GAETANO GANDOLFI (ITALIAN 1734-1802)
STUDY OF A GIRL'S HEAD
Estimate: £10,000 - £15,000
Auction: Day 1 - Wed 14th May from 10am | Lots 1 to 313
Description
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
34cm x 27cm (13.5in x 10.5in)
Footnote
We are grateful to Professor Donatella Biagi Maino for confirming the attribution of this lot made on the basis of a photograph. Professor Biagi Maino has kindly written about the work, the below is translated from her original Italian.
Once believed to be the work of Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin 1 , one of the greatest French painters of the Enlightenment, this exquisite painting is certainly the work of the great Bolognese artist Gaetano Gandolfi, one of the protagonists of the international painting scene of the second half of the XVIII century, and one of the major exponents - for his sensitivity and culture - of the representation of human appearance and psychology.
The fact that this was originally believed to be the work of the great French painter is testament to its great quality, such as not to allow it to be attributed to anyone but a recognized master, a painter of great relevance for the history of eighteenth-century art. In the mid-twentieth century - the date we find next to Chardin's name on a label at the back of the painting - the magnificent art of Gaetano Gandolfi was still obscured by interpretations offered by wary critics, who followed in the mistakes of writings from the previous century, and plunged his shining, cultured painting technique in a limbo of provincialism, as a bad imitation of Tiepolo's model. This despite the opening to a correct interpretation offered by the words of Roberto Longhi in 19352. Hence the erroneous attribution that is corrected here.
It was only through the writings of Carlo Volpe for the 1979 exhibition3 and, above all, through this very writer's own work4, that the artist regained the role that he is entitled to on the vast scene of European art - not in the background, but right at centre stage.
This is an opinion that had already been expressed, almost unwillingly, by Luigi Lanzi in 1809 - in the neoclassic era, an age of full-blown rhetoric and no poets - who wrote that Gaetano "was in his day one of the most appreciated artists Italy had"5 . He was bearing witness to the fame and international regard that his art - the result of a lively natural talent, cultivated through years of study and continuous development, born of his passion for art and modesty, typical of a pure intellectual - had deserved, from his early attempts in the 1760s and all the way to the end of his life at the very beginning of the 19th century.
Gaetano had trained in Bologna, in the welcoming halls of the Accademia Clementina di Pittura, Scultura e Architettura of the prestigious Istituto delle Scienze, one of the best institutions in Europe, during the years that followed their restoration under Pope Benedict XIV, the Bolognese pope6. Following teachings based on the study of and admiration for the great local school - especially Niccolò dell'Abate and the Carracci and their school, which in mid-XVIII century were inspiration for the whole of Europe - the artist had approached the elegance and precious style of the Maniera of the second half of the 1500s, and especially the vision of truth and naturalism of the great masters of the previous century.
Because of the excellence of his drawing technique, he was sent to Venice by a provident patron, so that he may master the secrets of light and color of the local painting school. This allowed him to quickly become a master himself, as recognized by his contemporaries: an Englishman passing through Bologna commissioned him a series of beautiful paintings, some of them today adorning Dublin Castle7. As an illustrious scientist wanted to create a themed iconoteca, a collection of portraits of writers in re naturalia from the antiquity to Linneo8, Gaetano produced a series of masterpieces, as we can call them because of how effectively he reproduced the likeness of those portrayed, and how inventively he designed frames with natural objects, monsters and mythological figures. The quality of their composition and illusionistic style forced Lanzi himself, not an admirer of his style, as we said, to praise our artist.
Having returned from Venice, Gaetano took on the challenges of life drawing by painting himself and his wife Giovanna Spisani in two wonderful small canvases dated 17639, today at the Collezioni Comunali d'Arte di Bologna, followed shortly by the portrait of his son Mauro, all excellent testimonies of his skill. The opportunity he had to paint the aforementioned collection for botanist Ferdinando Bassi, from the Istituto delle Scienze, producing the effigies of scientific celebrities, their features inspired by portraits of French, English, and German schools and resulting in astounding portraits of the most diverse figures, contributed to his knowledge of the rest of Europe, and tested his attitude - both rare and precious - of giving life and veracity to the most diverse lineaments.
