Lot Essay
In a letter dated June 6, 1991, Simona Lecchini Giovannoni, points out that the present painting repeats with very minor differences Allessandro Allori's Christ and the Woman of Samaria of 1575, painted for the Bracci family chapel in Santa Maria Novella, Florence (see S. Lecchini Giovannoni, Allessandro Allori, 1991, p. 239, no. 53, fig. 96).
That Allori's composition was well known during his life can be attested to by the number of contemporary copies including not only the present painting, but another smaller version in a private collection in Italy, and a fresco in the courtyard of Santa Maria Nuova, Florence that has been identified as the collaborative work of Giusto Fiammingo and Allesandro Pieroni (ibid., pp. 239-40, no. 54, fig. 99).
Giovannoni further points out that despite similarities to the Allori, the present painting does not evoke Bronzino either in the drawing or the rendering of the drapery and flesh, but rather Michelangelo. In its plasticity of forms, it should be compared to Stradano's Last Supper of 1572, in the Chiesa del Sacro Cuore, Florence. The proportions and the influence of Michelangelo in the figures also find close analogies with those in The Baptism of Christ, painted by Stradano sometime after 1572, and which is in the neighboring chapel to Allori's Christ and the Woman of Samaria, in Santa Maria Novella, Florence.
That Allori's composition was well known during his life can be attested to by the number of contemporary copies including not only the present painting, but another smaller version in a private collection in Italy, and a fresco in the courtyard of Santa Maria Nuova, Florence that has been identified as the collaborative work of Giusto Fiammingo and Allesandro Pieroni (ibid., pp. 239-40, no. 54, fig. 99).
Giovannoni further points out that despite similarities to the Allori, the present painting does not evoke Bronzino either in the drawing or the rendering of the drapery and flesh, but rather Michelangelo. In its plasticity of forms, it should be compared to Stradano's Last Supper of 1572, in the Chiesa del Sacro Cuore, Florence. The proportions and the influence of Michelangelo in the figures also find close analogies with those in The Baptism of Christ, painted by Stradano sometime after 1572, and which is in the neighboring chapel to Allori's Christ and the Woman of Samaria, in Santa Maria Novella, Florence.