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Lot Essay
Another version of this composition, very close in detail and in size, but not squared, is in the Kunstmuseum, Dsseldorf (Inv. 739 and Gernsheim Index 79944, illustrated in B. Kerber, op. cit., fig. 14).
The composition dates from the artist's second visit to Paris in 1655-7. Trained by Pietro da Cortona, Romanelli had worked chiefly for Pope Urban VIII. On the latter's death in 1644, his nephew Matteo Barberini was sent into exile and settled in Paris, where Romanelli followed him a year leter. His main patron in France was Cardinal Mazarin, for whom he decorated the galerie Mazarine at his new palace facing the Louvre. It was on his second visit that Romanelli painted his acclaimed decorations for Queen Anne of Austria's summer apartments.
Cardinal Mazarin is represented in this allegory seated on a pedestal with the rivers Saone and Rhone and with a lion symbolising the city at his feet. Leaning against the right of the pedestal are fasces, symbols of peace. Turks and other enemies of the Church are shown fleeing to the left, while the Cardinal dictates to Mercury. On the right Discord is pursued by Peace. The main difference between the present sheet and that in Dsseldorf lies in Romanelli's removal of the putto above the Cardinal.
The allegory may allude to the Cardinal's negotiation with Don Luis de Haro, the Spanish Chief Minister, of a long-awaited peace treaty between France and Spain. To seal the peace between the two countries, Cardinal Mazarin arranged the marriage of King Louis XIV to King Philip IV's daughter. The arrangement was negotiated while the King was at Lyon at the end of 1658.
A picture of similar general composition to the present drawing depicting La Glorification de la France is in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lille, A. Brejon de Lavergnée, Seicento, Le siècle de Caravage dans les collections franaises, exhib. cat., Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, 1988, no. 133.
The composition dates from the artist's second visit to Paris in 1655-7. Trained by Pietro da Cortona, Romanelli had worked chiefly for Pope Urban VIII. On the latter's death in 1644, his nephew Matteo Barberini was sent into exile and settled in Paris, where Romanelli followed him a year leter. His main patron in France was Cardinal Mazarin, for whom he decorated the galerie Mazarine at his new palace facing the Louvre. It was on his second visit that Romanelli painted his acclaimed decorations for Queen Anne of Austria's summer apartments.
Cardinal Mazarin is represented in this allegory seated on a pedestal with the rivers Saone and Rhone and with a lion symbolising the city at his feet. Leaning against the right of the pedestal are fasces, symbols of peace. Turks and other enemies of the Church are shown fleeing to the left, while the Cardinal dictates to Mercury. On the right Discord is pursued by Peace. The main difference between the present sheet and that in Dsseldorf lies in Romanelli's removal of the putto above the Cardinal.
The allegory may allude to the Cardinal's negotiation with Don Luis de Haro, the Spanish Chief Minister, of a long-awaited peace treaty between France and Spain. To seal the peace between the two countries, Cardinal Mazarin arranged the marriage of King Louis XIV to King Philip IV's daughter. The arrangement was negotiated while the King was at Lyon at the end of 1658.
A picture of similar general composition to the present drawing depicting La Glorification de la France is in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lille, A. Brejon de Lavergnée, Seicento, Le siècle de Caravage dans les collections franaises, exhib. cat., Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, 1988, no. 133.