Lot 15: Giovanni Antonio Sogliani (Florence 1492-1544)

The Annunciation with Saints Zenobius and Francis of Assisi, above a trompe l'oeil predella panel with roundels depicting Saint Jerome, the Risen Christ and Tobias and the Angel
oil on panel
29 x 22 7/8 in. (73.7 x 58.1 cm.)

Souvenirs Galerie Pourtalès, Tableaux, Antiques et Objects d'Art, Photographiés par Goupil & Cie, Paris, 1863, pl. 9, as Fra Bartolommeo.
E. Galichon, 'La Galerie Pourtalès, Les Tableaux Italiens', Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 18, 1865, p. 8.
A. Venturi, Storia dell'Arte Italiana, Milan, 1925-34, IX, I, pp. 376-7, fig. 273, as Albertinelli.
B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Florentine School, London, 1963, I, p. 2, as Albertinelli.
C. van Holst, 'Florentiner Gemälde und Zeichnungen aus der Zeit von 1480 bis 1580', Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, XV, 1971, I, p. 29, fig. 32, as Sogliani.

James-Alexandre, Comte de Pourtalès-Gorgier (1776-1855), Hôtel Pourtalès, 7 rue Tronchet, Paris; (+) sale on the premises, 31 March (= 5th day), 1865, lot 54, as Fra Bartolommeo.
Anonymous sale; Galerie Charpentier, Paris, 6 December 1952, lot 10, as Ecole de Fra Bartolommeo.

The attribution of this picture to Sogliano has been confirmed by Everett Fahy, on the basis of photographs, who regards it as a characteristic work (private correspondence, 2 January 2004).

Giovanni Antonio Sogliani studied with Lorenzo di Credi, and afterwards remained close to his master, an association that Vasari says lasted twenty-four years until Lorenzo's death in 1531. During that time Sogliani received a number of important commissions for devotional works for the churches and religious communities of Florence. He also executed major work in Pisa Cathedral and Anghiari, but he never travelled far from his native Florence. His other major influences came from Fra Bartolommeo and Albertinelli, and his work has sometimes been confused with that of these masters, and their workshops.

Indeed, the present picture has been variously attributed first to Fra Bartolommeo, when it was in the prestigious collection of the Comte de Pourtalès-Gorgier in the ninteenth century, and later to Albertinelli. The placement of the Archangel and the Madonna in front of a central doorway is reminiscent of the latter's Annunciation in Volterra Cathedral, and the Annunciation on a predella in the Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, while Sogliani's arrangement of arch and columns is similar to that in Albertinelli's Annunciation with Saints Sebastian and Lucy in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich, in which the central figures are also flanked by two Saints.

James-Alexandre, Comte de Pourtalès-Gorgier (1776-1855) was one of the most notable collectors of his generation. He was the son of a French Huguenot, who had emigrated to Switzerland, where he soon amassed a considerable fortune through commerce. James-Alexandre was able to return to Paris, where he spent his vast inheritance building up an art collection that was famed for its diversity and high quality. It was housed initially in a mansion in the Place Vendôme, and subsequently in the hôtel designed for him by Félix-Jacques Duban in the Renaissance style at 7 rue Tronchet where it still stands today.

His collection encompassed antiquities, sculpture, ivories, Medieval and Renaissance enamels, glass, engraved gems, Chinese bronzes and Japanese lacquer, as well as pictures. Among those of the Italian Schools were two Bronzinos - one of which, Portrait of a Man, was at the time attributed to Sebastiano del Piombo (now in the Musée du Louvre, Paris), and the other was a Portrait of Lodovico Capponi (now in the Frick Collection, New York) - Antonello da Messina's Portrait of a Condottiere (Musée du Louvre, Paris), as well as works by Bellini, Titian, Palma il Vecchio, Veronese and Domenichino, and drawings by the Carracci. Following his death, the whole collection was sold in a series of auctions in Paris between 6 February and 4 April 1865.

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