MADONNA AND CHILD (Madonna of the Veil) – Oil on canvas from the late 18th century – Workshop of Onorio Marinari (Florence, 1627 - 1715) - (after Carlo Dolci, Florence, 1616 – 1686) - New entry

This is one of the two or perhaps three late 18th-century versions of significant quality of one of Onorio Marinari's (Florence, 1627 – 1715) most successful inventions, one of which was, from the mid-18th century, in the collection of Cardinal Neri Corsini and is now located in the National Gallery of Palazzo Corsini in Rome. The painting is perhaps derived from a prototype considered lost (surviving only in later copies and interpretations such as this one) by the great Tuscan artist CARLO DOLCI (Florence, 1616 - 1686), master and father-in-law of the painter as well as the foremost Florentine artist of the 17th century. This Madonna and Child (also known as "Madonna of the Veil"), which restores the touching simplicity of its reference prototype, is appreciated as a noble work from the Marinari workshop. The scene is executed with admirable refinement and accuracy, with its enameled and intensely contrasting colors, the gestures of the figures, and the refined drapery of the Virgin's robes and the swaddling clothes that wrap the Baby Jesus. The latter, of particular and childlike beauty, appears in profile with his eyes half-closed, peacefully lying towards the Mother who contemplates him in a natural and non-iconographic attitude. A gentle scene that recalls and emphasizes the love of all mothers for their newborn children. Excellent state of preservation within an art frame in wood painted with faux marble. Measurements: width 87.5 cm height 101.5 cm Tuscany - late 18th century Biography and brief critical essay on Carlo Dolci CARLO DOLCI (son of Andrea and Agnese Marinari), was born in Florence in 1616 and died there in 1686. The primary source for information regarding this painter is the biography written by his student Filippo Baldinucci (published posthumously in 1728). From this, we learn that, having been orphaned by his father at the age of four, he entered the workshop of Iacopo Vignali at just nine years old and remained there until he became independent; in 1648 he was registered among the academicians of design; in 1654 he married Teresa Bucherelli (1638/39-1683), from whom he had a son named Andrea and seven daughters (Baldinucci, 1728, p. 361). In the "status animarum" of the parish of S. Lorenzo (Florence, Biblioteca Laurenziana) of 1659, the family is registered with only Anna of two years old, in 1660 Agnese is added, who was indeed born on September 14, 1659. Elisabetta of six years old and Agata of four years old are mentioned in the notebook of drawings in Cambridge (cfr. Dizionario biograf. degli It., sub voce Dolci, Agnese); again Agata with Giovanna and Angiola are cited as young girls in the will of 1685 (McCorquodale, 1986, II, p. 360) while there is no news of the seventh daughter. D. spent his entire life in Florence except for a period of a few months in which he made, with great reluctance and out of obedience, a trip to Innsbruck in 1672 to portray Claudia Felicita, daughter of Archduke Ferdinand Charles of Habsburg, Count of Tyrol, and Anna de' Medici, future wife of Emperor Leopold I. In later years, the painter's tendency towards introversion and isolation intensified and led to a progressive detachment from painting in the last period before his death in Florence on January 17, 1686. He was buried in the family tomb at the Ss. Annunziata, preceded by his mother (1669) and his wife (1683). The painter's life, so devoid of significant events, was dedicated to devout practices and the production of religious works, considering his art as the instrument granted to him by God to serve him worthily. D. was certainly a precocious talent; Baldinucci states (1728, p. 338) that he began painting shortly after entering Vignali's workshop. The first certain testimonies of D.'s activity are two portraits, a genre in which he also tried his hand later and with remarkable results. In 1631 he created for Don Lorenzo de' Medici the portrait of Stefano della Bella (Florence, Galleria Palatina), an extremely early masterpiece (Borea, 1977, p. 42) not only for the refined execution but also for the psychological investigation that sustains it. The following year he executed the portrait of Fra' Ainolfo de' Bardi (Florence, Uffizi): here the cut of the figure up to the knees and the outdoor setting are original elements that combine with an already very sophisticated chromatic range. Having received this commission at only sixteen years old, from an important man in the Medici circle, is also a sign of the painter's early success (McCorquodale, 1973, p. 480) and the painting has always been considered among the most representative works of portraiture of the early seventeenth century. To these first, and more certain, works McCorquodale (1979, p. 146 fig. 9) has added a S. Francis who contemplates the Crucifix (formerly in London, coll. Waddingham), dating it around 1627-30 for the strongly Vignalesque style. In the advanced fourth decade, the