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Lot Essay
A photograph of this painting from the Max J. Friedländer archive, today in the RKD, The Hague, is filed under ‘Keilhau’. When in the possession of the Swiss Ambassador in Buenos Aires, Dr. Mario G. Fumasoli, this painting was described as: ‘toile du 17ème, guitarriste, attribuée à Ribera. Très belle, mais presque certainement d’un excellent peintre italien’. The attribution of this picture to The Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds was first proposed by Mr. José Requena Bravo de Laguna and was published as such by Professor Spinosa in his publication on Cavallino and his time (op. cit.). The artist’s close affinity with Ribera and Francesco Fracanzano, with whom he has sometimes been confused, is evident in the dynamic brushwork, in the sympathetic representation of humble subjects, and in the sombre palette.
The identity of The Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds has fascinated the academic world for decades. There is no doubt that he was a major figure in Naples in the first half of the 17th century, as the exceptional quality of his pictures demonstrates. His hand was first identified in the Annunciation to the Shepherds in the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, formerly attributed to Velázquez, only in the 1920s. But since then, there has not been a convincing identification for this anonymous artist and it remains uncertain as to whether he was of Spanish or Italian origin. He has variously been recognised as Bartolomeo Passante, or Bassante, and as Juan (or Giovanni) Dò from Valencia, artists who are both documented as working in Naples in the 1620s (for a recent summary of this debate see N. Spinosa, Pittura del Seicento a Napoli: da Caravaggio a Massimo Stanzione, Naples, 2010, pp. 326-8).
The identity of The Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds has fascinated the academic world for decades. There is no doubt that he was a major figure in Naples in the first half of the 17th century, as the exceptional quality of his pictures demonstrates. His hand was first identified in the Annunciation to the Shepherds in the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, formerly attributed to Velázquez, only in the 1920s. But since then, there has not been a convincing identification for this anonymous artist and it remains uncertain as to whether he was of Spanish or Italian origin. He has variously been recognised as Bartolomeo Passante, or Bassante, and as Juan (or Giovanni) Dò from Valencia, artists who are both documented as working in Naples in the 1620s (for a recent summary of this debate see N. Spinosa, Pittura del Seicento a Napoli: da Caravaggio a Massimo Stanzione, Naples, 2010, pp. 326-8).