Lot 94: Aureliano Milani (Bologna 1675-1749)

The Combat of Aeneas and Turnus signed and dated 'AURELIANO MILANI. MDCCVIII' (centre right on the pediment of the temple) oil on canvas 671/2 x 521/2 in. (171.5 x 133.3 cm.) PROVENANCE Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., Norfolk, Virginia; Sotheby's, London, 12 December 1973, lot 57 (œ2,500 to Villiers Gallery). with the Villiers Gallery, London, from whom acquired by the present owner in 1974. LITERATURE R. Roli, Pittura Bolognese 1650-1800 dal Cignani ai Gandolfi, Bologna, 1977, p. 277. G. Sestieri, Repertorio della Pittura Romana della fine del Seicento e del Settecento, Rome, 1993, I, p. 129, II, pl. 765. EXHIBITION New York, Finch College Museum of Art, Baroque Painters of Bologna and neighbouring Cities, 1962, no. 38. Norfolk, Virginia, Museum of Arts and Sciences, Italian Paintings from the Collection of Walter P. Chrysler, 1967-8, no. 58. Chicago, Art Institute; Minneapolis, Institute of Art; Toledo, Museum of Art, Painting in Italy in the 18th Century: Rococo to Romanticism, 1970-1971, catalogue by J. Moxon and J.J. Rishel, no. 56. NOTES Milani trained in Bologna in the studios of Lorenzo Pasinelli and Cesare Gennari. However, as a young artist he was influenced most profoundly not by the studios in which he worked, but by the exhaustive studies he made of the Carracci fresco cycles in the Palazzo Fava and the Palazzo Magnani in Bologna. His work there not only provided the inspiration for the present canvas but also served as the basis for the creation of his whole artistic identity. Milani's revival of the style of the Carracci of over a century earlier makes him one of the most distinctive Bolognese painters of his generation. Milani enjoyed a successful career in his native city. He is known to have executed religious commissions such as the fresco of The Annunciation for the Servite convent in 1705 and there exist, in addition to the present picture, other secular works for private patrons such as the four stories of Samson now in the collection of the Banca Popolare in Modena. The prominence given in these works to the male figure shown in striking athletic poses is clearly reminiscent of the present canvas. Here, the costume and vigorous poses recall the figure style employed by the Carracci in the Palazzo Fava where Milani had been granted free access (and financial assistance) by Count Alessandro Fava. As pointed out by J. Moxon and J.J. Rischel, loc. cit., a more direct source for the the two counterpoised protagonists can be traced to two analogous figures in the Death of Amulius from the somewhat later fresco cycle by the Carracci in the Palazzo Magnani. In 1718 Milani moved to Rome where he was to remain for the rest of his life, painting a number of altarpieces and executing frescoes in the Palazzo Pamphilij, begun in 1732. The subject of the picture derives from Virgil's Aeneid. When Aeneas finally arrived in Latium, by the Tiber, he found the land ruled by King Latinus, whose daughter, Lavinia, was betrothed to Turnus, the nearby ruler of the Rutuli. Latinus, however, had learned from an oracle that his daughter was fated to marry a foreigner and to become mother of a race that would make the world its Empire; he therefore agreed to an alliance with the Trojans, promising Aeneas her hand in marriage. However Juno, Aeneas' implacable enemy, turned both Latins and Rutuli against Aeneas; in the resulting war, Aeneas proposed a single combat between himself and Turnus to settle the fighting and, although Turnus initially refused, in the end the two confronted each other. Aeneas won the fight, and Turnus declared defeat, pledging Lavinia to his rival. Aeneas thus established the Trojans in Latium, naming their settlement Lavinium after his bride. Through his son, Ascanius, he became the legendary ancestral founder of the Roman race, and the forebear of the Julian line that founded Caesar and Augustus.