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拍品專文
This dramatic, monumental and exceptionally well-preserved canvas re-emerged in 1976, when it was exhibited at the Trafalgar Galleries in London, to considerable critical acclaim. Felton (1976, loc. cit.) then described its reappearance as 'a most significant event for Ribera studies', Llewellyn and McCorquodale (loc. cit.) as 'an extemely important document for the artist', Daniels (loc. cit.) as 'an early masterpiece...and a major rediscovery', while Nicolson, in his review of the exhibition (loc. cit) labeled it 'a real find' adding 'Basta vedere, is the only comment I can make if anyone doubts this statement from a photograph'.
In 1978, Spinosa and Pérez Sánchez (loc. cit.) initially doubted the full attribution of the picture, rather considering it a replica of a lost original by a gifted student. However, in 1992, after cleaning and restoration, (although Pérez Sánchez maintained his view, op. cit., p. 72) it was included as Ribera in full in the monographic exhibition of that year in New York, with Spinosa in his catalogue entry proposing a possible dating of 1613, shortly before the artist's request for admission to the Accademia di San Luca, and suggesting that it may have been painted as an altarpiece for the Church of San Lorenzo in Lucina in Rome, near to which the young Ribera was lodged. That church had recently been founded by the Neapolitan Giovanni Pietro Carafa, with whose family Ribera later established close ties in Naples. Spinosa noted that it would have been 'remarkable that there remains no painting illustrating the martyrdom of the saint to whom the building is dedicated' and also that the picture would have been 'an appropriate companion to the Caravaggesque paintings there by Saraceni [San Carlo Borromeo, 1613] and Vouet [Stories of the life of Saint Francis]'. Whatever the circumstances of the original commission, he goes on: 'it was undoubtedly intended for an important setting, which alone explains its extraordinary impact'. More recently (private communication, 2006) Spinosa has moved to a later dating of the early to mid-1620s, pointing out its stylistic and compositional affinities with Ribera's Madonna and Child appearing to Saint Bruno in the Weimar Museum, which is dated 1624, and noted that it is still entirely plausible that the picture could have been commissioned from Ribera for San Lorenzo in Lucina in Rome while the artist was in Naples.
Certainly the present composition was popular: numerous replicas and copies of it exist, including vertical examples in the Pinacoteca Vaticana and the Gemäldegalerie, Dresden, as well as a horizontal version in the Nelson Atkins Museum in Kansas City. Of all these Spinosa considers the quality of the present work as the highest and placed it (along with the Kansas City version) in the 'C' section ('opere problematiche') of his 2003 monograph, mainly because of changes of view over the dating (see above). However, he will include the present picture as no. A60, - under fully authentic works - in the forthcoming revised edition of his monograph.
As Felton pointed out (1992, loc. cit.) the overall composition of the present picture is more evolved than that at Kansas City, with the modelling of the figures being often developed with a stronger chiaroscuro than the lighter, colouristic tonalities of the Kansas City work. The paint is also more thickly applied. Such differences underline Ribera's creativity and inventiveness; for example, the smaller, horizontal format of the Kansas City picture causes the figures to be projected dramatically into the viewer's space, while the same gestures are more concentrated at the centre of the vertical format of our picture, intensifying the emotional conflict.
This picture featured in the posthumous sale in Paris of the Russian diplomat, Prince Anatoly Demidov, who for his efforts in founding a silk factory in Tuscany, received the title of Principe di San Donato from the Grand Duke Leopold II. In 1841 he married Princess Mathilde, daughter of Jerome Bonaparte, but was separated from her five years later. Often shunned by society for his personal reputation, Demidov attempted to secure social acceptance through philanthropic deeds and by building a large art collection. This he had begun in the 1830s, purchasing various masterpieces from the collections of the duc de Choiseul, Talleyrand-Périgord, Prince de Bénévent and the duc de Berry. In 1834 he bought Paul Delaroche's masterpiece the Execution of Lady Jane Grey, directly from the Salon in Paris (now at the National Gallery, London), and the following year, Ary Scheffer's Francesca da Rimini (Wallace Collection, London). His large collection of Dutch and Flemish paintings included such pictures as Cuyp's Avenue in Meerdevoort (Wallace Collection) and ter Borch's Peace of Munster (National Gallery, London) and his collection of Italian art included portraits by Titian, Bronzino and Sebastiano del Piombo; he also possessed another picture by Ribera, the Saint Bartholomew now in the Johnson Collection. Although he began to disperse his collection in 1863, the majority of it, including the present work, was sold at auction after his death, in Paris in 1870.
