The Adoration of the Magi

Of noble Genoese birth, Giovanni Battista Paggi was banished from his native city in 1581 following a trial in which he was convicted for the murder of a man over the disputed payment of a painting. Following a short stay in Aulla, he arrived in Florence in 1581-2 where he rapidly gained court favor. His patrons included some of the most powerful political and social figures of his day, including Niccolo di Sinibaldo Gaddi, Alessandro Segni, and Pietro del Nero for whom the present work was executed in 1594, the same year in which he was elected into the Academy. His high standing was upheld by his selection, in the mid-1580s, for a commission to paint ancestral portraits for the Grand Duke Francesco de'Medici in the Gallery of the Uffizi, an honor shared with the most illustrious painters of the day, including Santi di Tito, Battista Naldini and Alessandro Allori.

In his unpublished dissertation, Peter M. Lukehart records a pen, ink and brown wash drawing by Paggi for the present lot (fig. 1) now in the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe, Palazzo Rosso, Genoa, Inv. no. 2518 (P. Lukehart, Contending ideals: The nobility of G.B. Paggi and the Nobility of Painting, 1987, fig. 53; see also A. Sasso, in the catalogue of the exhibition, Magnificenza alla corte dei Medici Arte a Firenze alla fine del Ciquencento, Florence, Palazzo Pitti, Museo degli Argenti, Sept. 24, 1997-Jan. 6, 1998, p. 286, no. 232, illustrated). An inscription at the bottom of the drawing reads 'Al Sig.r Pietro Del Nero a Firenze 355'. Lukehart notes that the style and format of that work place it alongside a group of some fifteen other fully worked pen and wash drawings in which a defined area is set aside for an inscription which often included the date of execution, the patron and, occasionally, the price paid. Presented within a lined border, he suggests that rather than being preparatory drawings or tavoline, these were, in fact, intended as records to accompany Paggi's account books. The precedent had already been set for this type of document. Agostino Ciampelli kept a book of watercolor miniatures of each of his paintings (G. Baglione, La Vite de'pittore ..., 1649, I, p. 321), and Claude Lorraine created his Liber Veritatis to discourage forgeries. Paggi may have taken this step to further discourage the type of dispute that had resulted in his conviction and exile. At his own request, Paggi's personal possessions were auctioned off after his death and his Quinterni de Riccordi must have been dismantled in subsequent years. The surviving drawings with these common characteristics seem largely to relate to the period of his exile, from 1581-1599.