Lot 111: GIOVANNI BAGLIONE

GIOVANNI BAGLIONE ROME CIRCA 1566 - 1643 (?) SAINT PAUL AND SAINT STEPHEN CROWNED BY ANGELS Pen and brown ink and brown and grey wash; bears inscription in pencil ( verso ): album sur bleu / dans le sens de la longeur / 8 Noir / Le Nat... 246 by 184 mm

Possibly Maurice Delacre (bears pencil inscription, verso: Col. Delacre);
Herr Kisters, Bernrain, by whom given as a present to
P Johannes, 12 July 1959 (according to inscription on back of mount)

This is a finished study, with differences, for Baglione's painting on copper, executed circa 1604 for Cardinal Sfondrato, sold on the Cardinal's death in 1618 to Cardinal Desiderio Scaglia, and now in the Musée Magnin, Dijon (fig.1). In the early years of the 17th century Baglione made a number of pictures for Cardinal Sfondrato, who was one of his first important patrons. He had commissioned Baglione to work for his titular church, Santa Cecilia in Trastevere in 1599. It seems that no other studies for this composition have survived. Baglione made several changes to the upper part of the composition leaving only two angels in the final painted version, allowing the viewer to focus on the figures of the two Saints in the foreground.