Lot 309: CESARE DANDINI

AN ALLEGORY OF FAME AND MUSIC
inscribed: PER ORA VIRVM

39 1/4 by 69 1/2 in.; 100 by 177 cm.

octagonal, oil on canvas

S. Bellesi, Vincenzo Dandini e la pittura a Firenze alla metà del Seicento, Pisa 2003, p. 16, reproduced in color fig. 3;
S. Bellesi, Cesare Dandini, Addenda al catalogo dei dipinti, Florence 2007, pp. 19-20, footnote 45, reproduced in color fig. 16;
S. Bellesi, Catalogo dei Pittori Fiorentini del '600 e '700: Biografie e Opere, Florence 2009, vol. I, p. 122;
F. Baldassari, La Pittura del Seicento a Firenze: Indice Degli Artisti e Delle Loro Opere, Torino 2009, p. 255;
G. Cantelli, Repertorio della Pittura Fiorentina del Seicento: Aggiornamento, Pontedera 2009, p. 70.

With Galerie Canesso, Paris;
Acquired from the above by the present collector.

Unknown to Bellesi at the time of his monograph (1996), this painting was published for the first time by the author in his monograph on Cesare's younger brother Vincenzo (2003) and was subsequently included in his more recent Addenda to Cesare's oeuvre (2007). Bellesi believes the painting to date from the mid-1630s, when the artist was at the height of his artistic powers.

The painting is to be read as an Allegory of Fame and Music. The winged figure is shown with a star surmounting her forehead and in one hand she holds a viola da braccio and in the other a trumpet, around which winds a cartiglio reading 'PER ORA VIRUM'. Her symbols associate her with the muses of music and dance, Clio and Terpsichore, and the painting's emblematic meaning may be read as an exultation of music, whose fame could not be reached without the genius of man. The subject and iconography recur in another painting by Cesare Dandini, in which the winged figure also holds a trumpet and a cartiglio with the same inscription, belonging to Giovanni Pratesi in Florence. (1) That painting has been dated by Bellesi to the end of the 1630s or early '40s, and it therefore post-dates the present canvas. Their iconography is very similar, though their format is different: there too a winged female figure, dressed in a similar manner, holds an identical trumpet and cartiglio with the same inscription. She is attended to by a putto, a figure omitted in the present painting, perhaps because of its octagonal shape which would have made such an inclusion awkward. The viola da braccio that she rests on her knee in the latter painting lends the image a greater degree of elegance and Dandini displays his extraordinary skill in painting still-life objects.

The painting boasts a highly charged palette of vibrant colors -- a characteristic of the artist's works throughout his career -- and the bright blue sky against which the figure is set is truly magnificent. Whilst constructing his composition around broad blocks of color, Dandini also introduces exquisite details to lend the figure a regal air. The delicate gold highlights on the sumptuous blue cloth draped around her shoulders as well as the ruby and the string of pearls adorning her head denote that she is not an ordinary woman but a celestial being (as does the star hovering above her head). Her sensuality owes much to Francesco Furini who, along with Carlo Dolci and Cesare Dandini himself, were undoubtedly the most sought after artists in Florence in the fourth decade of the 17th century. This type of allegorical portrait, not just intellectually stimulating but also visually appealing, is precisely the kind of picture for which Dandini became famous.


1. Oil on canvas, oval, 99 by 72 cm., painted as one of a pair, its pendant showing An Allegory of Justice (see S. Bellesi, Cesare Dandini, Turin 1996, pp. 111-113, cat. no. 56, reproduced on p. 112, fig. 56b, and in color plate XV).