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Lot Essay
This intimately scaled, oval panel by Carlo Dolci is inscribed on the reverse in the artist’s own hand. Highly unusual in the context of 17th-century Italian painting, the practice of inscribing the reverses of paintings seems to have been one employed regularly by Dolci, who often included personalized details and biblical references (see R. Spear, ‘Carlo Dolci’s inscriptions – I: Dolci’s signatures and prices in context’; L. Treves, ‘Carlo Dolci’s inscriptions – II: Diligence and devotion in “The Adoration of the Kings” in the National Gallery, London,’ The Burlington Magazine, CLXIV, 1426, January 2022, pp. 4-21).
In the inscription here, Dolci provides a date, 14 February 1647, and informs the reader that this represented the last of all the days he had been in debt, suggesting the painting was presented to its new owner by the artist in settlement. Charles McCorquodale proposed in 1979 (loc. cit.) that the panel might be identifiable as the ‘San Girolamo in atto di battersi il petto col sasso,’ (‘Saint Jerome in the act of beating his breast with a stone’) mentioned by Dolci’s friend and biographer, Filippo Baldinucci as having been painted for Antonio Lorenzi, the artist’s physician (loc. cit.). As Francesca Baldassari indicated, however, Baldinucci describes Lorenzi’s painting as being half-length which does not correspond with the full length, kneeling saint seen here (loc. cit.).
Dolci based his composition for this Penitent Saint Jerome on a painting of the same subject by Cigoli, painted in 1603 and now in the collection of the Cassa di Risparmio, Pisa (see L. Kanter and J. Marciari, op. cit., p. 164, fig. 1). Despite the painting’s debt to Cigoli, the treatment of the subject is more reminiscent of Jacopo Vignali, in whose workshop Dolci trained from the age of just nine. Here, the master’s influence is evident in the more painterly approach to the figure and landscape, diverging from Dolci’s typically polished, luminous style. The intensity of the saint’s gaze, however, and the meticulous naturalism with which the still-life elements are described are immediately recognizable hallmarks of Dolci’s hand.
In the inscription here, Dolci provides a date, 14 February 1647, and informs the reader that this represented the last of all the days he had been in debt, suggesting the painting was presented to its new owner by the artist in settlement. Charles McCorquodale proposed in 1979 (loc. cit.) that the panel might be identifiable as the ‘San Girolamo in atto di battersi il petto col sasso,’ (‘Saint Jerome in the act of beating his breast with a stone’) mentioned by Dolci’s friend and biographer, Filippo Baldinucci as having been painted for Antonio Lorenzi, the artist’s physician (loc. cit.). As Francesca Baldassari indicated, however, Baldinucci describes Lorenzi’s painting as being half-length which does not correspond with the full length, kneeling saint seen here (loc. cit.).
Dolci based his composition for this Penitent Saint Jerome on a painting of the same subject by Cigoli, painted in 1603 and now in the collection of the Cassa di Risparmio, Pisa (see L. Kanter and J. Marciari, op. cit., p. 164, fig. 1). Despite the painting’s debt to Cigoli, the treatment of the subject is more reminiscent of Jacopo Vignali, in whose workshop Dolci trained from the age of just nine. Here, the master’s influence is evident in the more painterly approach to the figure and landscape, diverging from Dolci’s typically polished, luminous style. The intensity of the saint’s gaze, however, and the meticulous naturalism with which the still-life elements are described are immediately recognizable hallmarks of Dolci’s hand.