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Lot Essay
Bologna in the late 17th century was among the foremost artistic centers of continental Europe. It was from this thriving creative scene that Giuseppe Maria Crespi emerged as one of the superlative painters of his era. He began his training in the 1680s with Domenico Maria Canuti and Carlo Cignani, before travelling to Romagna and the Veneto. From there, he sent back copies of works by earlier masters to his Bolognese benefactor, Giovanni Ricci, and his reputation quickly grew. By the 1690s his patronage reached as far as the courts of Rome and Vienna, prompting his biographer, Giampietro Zanotti, to write in 1738, “Ma qual città, qual terra d’Italia non possiede alcun’opera di questo pittore? Chi ha potuto procurar di averne l’ha fatto; tutti certamente l’hanno desiderato” (“But which city, which region does not have a work by this painter? Those who were able to procure one, did so; certainly everyone wanted one”; G. Zanotti, Storia dell’Accademia Clementina di Bologna, Bologna, 1739, II, p. 62).
This commanding portrait of a gentleman in armor was dated to the penultimate years of the first decade of the 18th century by Riccardo Spinelli in his essay accompanying the 2009 exhibition at the Uffizi, Florence (Il fasto e la ragione: Arte del Settecento a Firenze, exhibition catalogue, Florence, 2009, p. 83). During this period, Crespi was working in Tuscany between Prato and Florence, as the guest of Ferdinando de' Medici, Grand Prince of Tuscany (1663-1713). In fact, a wax seal on the stretcher of the painting bears the coat-of-arms of the most prominent patrician families of Florence, the Counts Guicciardini suggesting that this picture may have been commissioned by the them and demonstrating without doubt that this picture once formed part of their collection. Furthermore, the eight-point red cross emblazoned on the breastplate identifies the knight as belonging to the Order of Saint Stephen, a sacred Military Naval Order founded in Tuscany in 1561 by Cosimo I de’ Medici (1519-1574). At the end of the 17th century, only two members of the Guicciardini family were members of the Order: Piero di Angelo di Girolamo (1625-1696); and Angelo di Francesco di Angelo (1654-1698). However, the identification of the sitter with either gentleman based on the presence of the seal is problematic, and should likely be discounted, given the proposed, early 18th-century dating of this picture, and the date of death of each one.
Mira Pajes Merriman was credited with having confirmed the attribution to Crespi at the time of the exhibition in 2009. She recognized the stylistic similarity of the present work to the artist’s Portrait of a Boy, sometimes called The Son of General Palffy, in the Museo Civico d’Arte Medievale e Moderna, Modena, which dates to circa 1703 (M.P. Merriman, Giuseppe Maria Crespi, Milan, 1980, p. 291, no. 198). In each, the pose and gaze of the sitter conveys confidence and authority, and strong chiaroscuro is used to heighten the three dimensionality and increase the depth of the composition. Donatella Biagi-Maino also compared the present work to the Portrait of a Gentleman in Armor in a private collection, London, which dates to circa 1708, and displays a similarly monochromatic tonality and silvery treatment of the armor (D. Benati, Figure come il naturale: il ritratto a Bologna dai Carracci al Crespi, Bologna, 2001, pp. 115-6, no. 50).
This commanding portrait of a gentleman in armor was dated to the penultimate years of the first decade of the 18th century by Riccardo Spinelli in his essay accompanying the 2009 exhibition at the Uffizi, Florence (Il fasto e la ragione: Arte del Settecento a Firenze, exhibition catalogue, Florence, 2009, p. 83). During this period, Crespi was working in Tuscany between Prato and Florence, as the guest of Ferdinando de' Medici, Grand Prince of Tuscany (1663-1713). In fact, a wax seal on the stretcher of the painting bears the coat-of-arms of the most prominent patrician families of Florence, the Counts Guicciardini suggesting that this picture may have been commissioned by the them and demonstrating without doubt that this picture once formed part of their collection. Furthermore, the eight-point red cross emblazoned on the breastplate identifies the knight as belonging to the Order of Saint Stephen, a sacred Military Naval Order founded in Tuscany in 1561 by Cosimo I de’ Medici (1519-1574). At the end of the 17th century, only two members of the Guicciardini family were members of the Order: Piero di Angelo di Girolamo (1625-1696); and Angelo di Francesco di Angelo (1654-1698). However, the identification of the sitter with either gentleman based on the presence of the seal is problematic, and should likely be discounted, given the proposed, early 18th-century dating of this picture, and the date of death of each one.
Mira Pajes Merriman was credited with having confirmed the attribution to Crespi at the time of the exhibition in 2009. She recognized the stylistic similarity of the present work to the artist’s Portrait of a Boy, sometimes called The Son of General Palffy, in the Museo Civico d’Arte Medievale e Moderna, Modena, which dates to circa 1703 (M.P. Merriman, Giuseppe Maria Crespi, Milan, 1980, p. 291, no. 198). In each, the pose and gaze of the sitter conveys confidence and authority, and strong chiaroscuro is used to heighten the three dimensionality and increase the depth of the composition. Donatella Biagi-Maino also compared the present work to the Portrait of a Gentleman in Armor in a private collection, London, which dates to circa 1708, and displays a similarly monochromatic tonality and silvery treatment of the armor (D. Benati, Figure come il naturale: il ritratto a Bologna dai Carracci al Crespi, Bologna, 2001, pp. 115-6, no. 50).