typical way of painting of D. is better defined with a "compact and lucid" material (Del Bravo, 1963, p. 34) as already felt in the S. John the Baptist of the Arciconfraternita della Misericordia; belonging to this moment are also the S. John in the desert (private coll.; McCorquodale, 1986, I, p. 43 8), still strongly linked to the ways of the master, and the remarkable Guardian Angel of Budapest (ibid., p. 436, c. 1638-40). Finally, McCorquodale (1986, p. 82) considers among the main works of the Thirties the three Evangelists (Malibu, P. Getty Mus., Los Angeles, private coll.; private coll. in Italy) of the series perhaps painted for G. Galli, published by B. Fredericksen (1976). An early testimony of D.'s contacts with the Medici family, started since the early years of activity, is according to Russell (1985, p. 716) the Adoration of the Magi of Blenheim (coll. Duke of Marlborough). The "incorruptible material", typical of D.'s paintings, is strongly affirmed in works of the early Forties such as the portrait of Serafina Pezzuoli (Florence, Ss. Michele e Gaetano. c. 1642; cfr. Chini, 1979) and the famous Madonna and Child of the Fabre Museum in Montpellier, dated 1642. Here can be observed many of the typical characters of D.: the absorbed and affectionate sweetness of the face of so many Madonnas, the intact material of the complexions, the clear focus of every detail including the piece of still life of the flowers in the basket, the bright chromatic range not yet burdened by the enveloping shadows of the later phase. Numerous other versions of the Madonna are known, testifying to the fortune that she immediately collected, it being the painter's custom to replicate his best works (cfr. Levey, 1971; McCorquodale, 1973, fig. 3). Chronologically close to the Madonna of Montpellier is the banner painted in 1641 for the Company of S. Filippo Benizi representing the titular saint, of which are known the payment travails (M. Cioni, Appunti d'archivio. Di uno stendardo dipinto dal D., in Rivista d'arte, VII [1910], pp. 143ss.), and that McCorquodale (1979, p. 145 fig. 6) believes to have traced, albeit reduced in size (but cfr. also O. J. Dias, S. Filippo Benizi e s. Pellegrino Laziosi, in Studi storici dell'Ordine dei servi di Maria, XXXV [1985], pp. 251-55). Among the rare paintings with more figures D. realized in the Forties three versions of the Martyrdom of S. Andrew (Birmingham, Art Gallery, dat. 1643; Florence, Galleria Palatina, dat. 1646; Empoli, prepositura, according to Chiarini, 1978, slightly earlier than the other two versions). The painting of Birmingham is a curious ensemble of portraits of contemporaries of the painter and citations from famous paintings, as has been ascertained by McCorquodale (Painting, 1979, p. 64). The reprisals from famous Florentine masters or from Correggio are anything but infrequent in D. as Del Bravo has stressed (1963, p. 33), while Pizzonisso (1986) has noted a possible reference of D. to the models of the Robbiana tradition within the scope of a taste of an archaic character. But there is no lack of reprisals from the closest Florentine tradition as shown by the painting depicting Christ in the house of the Pharisee (Corsham Court, coll. lord Methuen, dat. 1649; model in Stockholm, National Museum), which takes up a painting by L. Cardi called il Cigoli of 1596 through a print by Cornelius Galle. Also in this painting, of which some preparatory drawings are known, D. has certainly inserted some portraits (McCorquodale, Painting, 1979, p. 46). The resort to models of other painters, done in a manifest way and without intentions of plagiarism, testifies the difficulty of D. to elaborate articulated compositions, difficulty that is felt throughout all his production. It has in fact been observed that D. seems to project isolated figures and then collect them together (Heinz, 1960, p. 198) and that his composition drawings are not known but only studies of single figures (McCorquodale, 1973, p. 484). The true ability of the painter is not in fact exerted in the composition but in the meticulous realization of each individual figure, cared for down to the smallest detail, according to what Baldinucci defines "practical patient diligence (1728, p. 336) not to be confused with uncertainty and even less with incapacity. Precisely for a better evaluation of the great sacred paintings of D. would have been necessary the lost painting, realized in 1656 for Giovanni del Nobolo, depicting The Madonna shows the miraculous image of S. Domenico a Soriano (formerly in the church of S. Andrea a Cennano a Montevarchi), of which McCorquodale (1976, p. 317 fig. 3; Some unpublished..., 1979, p. 142 fig. 2) was able to reconstruct the history and publish a fragment with the Virgin, which strikes for the illusive quality of the crown painted on the head; to this work therefore can be applied the words of Baldinucci (1728, p. 346) for the famous copy of the Ss. Annunziata: "that, for as much as one touched and retouched the canvas to make sure that they [jewels] were painted, it still seemed that the eye remained in doubt: