Lot 95: f - LORENZO GARBIERI BOLOGNA 1580 - 1654

THE VISION OF ST. FRANCIS

measurements note
85.8 by 71.2 cm.; 33 3/4 by 28 in.

oil on canvas

PROVENANCE

Possibly Palazzo Balbi, Genoa;
Sale, London, Christie's, 25 May 1811, lot 77 (as 'An. Carracci... with his mark A.C.F.'), where unsold;
Sale, London, Christie's, 4 March 1837, lot 82 (as 'A. Carracci', the picture still marked 'A.C.F.'), for 63 gns. to Jackson;
William Young Ottley;
Thence by descent until sold by Warner Ottley, London, Christie's, 30 June 1961, lot 12 (as Lodovico Carraci), for £450 to Colnaghi;
With Thomas Agnew and Sons, London (according to a label on the reverse);
Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 9 December 1989, lot 21, for £17,000.

LITERATURE

G. Feigenbaum, Ludovico Carracci. A Critical Study of his later career and a catalogue of his paintings, Princeton 1984, p. 452, no. 143 (as Attributed to Ludovico Carracci);
A. Brogi, Ludovico Carracci, vol. I, Bologna 2001, p. 276, cat. no. R59, reproduced vol. II, fig. 298 (as Lorenzo Garbieri).

NOTE

It was not until Alessandro Brogi visited the Paris gallery where the present work was hanging in November 1992 that the present attribution was first proposed. Brogi (under Literature) notes "la tipologia sinistra del santo, quelle degli angeli, la definizione angolosa e annodata delle pieghe e soprattutto la resa pittorica semplificata e grossa, nelle nubi o nel terreno in primo piano, nonché la gamma cromatica giocata su timbri lividi e fortemente contrastati". He suggests, furthermore, that a comparison with Garbieri's canvases in the church of the Mendicants in Bologna or those at San Maurizio in Mantua, confirm the attribution. Previously the present work had been attributed to Annibale and then to Ludovico Carracci, Gail Feigenbaum finding it typical of the last decade of Ludovico's life (see G. Feigenbaum, under Literature).

The Palazzo Balbi provenance first appeared in the 1811 sale catalogue cited below.