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Lot Essay
In Giovanni Battista Beinaschi’s vast, dramatic treatment of this scene, a stark light illuminates the darkened dining room of Simon the Pharisee. Pools of light and the figures' gestures all guide the viewer to the figure of Christ, seated at right, shown in a moment of debate with his host.
A woman, normally identified as Mary Magdalene, kneels to anoint Christ's feet. This episode is told in all four Gospels, though with slight variations. When questioned by Simon as to why Christ might allow a sinner to touch him, he offers the parable of the Two Debtors (Luke 7:36-50), explaining that the woman who has anointed him loves him more than his host, since she has been forgiven of greater sins.
Beinaschi depicted this subject on at least one other occasion, for Santa Maria delle Grazie Maggiore a Caponapoli, Naples, which was decorated with a series of Marian subjects. In the 2011 catalogue raisonné of Beinaschi's works, Simona Carotenuto suggests dating the present painting to circa 1665-1670, well before the completion of the projects at Santa Maria delle Grazie of 1680 (loc. cit.). While a pupil in the workshops of Esprit Grandjean and Pietro del Po, Beinaschi habitually made copies after the works of Annibale Carracci and Giovanni Lanfranco, whose influence is evident here. He had continuous recourse to specific motifs and often recycled figures that he had previously used in his compositions: the male figures in the present painting can be connected with at least four other compositions (loc. cit.). The facial type used for Christ here, for example, is one that recurs numerous times in his oeuvre, including in the head study that appeared on the art market in 2009 (fig. 1).
Fig 1. Giovanni Battista Beinaschi, The Head of Christ, sold at Sotheby’s New York, 29 January 2009, lot 158.
A woman, normally identified as Mary Magdalene, kneels to anoint Christ's feet. This episode is told in all four Gospels, though with slight variations. When questioned by Simon as to why Christ might allow a sinner to touch him, he offers the parable of the Two Debtors (Luke 7:36-50), explaining that the woman who has anointed him loves him more than his host, since she has been forgiven of greater sins.
Beinaschi depicted this subject on at least one other occasion, for Santa Maria delle Grazie Maggiore a Caponapoli, Naples, which was decorated with a series of Marian subjects. In the 2011 catalogue raisonné of Beinaschi's works, Simona Carotenuto suggests dating the present painting to circa 1665-1670, well before the completion of the projects at Santa Maria delle Grazie of 1680 (loc. cit.). While a pupil in the workshops of Esprit Grandjean and Pietro del Po, Beinaschi habitually made copies after the works of Annibale Carracci and Giovanni Lanfranco, whose influence is evident here. He had continuous recourse to specific motifs and often recycled figures that he had previously used in his compositions: the male figures in the present painting can be connected with at least four other compositions (loc. cit.). The facial type used for Christ here, for example, is one that recurs numerous times in his oeuvre, including in the head study that appeared on the art market in 2009 (fig. 1).
Fig 1. Giovanni Battista Beinaschi, The Head of Christ, sold at Sotheby’s New York, 29 January 2009, lot 158.