but forced finally to approve the judgment of the hand, ashamed of its own deception ... threw itself at the acts of marvel ...". The production of the central years of D.'s activity is better represented by small paintings of devout subject such as the S. Girolamo penitent (dat. 1647, McCorquodale, Some unpublished, 1979, p. 145, fig. 8), the Flight into Egypt (Stamford, coll. Marquis of Exeter, cfr. Waterhouse, 1960, another version in the coll. V. Spark of New York) and the Guardian Angel (Corsham Court, coll. lord Methuen), the last two datable around 1650, which are expression of a style that has been defined as poetic naturalism (McCorquodale, Painting..., 1979, pp. 47 s., 52) but which will tend to be overwhelmed in the following years by a pietistic accentuation. The Christ in Limbo, coming from the Compagnia di S. Benedetto Bianco in Florence, with veiled neo-Quattrocento modes, as well as the Trinity of the Rhode Island School of design Museum in Providence (cfr. McCorquodale, 1986, I, p. 441) are also from the Forties. You can still remember the S. Paul hermit fed by the raven of the Kress collection (Shapley, 1973) and the S. Domenico Penitente (Florence, Galleria Palatina, of about 1651: Heinz, 1960, p. 224) with accentuated chiaroscuro contrasts, the S. Peter in tears (Florence, Galleria Palatina, dat. c. 1654) and the Charity of palazzo Alberti in Prato, dated 1659. This work is highly representative of D.'s mature style for the concentration of the image and the ecstatic accentuation of the expression. This type of allegorical figures, mainly with a moral-religious background, is one of the few alternatives that D. allowed himself with respect to the production of sacred images. Among the most famous ones can be reminded the Poetry (Florence, Galleria Corsini, 1648-49), the Patience (dat. 1677; Gregori, 1974, fig. 24) and the Sincerity of Vienna which even presents an identical resumption of the right arm of the Charity (McCorquodale, 1986, I, pp. 442-45). A similar, extreme simplification of the subject, associated with the illusive tangibility of the details, is noticeable in some half-bust images of the Madonna, repeatedly taken up in the devotional iconography (cfr. the Addolorata, in McCorquodale, 1986, I, p. 446). In the Sixties D. realized some of his most famous portraits, among which we mention the objective representations of the Fitzwilliam Museum of Canibridge (c. 1665-70), Sir John Finch and Sir Thomas Baines, especially the second one remarkable for the careful psychological investigation of the character. Baldinucci recalls (1728, p. 352) that after this pair of portraits D. made many others for English knights passing through Florence (for D.'s portrait activity cfr. also McCorquodale, 1976). His painting was therefore known and appreciated in Great Britain, where the numerous paintings brought by sir John Finch contributed greatly to D.'s success (for the reconstruction of the events of the paintings Salomè with the head of Baptist and David with the head of Goliath, cfr. McCorquodale, 1977). In the last twenty-five years of activity the one-figure subjects intensified such as the two octagons with S. Carlo Borromeo and S. Nicola da Tolentino (Florence, Galleria Palatina; for the second preparatory drawing dated 1660 in Gijón), S. Rosa (dated 1668, pal. Pitti) and S. Casimiro (1670, ibid.). The image of S. Rosa shows how the painter, in his search for maximum concentration, has eliminated any movement, condensing the whole figure in the gaze raised upwards. Of this era are also the S. Giovanni Evangelista, always in Pitti, of 1671, and the S. Cecilia of Dresden (Gemäldegalerie) of the same year; the latter is one of the most fortunate images of the era for the wise balance that is created between the analytical description of the individual things and the global atmosphere of the painting that has the intimate flavor of the family scene. During the already mentioned stay in Innsbruck in 1672 D. painted two portraits of Claudia Felicita, one in Vienna (Kunsthistorisches Museum) and the other brought to Florence, where Grand Duke Cosimo III ordered him to transform her into S. Galla Placidia (1675; Uffizi, cat. 1979, p. 249). He also painted for Claudia Felicita the Jesus Child with flowers full figure (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, dat. 1674; Heinz, 1958, fig. 184). In the last years of his life D. was particularly active for Cosimo III and his mother Vittoria Della Rovere. The famous Madonna and Child, called of the hard stones, was executed for the Grand Duchess perhaps in 1675; to her certainly belonged the Sleep of S. Giovannino, datable to 1673, and to testimony of these reports remains above all the Portrait of Vittoria Della Rovere in widow's clothes, surprising image of clear realism (all in Florence, Galleria Palatina; cfr. Ewald, 1974, pp. 218 s.). For the collection of Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici he also made the Self-portrait of 1674 (Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi), in which he depicts himself in elegant clothes, while showing a