Death of Dido

Details

GIOVANNI COLI (LUCCA 1643-1681) AND FILIPPO GHERARDI (LUCCA 1643-1704)
Death of Dido
oil on canvas
52 x 78 7⁄8 in. (132 x 200.3 cm.)

Provenance

with F. Mont, New York (according to Zeri Research Files).
Bertram Newhouse and Elizabeth Holmes Fisher (1867-1955), by whom gifted in 1942 to,
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Christie's, New York, 10 January 1990, lot 137, where acquired by the present owner.

Literature

'Preservation of Paintings', Los Angeles County Museum Quarterly, II, September 1942, pp. 10, 12-13 and 22, nos. 3 and 4, figs. 1-3.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art Catalogue of Paintings, I, Los Angeles, 1954, p. 48, no. 46, fig. 46.
A. Pigler, Barockthemen, II, Budapest, 1956, p. 299.
C. Donzelli and G.M. Pilo, I Pittori del Seicento Veneto, Florence, 1967, p. 137, pl. 143.
B.B. Fredericksen and F. Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections, Harvard, 1972, pp. 55 and 590.
A. Pigler, Barockthemen, III, Budapest, 1974, fig. 276.
U. Mertz, Der Bilderzyklus in der Bibliothek des Klosters San Giorgio Maggiore in Venedig, Venice, 1975, pp. 137-140, no. 4, fig. 25.
R. Pallucchini, La pittura veneziana del Seicento, Milan, 1981, I, p. 294; II, p. 881, fig. 989.
R. Enggass, 'Coli, Giovanni', in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, XXVI, Rome, 1982, p. 746.
J. Rabinovitz and K. Jacobson, eds., European Painting and Sculpture in the Los Angeles Museum of Art, Los Angeles, 1987, p. 31, illustrated.
M. Kunze, 'Coli, Giovanni', in Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, XX, Munich-Leipzig, 1998, p. 247.
A. Serafini, 'Gherardi, Filippo', in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, LIII, Rome, 1999, p. 553.
M. Kunze, 'Gherardi, Filippo', in Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, LII, Munich-Leipzig, 2006, p. 507.
D. Ton, 'Giovanni Coli: Filippo Gherardi', Saggi e Memorie di storia dell'arte, XXXI, 2007, pp. 4, 9-11, 62-64, 68-69, 77, 88, 91, 133, 160, no. 11, figs. 4 and 31.

Exhibited

Venice, Ca' Pesaro, La Pittura del Seicento a Venezia, 27 June-25 October 1959, no. 159.

Conditions of sale

Brought to you by

Alastair Plumb Senior Specialist, Head of Sale, European Art

aplumb@christies.com +44 (0) 20 7752 3298

Lot Essay

Giovanni Coli and Filippo Gherardi collaborated repeatedly throughout their careers. They both trained with Pietro Paolini (1603-1681), then the leading painter in their native city of Lucca, before moving to Rome where they entered the studio of Pietro da Cortona (1596-1669). The two artists also worked together in Venice where, among other commissions, they executed a series of canvases depicting the Allegories of Divine Wisdom for the library in the monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore (1664-65) - one of which was later copied by Fragonard in his drawing of 1760-61 (Pasadena, Norton Simon Museum) - and the fresco for the dome of San Nicolò da Tolentino (1670-72). The fresco of The Battle of Lepanto (1675-78) for the ceiling of Palazzo Colonna's remarkable gran salone constitutes the outstanding masterpiece from their years in Rome.

This imposing canvas showing the Death of Dido has been dated to circa 1663-68 (Rabinovitz and Jacobson, op. cit., 1987), from the artists' Venetian period, when their style was much informed by the work of Paolo Veronese (1528-1588) while seemingly anticipating in taste the early Rococo style of Sebastiano Ricci (1659-1734).

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