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Lot Essay
Pierre Rosenberg first attributed this majestically rendered life-size allegorical figure to Valentin de Boulogne in 1982, citing the painting’s ‘fine gray tonality in harmony with the gold and olive green tunic and laurel wreath worn by the angel; the delicate and rapid execution; the luminous accents on the forehead, the nose, the chin of the young model, with his virile features and short, thick hands; and above all the poignant melancholy, the pensive sadness in his face’ in support of his contention (P. Rosenberg, France in the Golden Age: Seventeenth-Century French Paintings in American Collections, exhibition catalogue, Paris, New York and Chicago, 1982, p. 326, under no. 107). The clearly defined forms and firm modeling further led Rosenberg to suggest that the painting is an early work dating to the early 1620s. However, in her 1989 catalogue raisonné on Valentin, Marina Mojana questioned the attribution to the artist, noting in particular the painting’s overt sensuality and direct lighting, a characteristic more associated with Flemish painters. Lacking a viable alternative attribution, she nevertheless accepted it with reservations (loc. cit.).
In the course of his research in the Delft City Archives in the 1970s, John Michael Montias discovered a remarkable document, a 1672 deposition in which the painter Leonaert Bramer recalled having sold some forty years previous a painting by Giovanni di Filippo del Campo depicting a ‘standing angel, seen to the hips, with two wings and a sheep’s skin around his body and a small laurel crown in his hand’ that he had brought with him from Italy (fig. 1; see Montias 1982, p. 205). After retaining the painting for some time, Bramer sold it to Dr. Johan Hoogenhouck. The painting is probably the work described in a 1647 inventory drawn up in preparation for the sale of his estate at auction as 'een schilderye op douck van eenen engel mede door onbekent mr.' ('a painting on canvas of an angel also by an unknown master') (fig. 2). The painting brought 30 guilders, the second highest price in the sale. Bramer's 1672 deposition further indicates that the painting was then in the collection of Cornelis Boogaert, whose rich collection was admired by the wealthy collector and journalist Pieter Teding van Berckhout. Teding van Berckhout mentions in an entry dated 21 June 1669 that he paid his 'cousin' Boogaert a visit to see his paintings. The visit to Boogaert evidently occurred shortly after Teding van Berckhout departed the studio of 'the famous painter' Johannes Vermeer, where the author notes that he encountered 'the most extraordinary and most curious' paintings.
Bramer’s painting has at times been associated with a work given to an anonymous Neapolitan artist working in Caravaggio’s orbit in the Latvian Museum of Foreign Art, Riga (fig. 3). Described in Bramer's deposition as a tela d’Imperatore (roughly 130 x 97 cm.), Patrizia Cavazzini has convincingly argued that the present work must instead have been the referenced work because the Riga painting is too small to correspond to the size given by Bramer (P. Cavazzini, ‘Success and Failure in a Violent City: Bartolomeo Manfredi, Nicolas Tournier, and Valentin de Boulogne’, in Valentin de Boulogne: Beyond Caravaggio, exhibition catalogue, New York, 2016, p. 20, note 33). Indeed, the present painting is known through a copy that includes an open book inscribed with the letters VTCO / PRE / HEN / DAM and topped with a crown, an indication that the original format of our painting must also have once been somewhat wider than it is today. Moreover, as Mojana first suggested in 1989, the handling of paint in the present painting is entirely consistent with that of a Flemish Caravaggesque painter, while the striking light effects and intense chiaroscuro of the Riga painting strongly suggest a Neapolitan hand.
The painting’s subject, which Montias first correctly identified, is an allegorical representation of Virtuous Love (Amor di virtù). The subject derives from Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia, an influential emblem book first published unillustrated in 1593, followed by a second edition of 1603 that included 151 woodcuts illustrating a number of the 684 concepts that make up his text. Ripa describes Virtuous Love as a crowned youth clothed in drapery holding two crowns in the right hand and one in the left that symbolize Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance, as illustrated in the accompanying woodcut (fig. 4).
Despite its allegorical subject matter, the specificity of the young man’s physiognomy, including his long nose and deeply set, almond shaped eyes, confirms del Campo’s indebtedness to Caravaggio’s method of painting dal naturale, or directly from the posed model. Moreover, the inherent sensuality of the young man’s partially exposed chest, supple skin and slender physique suggests the prevailing influence of paintings like Caravaggio’s Bacchus of circa 1595 in the Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence (fig. 5), which del Campo may have known while the painting was in the collection of Caravaggio’s patron, Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte.
