Lot 112: The Holy Family with Saint Anthony Abbot and angels

Guglielmo Caccia, il Moncalvo (?Montabone, Asti 1568-1625 Moncalvo)
The Holy Family with Saint Anthony Abbot and angels
oil on canvas
93 x 63¼ in. (236.3 x 160.7 cm.), including a later addition of 2¾ (7 cm.) to the upper edge

J. Falke, Katalog der Fürstlich Liechtensteinischen Bilder-Galerie im Gartenpalais der Rossau zu Wien, Vienna, 1873, p. 56, no. 470, as by Perino del Vaga.
J. Falke, Katalog der fürstlich Liechtensteinischen Bilder-Galerie im Gartenpalais der Rossau zu Wien, Vienna, 1885, p. 35, no. 244, as by Perino del Vaga.
G. Frizzoni, 'Einige kritische Bemerkungen über italienische Gemälde in der Fürstlich Liechtensteinischen Galerie', Jahrbuch des Kunsthistorischen Institutes der k.k. Zentral-Kommission für Denkmalpflege, VI, 1912, p. 84, illustrated, plate 17.

The Princely House of Liechtenstein, in the Garden Palace at Rossau by 1873 (where recorded by Falke in 1873 and 1885, loc. cit.); moved to Schloss Vaduz, Liechtenstein, in 1982, until the present.

Moncalvo, the most sensitive Piedmontese painter of his generation and a notably delicate draftsman, was strongly influenced by the Renaissance masters of the area, most obviously Gaudenzio Ferrari. The type of the Madonna in this canvas goes back, ultimately, to the Lombard followers of Leonardo; and the setting against strata of rocks also reflects Leonardesque models. The putto on the right is virtually identical with one in the Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (Turin, Galleria Sabauda): both putti may derive from one in a study of two putti in the Biblioteca Reale, Turin, from which the harp is omitted.