetic mood suggests that it may best be understood as an allegory. A number of other paintings (some of similar size and format) that are generally attributed to Mola and dated to the 1650s and 1660s, have also be interpreted in this way. Such works include The Death of Archimedes (Busiri-Vici collection, Rome), A philosopher with a young man (Duke University, Durham, North Carolina), Homer Dictating (Galleria Nazionale, Palazzo Corsini, Rome) and Socrates teaching young boys (Museo Civico di Belle Arti, Lugano). In the present work, the youth gently rests his hand on the shoulder of the artist, who has turned and looks directly at him. Each holds a drawing and it is here that the nature of the interaction between the two appears to lie. The artist points to a red-chalk portrait study drawn from life, while that held by the youth depicts a drawing of a figure with one arm raised. The latter can be identified as a sketch by Annibale Carracci--now in the collection of Queen Elizabeth II, Windsor Castle--for an apostle, possibly Saint John the Evangelist, in the Apostles at the Tomb (fig. 1), a fresco executed circa 1605-1606 by Annibale and Francesco Albani for the Herrera Chapel, San Giacomo degli Spagnoli, Rome (subsequently transferred to canvas and now in the Museu d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona). Given Mola's contact with Albani in the 1640s, it is possible that he may have had access to the drawing at that time. The Carracci were renowned for the emphasis they placed on the mastery of drawing from life in the training of artists and its importance in the successful depiction of noble themes, and, as such, the sketch may be seen as exemplifying this principle. Thus the young boy, whose historical costume suggests his role might indeed be allegorical, may be seen more as a muse, who offers the artist an example of this ideal of drawing as a source of inspiration for him in his own draughtmanship.
Despite its apparent comment on the importance of drawing, it is interesting, however, to observe how the style of the present work nonetheless betrays Mola's strong allegiance to Venetian art. As has been mentioned, the rich glowing colors and fluid application of the pigments are indicative of this interest. Also typically Venetian is the atmospheric rendering of light, evident here in the soft modelling of the faces and the description of the surface of the sheet in the boy's hand. This is noteworthy for, in sixteenth-century Italy, Venetian art, with its preference for rich color and warm light, was generally considered the antithesis of Tuscan and Roman painting, which placed greater emphasis on strong design or drawing. These two traditions - of 'colore' and 'disegno' - lay at the heart of an artistic debate that continued into the Baroque Age. Towards the end of the seventeeth century, this debate focused on the art of the Carracci family, and in particular the works produced by Annibale and Agostino after they moved to Rome in 1595. Significantly, these works, such as the frescoes in the Galleria Farnese, were widely praised for bridging the schism between the two schools of painting. Thus, by including a drawing by Annibale in this work, Mola appears to be alluding not merely to the latter's importance as a master draughtsman, but also to his preeminence as an artist with the rare ability to fuse both drawing and color. And, in the rich, painterly execution of his own composition, Mola too presents the viewer with a similar harmonious marriage of these same two artistic traditions.