Born in Honfleur in 1897, André Marie became a lawyer in Rouen in 1921. As a member of the French Resistance, he was deported to Buchenwald, but survived to become head of the French government in 1948. Later he was to be appointed Garde des Sceaux and Minister for Education, and donated works of art to the Louvre in 1956.
In 1978, Spinosa and Pérez Sánchez (loc. cit.) initially doubted the full attribution of the picture, rather considering it a replica of a lost original by a gifted student. However, in 1992, after cleaning and restoration, (although Pérez Sánchez maintained his view, op. cit., p. 72) it was included as Ribera in full in the monographic exhibition of that year in New York, with Spinosa in his catalogue entry proposing a possible dating of 1613, shortly before the artist's request for admission to the Accademia di San Luca, and suggesting that it may have been painted as an altarpiece for the Church of San Lorenzo in Lucina in Rome, near to which the young Ribera was lodged. That church had recently been founded by the Neapolitan Giovanni Pietro Carafa, with whose family Ribera later established close ties in Naples. Spinosa noted that it would have been 'remarkable that there remains no painting illustrating the martyrdom of the saint to whom the building is dedicated' and also that the picture would have been 'an appropriate companion to the Caravaggesque paintings there by Saraceni [San Carlo Borromeo, 1613] and Vouet [Stories of the life of Saint Francis]'. Whatever the circumstances of the original commission, he goes on: 'it was undoubtedly intended for an important setting, which alone explains its extraordinary impact'. More recently (private communication, 2006) Spinosa has moved to a later dating of the early to mid-1620s, pointing out its stylistic and compositional affinities with Ribera's Madonna and Child appearing to Saint Bruno in the Weimar Museum, which is dated 1624, and noted that it is still entirely plausible that the picture could have been commissioned from Ribera for San Lorenzo in Lucina in Rome while the artist was in Naples.
Certainly the present composition was popular: numerous replicas and copies of it exist, including vertical examples in the Pinacoteca Vaticana and the Gemäldegalerie, Dresden, as well as a horizontal version in the Nelson Atkins Museum in Kansas City. Of all these Spinosa considers the quality of the present work as the highest and placed it (along with the Kansas City version) in the 'C' section ('opere problematiche') of his 2003 monograph, mainly because of changes of view over the dating (see above). However, he will include the present picture as no. A60, - under fully authentic works - in the forthcoming revised edition of his monograph.
As Felton pointed out (1992, loc. cit.) the overall composition of the present picture is more evolved than that at Kansas City, with the modelling of the figures being often developed with a stronger chiaroscuro than the lighter, colouristic tonalities of the Kansas City work. The paint is also more thickly applied. Such differences underline Ribera's creativity and inventiveness; for example, the smaller, horizontal format of the Kansas City picture causes the figures to be projected dramatically into the viewer's space, while the same gestures are more concentrated at the centre of the vertical format of our picture, intensifying the emotional conflict.
This picture featured in the posthumous sale in Paris of the Russian diplomat, Prince Anatoly Demidov, who for his efforts in founding a silk factory in Tuscany, received the title of Principe di San Donato from the Grand Duke Leopold II. In 1841 he married Princess Mathilde, daughter of Jerome Bonaparte, but was separated from her five years later. Often shunned by society for his personal reputation, Demidov attempted to secure social acceptance through philanthropic deeds and by building a large art collection. This he had begun in the 1830s, purchasing various masterpieces from the collections of the duc de Choiseul, Talleyrand-Périgord, Prince de Bénévent and the duc de Berry. In 1834 he bought Paul Delaroche's masterpiece the Execution of Lady Jane Grey, directly from the Salon in Paris (now at the National Gallery, London), and the following year, Ary Scheffer's Francesca da Rimini (Wallace Collection, London). His large collection of Dutch and Flemish paintings included such pictures as Cuyp's Avenue in Meerdevoort (Wallace Collection) and ter Borch's Peace of Munster (National Gallery, London) and his collection of Italian art included portraits by Titian, Bronzino and Sebastiano del Piombo; he also possessed another picture by Ribera, the Saint Bartholomew now in the Johnson Collection. Although he began to disperse his collection in 1863, the majority of it, including the present work, was sold at auction after his death, in Paris in 1870.
Born in Honfleur in 1897, André Marie became a lawyer in Rouen in 1921. As a member of the French Resistance, he was deported to Buchenwald, but survived to become head of the French government in 1948. Later he was to be appointed Garde des Sceaux and Minister for Education, and donated works of art to the Louvre in 1956.