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Lot Essay
This composition is among the best-known images by Sassoferrato and a testament to his artistic antecedents. Sassoferrato is noted for his adaptations of works by Renaissance artists and Raphael in particular, though some of his most celebrated copies of earlier masters were based on prints after Bolognese seicento artists (see F. Russell, 'Sassoferrato and his Sources. A Study of Seicento Allegiance', The Burlington Magazine, CXIX, October 1977, pp. 684-700). In this instance, the artist adapts Guido Reni's etching, Madonna with the Sleeping Child, so successfully that he ultimately produced numerous versions of the painting, including the work in the Pinacoteca Malaspina, Pavia. The present painting can be counted among the most refined works by the artist - the sophisticated drawing of the central group and the delicately detailed facial features of the putti are of the highest quality.
Henry, 8th Lord Arundell of Wardour, representative of one of the most prominent of English Roman Catholic families, was educated at St. Omer and at Turin, visiting Rome in 1760. He employed the architect James Paine to build a spectacular new mansion at Wardour (1770-6), which is most remarkable for the Chapel in the north wing, many of the furnishings of which were ordered in Rome through the agency of the Jesuit, Father John Thorpe (1726-1792). The long correspondence between Thorpe and his patron clarified the role of the former in assembling a collection suitable for and worthy of the new house. A letter of 30 January 1770 shows that Thorpe was to ask the German artist, Anton von Maron, to cover the Child in two copies by Sassoferrato after Reni. That Thorpe knew of the dependence of Sassoferrato's composition on Reni's design is not surprising, but the skill with which the Virgin's veil is used to wrap the Child in this and the other versions of the composition suggests that there was in fact no call for Maron to satisfy Arundell's 'overdevelloped [sic] sense of propriety' (J. Ingamells, A Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy, 1701-1800, compiled from the Brinsley Ford Archive, New Haven and London, 1997, p. 940): Maron did, however, add the token drapery to the companion picture Madonna and Child (Sotheby's, 13 December 1978, lot 119). The two paintings were separated after the 1978 sale and the pendant was exhibited in the 1990 Sassoferrato exhibition (see S. Troiani, ed., Giovan Battista Salvi, 'Il Sassoferrato', exhibition catalogue, Milan, 1990, no. 65) and is now in a private collection, Rome.
We are grateful to M. François Macé de Lépinay for confirming the attribution, on the basis of photographs (private communication, 15 October 2012).
Henry, 8th Lord Arundell of Wardour, representative of one of the most prominent of English Roman Catholic families, was educated at St. Omer and at Turin, visiting Rome in 1760. He employed the architect James Paine to build a spectacular new mansion at Wardour (1770-6), which is most remarkable for the Chapel in the north wing, many of the furnishings of which were ordered in Rome through the agency of the Jesuit, Father John Thorpe (1726-1792). The long correspondence between Thorpe and his patron clarified the role of the former in assembling a collection suitable for and worthy of the new house. A letter of 30 January 1770 shows that Thorpe was to ask the German artist, Anton von Maron, to cover the Child in two copies by Sassoferrato after Reni. That Thorpe knew of the dependence of Sassoferrato's composition on Reni's design is not surprising, but the skill with which the Virgin's veil is used to wrap the Child in this and the other versions of the composition suggests that there was in fact no call for Maron to satisfy Arundell's 'overdevelloped [sic] sense of propriety' (J. Ingamells, A Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy, 1701-1800, compiled from the Brinsley Ford Archive, New Haven and London, 1997, p. 940): Maron did, however, add the token drapery to the companion picture Madonna and Child (Sotheby's, 13 December 1978, lot 119). The two paintings were separated after the 1978 sale and the pendant was exhibited in the 1990 Sassoferrato exhibition (see S. Troiani, ed., Giovan Battista Salvi, 'Il Sassoferrato', exhibition catalogue, Milan, 1990, no. 65) and is now in a private collection, Rome.
We are grateful to M. François Macé de Lépinay for confirming the attribution, on the basis of photographs (private communication, 15 October 2012).