Lot 90: Polidoro Caldara, called Polidoro da Caravaggio (Caravaggio c. 1500-1535 Messina)

The Adoration of the Shepherds oil on panel, arched top 613/4 x 34 1/8 in. (156.8 x 86.7 cm.) PROVENANCE A religious institution, Dublin. NOTES Hitherto unknown, the present work is a notable addition to the much-lauded late paintings of Polidoro, produced in Messina where he lived from 1528 until his death. Polidoro is first recorded in the second decade of the sixteenth century in Rome where he began his career in the workshop of Raphael, assisting in his frescoes for the Vatican Loggia. After Raphael's death, he painted decorations in the Sala di Costantio under the supervision of Giulio Romano and by the early 1520s he was receiving commissions, particularly for frescoes, as an independent artist. The sack of Rome in 1527 precipitated Polidoro's flight to Southern Italy, first to Naples and then on to Messina where he had arrived by 1528. Pierluigi Leone de Castris dates the present picture to Polidoro's final years in Messina, circa 1540, by which time his seemingly modern, idiosyncratic style had fully evolved. As Castris states, this last manner of Polidoro is characterised by 'la veemenza, l'approssimazione, il rifuto del bello, la drammatica' e la forza di pura suggestione ottenuta col segno o con la macchia di colore' ( Polidoro da Caravaggio, Naples, 2001, p. 446). In the late 1530s Polidoro began to employ the monochromatic, spontaneous technique that had previously been confined to his small works and sketches, in his large-scale finished compositions. This is testified by other panels from the same period such as the Crucifixion in a private collection, Naples, two panels showing Saint Christopher and David and Goliath at Christ Church, Oxford, and the huge Immaculate Conception in the Museo Regionale, Messina. The similarities are not only technical. The faces of the shepherds in the present panel relate closely to the face of Saint Christopher at Oxford, and to one of the thieves in the Crucifixion. The depiction of the Virgin, shown raising a veil over the Christ Child, connects the picture to the larger Adoration of the Shepherds in the Museo Regionale, Messina, painted in 1535/6, in which the downward looking face of the Virgin is strikingly similar. As further pointed out by Castris, the Michelangeloesque arrangement of the figures, the muscular arms and the open hands are prominent features that recur in all these paintings. Given the relatively large number of his pictures that survive, Polidoro evidently found a market in Sicily that appreciated his personal bozzetto -like artistic approach. The circumstances surrounding the commission of the present picture are uncertain. The size of the panel indicates that it was painted for a chapel or a church rather than for private devotion. The inventories and sources in Messina in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries record at least seven or eight Nativities by Polidoro, most of which are described as small format and with many figures and angels. Castris has suggested that the present panel may be identifiable as either the picture recorded in the chapel of Canonico Sardo (F. Susinno, Le vite de' pittori messinesi, 1724), said to be only 100 cm. high, or one of the Nativities in the Capuchin church in Messina, and in the collection of the Duke of Cesar•, neither of which are described in any detail (see F. Hackert and G. Grano, Memorie dei Pittore Messinesi, Napoli, 1792). It might have been possible to establish this with certainty from the coat-of-arms in the lower left of the present picture but it appears, without cleaning at least, to be indecipherable. Other pictures by Polidoro, for example the Tranfiguration in the Courtauld Institute, similarly include a heraldic device in the lower part of the picture. Typical for Polidoro's late paintings is the unusual structure of the present panel which is comprised of two large vertical poplar planks with additions at top and bottom. As Castris argues, it is likely that Polidoro was using the doors of cupboards or shutters to make up his panels in this way, as is the case in his Deposition in the Galleria Regionale, Palermo. This notion is supported here by what appear to be marks from metal hinges on the left side of the panel. We are grateful to Pierluigi Leone de Castris for confirming the attribution and for his help in cataloguing this lot.