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Lot Essay
In 1635, the Sienese painter Niccolò Tornioli moved to Rome and, a dozen years later, he was being dubbed one of the city's greatest painters by Cardinal Virgilio Spada. The latter counted among Tornioli’s numerous distinguished patrons in Rome, though their relationship reached an abrupt end in 1649, due to the artist’s tumultuous personality and his scandalous dismissal from one of the most important commissions of his career. Together with Giovanni Antionio Galli, called Spadarino, Tornioli was hired by Pope Innocent X to create cartoons in oil and mosaics for the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament in Saint Peter’s. However, rather than selecting and arranging colored marble tesserae to form their composition, the two artists simply painted directly on the marble pieces and were accused of trying to pass off their work as genuine mosaic (see G.M. Weston, ‘Invention, Ambition and Failure: Niccolò Tornioli (1606-51) and “Il Segreto di Colorire il Marmo”’, in P. Baker-Bates and E.M. Calvillo, eds., Almost Eternal: Painting on Stone and Material Innovation in Early Modern Europe, Boston, 2018, pp. 299-327).
In a recent unpublished essay, Gianni Papi has argued that the present painting, which depicts a group of men of different ages playing music and engaging in merrymaking around a table, may date to Tornioli’s Roman period when he was in close contact with Cardinal Spada, as it departs from his earlier Sienese style while incorporating an Emilian sensibility. The painting’s tenebrism and dramatic use of light point to Tornioli’s renewed fascination with Caravaggesque painting, particularly following his rapprochement with Spadarino who was named by Mancini as one of a handful of painters in Caravaggio's 'schola' ('school'), manifest in such works as his Banquet of the Gods (Uffizi, Florence).
At the same time, as Papi has equally remarked, Tornioli’s Sienese roots emerge in the flute player sporting a slashed blue jerkin and the elderly bearded figure in the center. Through their more painterly handling, both recall the figures in Tornioli’s Crucifixion of 1631-32 in San Niccolò in Sasso in Siena. Papi observes that these elements, together with the fact that scenes of merrymaking were quite popular in Siena thanks to artists such as Astolfo Petrazzi and Rutilio Manetti, prevent us from excluding the possibility that this painting may date from slightly earlier, to Tornioli’s Sienese period.
The gossamer texture of the flute players’ plumes, the way the light reflects on the sword’s pummel, and the play of exchanged glances are but some of this painting’s most notable features. Particularly typical of Tornioli’s style, as pointed out by Papi and reiterated by Randolfi (op. cit.), is how the artist illuminates the network of wrinkles defining the profile of the balding man holding the jug and wine glass at center, bringing to mind the elderly man at left in The Astronomers (Galleria Spada, Rome). The flautist at left in the present painting is also of a facial type for which many parallels in Tornioli’s work may be found, such as the screaming young man with a feather hat in his Christ chasing the money-lenders from the Temple (Galleria Spada, Rome).
In a recent unpublished essay, Gianni Papi has argued that the present painting, which depicts a group of men of different ages playing music and engaging in merrymaking around a table, may date to Tornioli’s Roman period when he was in close contact with Cardinal Spada, as it departs from his earlier Sienese style while incorporating an Emilian sensibility. The painting’s tenebrism and dramatic use of light point to Tornioli’s renewed fascination with Caravaggesque painting, particularly following his rapprochement with Spadarino who was named by Mancini as one of a handful of painters in Caravaggio's 'schola' ('school'), manifest in such works as his Banquet of the Gods (Uffizi, Florence).
At the same time, as Papi has equally remarked, Tornioli’s Sienese roots emerge in the flute player sporting a slashed blue jerkin and the elderly bearded figure in the center. Through their more painterly handling, both recall the figures in Tornioli’s Crucifixion of 1631-32 in San Niccolò in Sasso in Siena. Papi observes that these elements, together with the fact that scenes of merrymaking were quite popular in Siena thanks to artists such as Astolfo Petrazzi and Rutilio Manetti, prevent us from excluding the possibility that this painting may date from slightly earlier, to Tornioli’s Sienese period.
The gossamer texture of the flute players’ plumes, the way the light reflects on the sword’s pummel, and the play of exchanged glances are but some of this painting’s most notable features. Particularly typical of Tornioli’s style, as pointed out by Papi and reiterated by Randolfi (op. cit.), is how the artist illuminates the network of wrinkles defining the profile of the balding man holding the jug and wine glass at center, bringing to mind the elderly man at left in The Astronomers (Galleria Spada, Rome). The flautist at left in the present painting is also of a facial type for which many parallels in Tornioli’s work may be found, such as the screaming young man with a feather hat in his Christ chasing the money-lenders from the Temple (Galleria Spada, Rome).