second self-portrait in which he is intent on his work (in this second case with his glasses lowered on his nose and his gaze fixed on a detail that he is lovingly defining). Belonging to the extreme phase of D.'s production are still two large altar paintings: the Guardian Angel for the cathedral of Prato of about 1675 (now in the Museum), which has been defined "an episode of vibrant intimism and sentimental lyricism" (Datini, 1972), and the Madonna with Child and the blessed Solomea appear to s. Luigi di Tolosa (Galleria degli Uffizi). On the sketch (Shapley, 1973, p. 87) are marked the payments received from 1676 to 1681 but the painting was not finished, also because of the death of the client, the canon Bocchineri. The style of the last activity of D. is better appreciated in the small-cut paintings, such as the Jesus Child with flower crown of Monaco of 1680 (McCorquodale, 1973, p. 486, fig. 14) and the Christ who blesses the bread of which various versions are known including that of Dresden (c. 1676), that of Corsham Court and that already in the Wellington collection (1681): the hallucinated realism expresses "the pathological religious fervor" of the painter close to the end of his activity (McCorquodale, 1976, p. 313). Baldinucci (1728, pp. 357-60) describes, in fact, the great depression and the mental confusion that took possession of D., now elderly, after the meeting with Luca Giordano; a malaise of a psychological nature recurred, already presented a few years before, which prevented him, from then on until his death, from working again. Alongside the production of sacred paintings and portraits, D. also sometimes dedicated himself to still lifes (Baldinucci, 1728, p. 341); has been identified the Vase of flowers and basin (Florence, Galleria Palatina; Gregori, 1964) painted for Giovanni Carlo de' Medici in 1662, while the attribution to D. of the Allegory of the Epiphany, advanced by Heinz (1960, p. 208, fig. 220), is today challenged by McCorquodale (1986, I, p. 450). The two emblems for Andrea Dolci, belonging to Ferdinando de' Medici, recently exhibited in Florence (Acanfora, 1986, pp. 458 s.), can be associated with still lifes. Del Bravo (1963, p. 39) had to say that for this "poet of recollection" even "objects become morbid symbols". D.'s choice to devote himself predominantly to sacred subjects is justified by Baldinucci (1728, pp. 341 s.) with the affirmation that the painter wanted to paint "sacred histories, so representative that they could give rise to fruits of Christian piety in those who looked at them..." The image had therefore to sentimentally move the observer and to achieve this purpose the paintings had to be painted by those who had faith and the subjects had to be described in an illusive way. D. expressed in painting his personal religiosity but also the religious ideals of the time, embodying the figure of the "christianus pictor" as it had been outlined by Paleotti (on these problems cfr. above all Heinz, 1960). D., in the bed of this stylistic position assumed with precise religious conscience, refined and decanted progressively his expressive means, renouncing to any dispersion and concentrating more and more the image, often reduced to a half figure even deprived of movement. In this painter of great stylistic coherence the expressive evolution therefore took place in the sense of a self-imposition of increasingly limiting constraints to achieve in the extreme concentration of an illusively surprising image a more convincing exhortation to prayer. The religious fervor that accompanies the artistic creation is perceptible also in the writings often affixed by D. on the back of the paintings: are the memory of the day in which the work was begun with the name of the venerated saint and brief religious invocations (cfr. for example Gregori, 1986, p. 440). All this naturally makes D. very different from contemporary painters and his production is very far from the movement and spatial dilation of contemporary Baroque painting. The extreme fineness of his works has sometimes been related to the "diligence" of Dutch painting, in particular by Franz van Mieris (Del Bravo, 1963, p. 37). The predilection for certain colors, and in particular for the dark blue backgrounds, which create an indefinable chronological nature of the moment in which the action takes place, derive instead from the most recent Florentine tradition. The simplification of the image and at the same time the religious fervor that emanates from it have made D.'s works models that are continuously taken up and imitated until recent times so that the phenomenon of copies and re-elaborations has been impressive, as shown above all by the very famous image of the Madonna del dito. The production of copies began while the painter was still alive by his pupils, among whom the same daughter Agnes, but the autograph corpus of the painter is always characterized by a high qualitative level (for a wide-catalogue of the activity of D. cfr. Cantelli, 1983). www.palazzodelbuonsignore.com https://www.romagnavirtualtour.it/virtual-tour-palazzo-del-buon-signore/