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Lot Essay
Denys Calvaert was born in Antwerp around 1540 and, following a period of training with the landscape painter Kerstiaen van Queboorn, settled in Bologna around 1560. Having secured the protection of the local Bolognini family, he first studied under Prospero Fontana before leaving to work with Lorenzo Sabatini. When Pope Gregory XIII called Sabatini to Rome in 1572, Calvaert accompanied him, producing copies after Michelangelo, Sebastiano del Piombi and Raphael that were so successful that they were at times mistaken for the originals. He permanently returned to Bologna in 1575, where he established a painting school that emphasized his deep knowledge and interest in the works of earlier 16th-century Italian painters. Among his distinguished pupils were Guido Reni, Francesco Albani and Domenichino.
Calvaert’s clear preference for religious subjects was relatively unique among Flemish painters of his generation, many of whom drew widely from Classical mythology. His remarkable range enabled him to produce everything from largescale altarpieces to finely wrought devotional paintings with distinctive coloration and minute detail that seamlessly blend Northern and Italian tendencies. The figures in this painting emphasize the continued influence of prints by Albrecht Dürer and Lucas van Leyden, while the architectural setting is based on Italian prototypes.
This composition appears to have been a particularly successful one for Calvaert in the final decade of the 16th century. No fewer than three drawings are known, including one dated 1591 in red chalk (British Museum, London), which was subsequently engraved by Philippe Thomassin; a second signed and dated 1598 in red chalk, red wash and white heightening (fig. 1; National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh); and a third in black chalk also signed and dated 1598 (private collection). A further painting on copper, signed and dated 1592, of somewhat smaller dimensions and with differences has also recently come to light (art market, Paris). The present painting more closely approximates the drawings of 1598 than the drawn and painted versions executed at the beginning of the decade and probably dates to the final years of the sixteenth century.
We are grateful to Michele Danieli for endorsing the attribution on the basis of photographs.
Calvaert’s clear preference for religious subjects was relatively unique among Flemish painters of his generation, many of whom drew widely from Classical mythology. His remarkable range enabled him to produce everything from largescale altarpieces to finely wrought devotional paintings with distinctive coloration and minute detail that seamlessly blend Northern and Italian tendencies. The figures in this painting emphasize the continued influence of prints by Albrecht Dürer and Lucas van Leyden, while the architectural setting is based on Italian prototypes.
This composition appears to have been a particularly successful one for Calvaert in the final decade of the 16th century. No fewer than three drawings are known, including one dated 1591 in red chalk (British Museum, London), which was subsequently engraved by Philippe Thomassin; a second signed and dated 1598 in red chalk, red wash and white heightening (fig. 1; National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh); and a third in black chalk also signed and dated 1598 (private collection). A further painting on copper, signed and dated 1592, of somewhat smaller dimensions and with differences has also recently come to light (art market, Paris). The present painting more closely approximates the drawings of 1598 than the drawn and painted versions executed at the beginning of the decade and probably dates to the final years of the sixteenth century.
We are grateful to Michele Danieli for endorsing the attribution on the basis of photographs.