Lot 228: The Lamentation

Ventura Salimbeni (Siena 1568-163)
The Lamentation
oil on panel
12¾ x 9¾ in. (32.4 x 24.8 cm.)

A. Jameson, Companion to the Most Celebrated Private Galleries of Art in London, London, 1844, p. 244, no. 10, as Baroccio.
A. Young, Catalogue of the Pictures at Grosvenor House, London, 1821, p. 17, no. 57, pl. 17, as Baroccio.

Purchased 'on the Continent, about 1760' by Sir Charles Whitworth (according to Jameson), from whom acquired by
Welbore Ellis Agar (1735-1805), Commissioner of Customs, by whom bequeathed as part of his collection to his two illegitimate sons,
Welbore Felix and Emmanuel Felix Agar, from whom purchased en bloc, in 1806 by
Robert, 2nd Earl of Grosvenor and subsequently 1st Marquess of Westminster, K.G., P.C. (1767-1845), and by descent in the Westminster collection at Grosvenor House, London and Eaton Hall, Cheshire.

PROPERTY OF THE DUKE OF WESTMINSTER

The present work was formerly owned by Welbore Ellis Agar (1735-1805), the younger brother of the 1st Viscount Clifden and the elder brother of the the 1st Earl of Normanton. Agar assembled a prodigious collection of Old Masters, largely acquired abroad, for the most part under the aegis of Gavin Hamilton. Among the highlights of the collection, which numbered around 130 pictures, were Raphael's Madonna of the Veil (New Jersey, University Art Museum, Princeton); three pictures by Claude Lorrain, Landscape with Hagar and the Angel (the collection of Oskar Reinhart, Winterthur), and a pair of landscapes Evening and Morning (the collection of the Duke of Westminster); Poussin's Achilles among the Daughters of Lycomedes (Boston Museum of Fine Arts); and Van Dyck's Virgin and Child with St. Catherine of Alexandria (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). On his death, having no direct heir, he bequeathed the collection to his two illegitimate sons Emmanuel Felix and Welbore Felix, who decided to put the collection up for sale at Christie's. The auction was scheduled for 2nd-3rd May 1806, but before even the English copies of the catalogue were printed, the brothers were approached by Lord Grosvenor with a view to an en bloc purchase. An initial price of 40,000 was suggested but was negotiated down to the final figure of 30,000 guineas, which was agreed by mid-April, marking one of the largest single purchases of a picture collection transacted in this period.

The 2nd Earl Grosvenor, who in 1831 was created 1st Marquess of Westminster, was heir to a substantial property in Cheshire and to the Grosvenor Estate in London. He had already inherited his father's picture collection, which included the forty-two Old Masters purchased for him in Italy between 1758-9 by Richard Dalton, the librarian to the Prince of Wales, as well as commissions from the likes of Stubbs, West, Gainsborough and Hogarth, when in 1805 he acquired a new town house in London on Upper Grosvenor Street. This proved the catalyst for an extraordinary campaign of acquisition of works of art, the most conspicuous being the Ellis Agar collection. Much time and effort was put into devising the decorative schemes for the new Grosvenor House, which would provide a suitable setting for Lord Grosvenor's rapidly expanding collection. The walls were covered in red damask that had been salvaged from the old Eaton Hall, and the redecoration was finally completed by 1808.

Traditionally given to Federico Barocci, the attribution of this panel to Ventura Salimbeni was first proposed by Aidan Weston-Lewis and confirmed by John Marciari, to whom we are grateful. They have noted the existence of a close version in the collection of the Monte dei Paschi in Siena (inv. no. 381489). That version, of lesser quality, measures 34 x 25.5 cm, and is dated to circa 1600. Often confused with his half-brother, Francesco Vanni, Salimbeni was taught by his father, Arcangelo Salimbeni. He worked in Rome from 1588 until 1595 when he returned to Siena, where he was greatly influenced by Barocci and the mannerism of Domenico Beccafumi. He became one of the key artistic figures in Sienese art, most notably painting the decoration of the oratory of the Santa Trinita. It is, however, in Salimbeni's more intimate works, such as the present Lamentation, that the artist is at his most powerful. Here the artist condenses the drama of the seven figures - each mourning in their own individualized way, around the body of Christ - into a coherent and perfectly balanced composition.