Lot 534: GIOVANNI BATTISTA CASTELLO, CALLED IL BERGAMASCO

GIOVANNI BATTISTA CASTELLO, CALLED IL BERGAMASCO CREMA CIRCA 1526 - 1569 MADRID THE MARTYRDOM OF ST. SEBASTIAN 387 by 250 mm; 15 1/4 by 9 7/8 in

Lauro Magnani, Luca Cambiaso da Genova all' Escorial, Genoa 1995, pp. 187-88, reproduced fig. 205 and pp. 207-8, note 2

Sale, Florence, Sotheby's, 18 October 1969, lot D86 (as Luca Cambiaso), reproduced

This is the preparatory study for Castello's large altarpiece, commissioned in 1561 by Taddeo Spinola for the church of S. Sebastiano, Genoa. The work, in situ by 1562, was executed on canvas, which may have influenced Cambiaso who, as Magnani points out (op. cit.), was still working on panel. The present study can be closely compared with Cambiaso's drawing of the same subject and of about the same date, formerly in the Suida Manning collection and now in the Blanton Museum of Art, Texas.υ1 Castello's altarpiece, almost five meters high, is now in the convent of the Monache Agostiniane di Santa Chiara e San Sebastiano, Genoa.

1. See J. Bober, I grandi disegni italiani del Blanton Museum of Art dell'Università del Texas, Milan 2001, no. 11, reproduced