Lot 45: - Francesco Lupicini , Florence 1588 or 1591 - after 1652 Susanna and the Elders oil on canvas

oil on canvas

measurements note 166 by 220.5 cm.; 65 3/8 by 86 3/4 in.

Anonymous sale, Zurich, Galerie Koller, 26 March, 2004, lot 3048, where acquired by the present owner.

PROPERTY FROM THE LONDON RESIDENCE OF LUIGI KOELLIKER
There are surprisingly few concrete records of the artist Francesco Lupicini and his work, and yet what few details there are seem somewhat confused. The confusion begins at his birth, there being two births of a Francesco Lupicini recorded in Florence within three years of each other, one in 1588 the other in 1591. Furthermore, most of his paintings have at some point or another been wrongly attributed to a different member of his family; the Caduta della Manna in the church of Carmine di Pistoia, for example, was mistakenly attributed to Giovambattista (his brother and also a painter). Francesco's father, also Francesco, was an engineer (to Francesco I de Medici), his brother Giovambattista, as mentioned above, a painter and another brother, Bacio, a sculptor. While there is almost no mention of Francesco in contemporary records in Italy, references to his brother Giovambattista are common and much of Francesco's work has lived wrongly under an attribution to him until relatively recently.

One of the few references to Francesco, however, is from a Spanish source which mentions a 'Francesco Lupicino pintor'υ1 in Zaragoza and which claims that he died there in 1652. This 'Francesco Lupicino' was commissioned for an altarpiece for the convent of San Miguel de Los Navarros in Zaragozaυ2 and another commission, which is still in situ, was for a series of canvases depicting the story of the True Cross in the chapel of St. Helena in the cathedral of La Seo. He appears to have arrived in Spain soon after 1632, the final reference to him in Florence being from that year as a member of the Accademia, with whom he reportedly had a turbulent relationship. His character is described in a letter of 1629 from Andrea Commodi:

Lupicino ha buon animo ma cattiva borsa per i molti intrighi che si ritrova havere.

We are grateful to Dott'ssa. Francesca Baldassari for endorsing the attribution to Francesco Lupicini following first hand inspection of the original. Dott'ssa Baldassari has compared the execution of this painting with that of his best known work, Martha and Mary rebuking Mary Magdalene, in Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.υ3

1. See A. Pérez-Sánchez, Pintura italiana del s. XVII en España, Madrid 1965, p. 40.
2. See M. Abizanda, Documentos para la historia artistica y literaria de Aragon, vol. III, Zaragoza 1932, p. 259.
3. See Die Gemäldegalerie des Kunsthistorischen Museums in Wien, Vienna 1991, plate 201.