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拍品專文
Proudly delineated against a rolling landscape that resembles the Roman campagna, this magnificent hound was clearly highly prized by Cardinal Flavio Chigi, whose coat of arms is visible on the dog’s collar. This is not just a realistic portrayal of a beloved pet: the dog, whose vivid presence is here conveyed on a monumental scale, should be seen as a status symbol.
Born in Siena, Chigi moved to Rome in 1657, having been elected a cardinal by his uncle Fabio, who had become Pope Alexander VII in 1655. The eternal city offered huge scope to the highly educated cardinal to expand his patronage of the arts. The Chigi estate included the Palazzo Chigi in Ariccia, just outside Rome, which Gian Lorenzo Bernini and his pupil Carlo Fontana rebuilt for the family between 1664 and 1672. Flavio’s apartments on the ground floor of this sumptuous palace contained four further portraits of his greyhounds commissioned from Pace, which remain there to this day (see I. Faldi, 'I dipinti chigiani di Michelangelo Pace', Arte Antica e Moderna, 1966, pp. 144-8, nos. 34-6). In addition, the cardinal's accounts of 1665 and 1666 show payments made to Pace for no fewer than 12 canvases, with two greyhounds each, to be sent to his villa Versaglia in Formello.
The decoration of this country seat, inspired by the time Chigi had spent at Versailles at the court of Louis XIV in 1664, reflected the cardinal’s passion for hunting. Further portraits of dogs painted for the Chigi houses are listed and known, although none can be firmly identified with the present work (see, for instance, F. Petrucci, Le Stanze del Cardinale, exhibition catalogue, Ariccia/Rome, 2003, pp. 94-7 and 150-2; F. Petrucci, Le collezioni berniane di Flavio Chigi, tra il Casino alle Quattro Fontane e la Villa Versaglia in C. Benocci, I Giardini Chigi, Siena, 2005, pp. 191-208).
Although the tradition of including pets, especially dogs, as a symbol of fidelity in portraiture extends back to the fifteenth century (a perfect example being the charming wire-haired terrier standing proudly between the couple in Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait of 1434 in the National Gallery, London), stand-alone canine portraiture did not flourish as a genre until the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century. Jacopo Bassano’s majestic Two hunting dogs tied to a stump (Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. no. RF 1994 23), executed for count Antonio Zentani in the third quarter of the sixteenth century, stands as a cornerstone of the genre. A direct precedent, which may have been known to Pace, is Guercino's The Aldrovandi Dog (c.1625; Pasadena, Norton Simon Museum) which, as here, includes the coat of arms of the patron, Count Filippo Aldrovandi of Bologna, on the dog's collar. One of the most famous proponents of serial canine portraiture of the type commissioned by Cardinal Chigi was Louis XIV, though the latter's significantly post-date those of the former. Louis XIV's series of royal hunting dogs by Alexandre Desportes, the king's hunting painter, including works such as Diane and Blonde or the delightfully named Bonne, Nonne and Ponne (Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. nos. 3911 and 3912), dates to the turn of the eighteenth century.
We are grateful to Prof. Francesco Petrucci, who endorsed the attribution to Pace prior to the painting's last appearance at auction in 2010, for his assistance in the cataloguing of this lot.
Born in Siena, Chigi moved to Rome in 1657, having been elected a cardinal by his uncle Fabio, who had become Pope Alexander VII in 1655. The eternal city offered huge scope to the highly educated cardinal to expand his patronage of the arts. The Chigi estate included the Palazzo Chigi in Ariccia, just outside Rome, which Gian Lorenzo Bernini and his pupil Carlo Fontana rebuilt for the family between 1664 and 1672. Flavio’s apartments on the ground floor of this sumptuous palace contained four further portraits of his greyhounds commissioned from Pace, which remain there to this day (see I. Faldi, 'I dipinti chigiani di Michelangelo Pace', Arte Antica e Moderna, 1966, pp. 144-8, nos. 34-6). In addition, the cardinal's accounts of 1665 and 1666 show payments made to Pace for no fewer than 12 canvases, with two greyhounds each, to be sent to his villa Versaglia in Formello.
The decoration of this country seat, inspired by the time Chigi had spent at Versailles at the court of Louis XIV in 1664, reflected the cardinal’s passion for hunting. Further portraits of dogs painted for the Chigi houses are listed and known, although none can be firmly identified with the present work (see, for instance, F. Petrucci, Le Stanze del Cardinale, exhibition catalogue, Ariccia/Rome, 2003, pp. 94-7 and 150-2; F. Petrucci, Le collezioni berniane di Flavio Chigi, tra il Casino alle Quattro Fontane e la Villa Versaglia in C. Benocci, I Giardini Chigi, Siena, 2005, pp. 191-208).
Although the tradition of including pets, especially dogs, as a symbol of fidelity in portraiture extends back to the fifteenth century (a perfect example being the charming wire-haired terrier standing proudly between the couple in Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait of 1434 in the National Gallery, London), stand-alone canine portraiture did not flourish as a genre until the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century. Jacopo Bassano’s majestic Two hunting dogs tied to a stump (Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. no. RF 1994 23), executed for count Antonio Zentani in the third quarter of the sixteenth century, stands as a cornerstone of the genre. A direct precedent, which may have been known to Pace, is Guercino's The Aldrovandi Dog (c.1625; Pasadena, Norton Simon Museum) which, as here, includes the coat of arms of the patron, Count Filippo Aldrovandi of Bologna, on the dog's collar. One of the most famous proponents of serial canine portraiture of the type commissioned by Cardinal Chigi was Louis XIV, though the latter's significantly post-date those of the former. Louis XIV's series of royal hunting dogs by Alexandre Desportes, the king's hunting painter, including works such as Diane and Blonde or the delightfully named Bonne, Nonne and Ponne (Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. nos. 3911 and 3912), dates to the turn of the eighteenth century.
We are grateful to Prof. Francesco Petrucci, who endorsed the attribution to Pace prior to the painting's last appearance at auction in 2010, for his assistance in the cataloguing of this lot.