Sold by Order of the Board of Trustees of the Minneapolis Institute of Art, to Benefit the Acquisitions Fund

Antonio Butafogo (active Padua 1772 -1817)

The Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist

Details

Antonio Butafogo (active Padua 1772 -1817)
The Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist
inscribed and dated 'Ant. Butafogo Pinxit An 1783' (lower left)
oil on canvas
114 1/8 x 54 ¼ in. (289.9 x 137.8 cm.)

Provenance

(Possibly) Chiesa di Santa Giuliana, Padua.
with Goodman & Fox, London; Christie's, London, 27 June 1958, lot 87, as 'M. Cignaroli' (160 gns. to Fox & Reed).
with Castano Galleries, Boston, MA, as Cignaroli.
Reverend Harold F. McDermott, Saint Michael's Church, New Bedford, MA, as Cignaroli, from whom acquired in 1969 by the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

Literature

'Catalogue of Accessions', The Minneapolis Institute of Arts Bulletin, LVIII, 1969, pp. 93, 96, illustrated.
R. Pallucchini, 'La Pittura Veneta del Settecento alla Mostra Itinerante di Chicago-Minneapolis-Toledo,' Arte Veneta, XXIV, 1970, p. 287, fig. 416.
I. Faldi, 'Painting in Italy in the Eighteenth Century: Rococo to Romanticism,' Burlington Magazine, CXIII, no. 822, September, 1971, p. 564.
Dizionario enciclopedico dei pittori e degli incisori italiani dall' XI al XX secolo, Milan, 1990, II, pp. 351-2, fig. 346.

Exhibited

Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, 1970; Minneapolis, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1970; Toledo, Ohio, The Toledo Museum of Art, 1971, Painting in Italy in the Eighteenth Century: Rococo to Romanticism, no. 15.

Brought to you by

François de Poortere

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Lot Essay

Born in Verona, Antonio Butafogo worked for most of his life in Padua after training in the studio of the Rococo and early Neoclassical painter, Giambettino Cignaroli. This Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist exhibits the enduring influence of his master in both the sweet faces of the figures and in the darkening of the colors towards the canvas edges, which creates a spot-lit effect. It is possibly the altarpiece commissioned for the Chiesa di Santa Giuliana in Padua, now destroyed, although another work, which bears an inscription 'Antonius Butafogo pinxit' and is now in the Museo Civico, Padua, has also been proposed as the product of the same commission.

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