Comparatively little is known about Giovanni di Filippo del Campo, who was born Jean Ducamps in Cambrai around 1600 and became one of the most important Flemish painters in Rome in the second quarter of the 17th century. He is believed to have received his training in the Antwerp studio of Abraham Janssens before moving to Rome in the early or mid-1620s. There, he became a founding member of the association of largely Dutch and Flemish painters working in Rome known as the Bentvueghels, taking the nickname ‘The Brave’. He is said to have lived with the painter Gerrit van Kuyl between 1629 and 1631, later residing with Pieter van Laer on the Via Margutta (fig. 6; see B. Nicholson, The International Caravaggesque Movement, Oxford, 1979, p. 46). Around 1637/8 he departed Rome for Madrid, where he worked for King Philip IV. While no signed paintings by del Campo are known today, this painting stands as one of only a handful of securely attributed works, making it a touchstone for all subsequent attributions.
In the course of his research in the Delft City Archives in the 1970s, John Michael Montias discovered a remarkable document, a 1672 deposition in which the painter Leonaert Bramer recalled having sold some forty years previous a painting by Giovanni di Filippo del Campo depicting a ‘standing angel, seen to the hips, with two wings and a sheep’s skin around his body and a small laurel crown in his hand’ that he had brought with him from Italy (fig. 1; see Montias 1982, p. 205). After retaining the painting for some time, Bramer sold it to Dr. Johan Hoogenhouck. The painting is probably the work described in a 1647 inventory drawn up in preparation for the sale of his estate at auction as 'een schilderye op douck van eenen engel mede door onbekent mr.' ('a painting on canvas of an angel also by an unknown master') (fig. 2). The painting brought 30 guilders, the second highest price in the sale. Bramer's 1672 deposition further indicates that the painting was then in the collection of Cornelis Boogaert, whose rich collection was admired by the wealthy collector and journalist Pieter Teding van Berckhout. Teding van Berckhout mentions in an entry dated 21 June 1669 that he paid his 'cousin' Boogaert a visit to see his paintings. The visit to Boogaert evidently occurred shortly after Teding van Berckhout departed the studio of 'the famous painter' Johannes Vermeer, where the author notes that he encountered 'the most extraordinary and most curious' paintings.
Bramer’s painting has at times been associated with a work given to an anonymous Neapolitan artist working in Caravaggio’s orbit in the Latvian Museum of Foreign Art, Riga (fig. 3). Described in Bramer's deposition as a tela d’Imperatore (roughly 130 x 97 cm.), Patrizia Cavazzini has convincingly argued that the present work must instead have been the referenced work because the Riga painting is too small to correspond to the size given by Bramer (P. Cavazzini, ‘Success and Failure in a Violent City: Bartolomeo Manfredi, Nicolas Tournier, and Valentin de Boulogne’, in Valentin de Boulogne: Beyond Caravaggio, exhibition catalogue, New York, 2016, p. 20, note 33). Indeed, the present painting is known through a copy that includes an open book inscribed with the letters VTCO / PRE / HEN / DAM and topped with a crown, an indication that the original format of our painting must also have once been somewhat wider than it is today. Moreover, as Mojana first suggested in 1989, the handling of paint in the present painting is entirely consistent with that of a Flemish Caravaggesque painter, while the striking light effects and intense chiaroscuro of the Riga painting strongly suggest a Neapolitan hand.
The painting’s subject, which Montias first correctly identified, is an allegorical representation of Virtuous Love (Amor di virtù). The subject derives from Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia, an influential emblem book first published unillustrated in 1593, followed by a second edition of 1603 that included 151 woodcuts illustrating a number of the 684 concepts that make up his text. Ripa describes Virtuous Love as a crowned youth clothed in drapery holding two crowns in the right hand and one in the left that symbolize Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance, as illustrated in the accompanying woodcut (fig. 4).
Despite its allegorical subject matter, the specificity of the young man’s physiognomy, including his long nose and deeply set, almond shaped eyes, confirms del Campo’s indebtedness to Caravaggio’s method of painting dal naturale, or directly from the posed model. Moreover, the inherent sensuality of the young man’s partially exposed chest, supple skin and slender physique suggests the prevailing influence of paintings like Caravaggio’s Bacchus of circa 1595 in the Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence (fig. 5), which del Campo may have known while the painting was in the collection of Caravaggio’s patron, Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte.
Comparatively little is known about Giovanni di Filippo del Campo, who was born Jean Ducamps in Cambrai around 1600 and became one of the most important Flemish painters in Rome in the second quarter of the 17th century. He is believed to have received his training in the Antwerp studio of Abraham Janssens before moving to Rome in the early or mid-1620s. There, he became a founding member of the association of largely Dutch and Flemish painters working in Rome known as the Bentvueghels, taking the nickname ‘The Brave’. He is said to have lived with the painter Gerrit van Kuyl between 1629 and 1631, later residing with Pieter van Laer on the Via Margutta (fig. 6; see B. Nicholson, The International Caravaggesque Movement, Oxford, 1979, p. 46). Around 1637/8 he departed Rome for Madrid, where he worked for King Philip IV. While no signed paintings by del Campo are known today, this painting stands as one of only a handful of securely attributed works, making it a touchstone for all subsequent attributions.