Indeed, shortly after his return from his Venetian sojourn, which is dated 1760, around 1768 Gandolfi put himself to the test, taking on the challenge of depicting in bella pittura the realities of human life - for example, in the portrait of a shop boy whose visage is shrouded in subtle melancholy10. We know from the memoirs of his son Mauro, who followed in his footsteps as painter and engraver, that his father used to sit by the hearth in the evening and to draw him and his siblings with lapis piombino, sanguine, and watercolour, in sketches of an almost moving tenderness and sensational charm.
The affectionate adherence to the truth that dominates his art, whether this is manifested in altarpieces of severe magnificence or in mythological fables of shining vivacity, is expressed in the highest degree in those numerous and extraordinary live studies, which he produced for his admirers as well as his own personal pleasure.
Indeed, as a true, passionate artist and a child of his time, deeply touched by that philosophy of the Enlightenment which placed man and his knowledge at the centre of everything - "The Enlightenment as a new humanism and a laboratory of modernity"11 - he devoted much of his research to defining nature in images. This he did in the many studies produced in the Accademia's scuola del nudo, but especially in his studi di carattere and arie di testa, as those small paintings that portrayed strangers, family members, friends, or people who had been chosen for the peculiarity of their features or their expression, were called, thus leaving to the posterity a sign of his attitude towards the comprehension of the truth of life.
Many are the live studies that he painted in what seems almost like a competition with his brother Ubaldo, he himself a great painter, excellent in portraying the psychology and the sensibility of his fellow humans. These are all works of extreme quality, testament to the deep sensitivity of the two Gandolfi and their ability to shroud with poetry the expressions of their subjects, which allowed them to stand out on the vast scene of European art.
In fact, although many other artists painted similar arie di testa, which were rather fashionable among the ruling classes - I am thinking of the impressive collection of such telette painted by Pietro Antonio Rotari for Russian patrons, for empress Elisabetta and then Caterina II, coquettish young women of gentle beauty, yet affected and rather predictable; or the many teste di carattere by the great Greuze, of splendid craftsmanship yet, precisely, characterised by a show of bravura, with an inclination towards mannerism and sentimentality that is far from the attention to truth typical of the works of Gaetano - Gandolfi avoided any expedients aimed at fooling those who may buy his works, and chose instead to address an audience of connoisseurs and fine collectors, leaving to us the image of a true, honest poet, through his interpretation of the reality of life.
Therefore, it is not by accident that this intense image of a young girl was attributed to Chardin, and to restore it to its real author is a matter of certainty because of the peculiarity of the style, so intensely material, caressed in the way the shapes are painted, the soft lineaments of the young girl possessing a sweet, rapt expression, with a sort of fichu that, closed by a ribbon, holds her hair, though not completely. The perfect definition of her little cheeks, just flushed, and her lips with a hint of shadow from the curvature of her little nose: everything about this young girl leads us to believe that she was much loved by the artist.
The contrast between the white of the shirt and the earthiness of the robe also produces a stunning effect, and the colours will gain light and balance as soon as a careful restoration will have removed the oxidized paint that somewhat dulls the image. Not so much, however, as to prevent us to appreciate the superb quality of this painting.
Footnotes
1 In March 1955 the painting was presumably at Appleby Bros, 27 William IV Street, Trafalgar Square, as certified by the typewritten tag on the old frame, which reads
2 R. Longhi, Gaetano Gandolfi, in R. Longhi and G. Zucchini (Eds.), Mostra del Settecento bolognese, Bologna 1935.
3 C. Volpe, I Gandolfi, in L’arte del Settecento emiliano. La pittura. L’Accademia Clementina, catalogue of the exhibition, Bologna 1979.
4 Of my own works on the artist I will only mention the essential: D. Biagi Maino, Gaetano Gandolfi, Torino 1995; Id., Gaetano e Ubaldo Gandolfi. Opere scelte, Torino 2002, catalogue of the exhibition; Id., Talento di famiglia. La pittura di Ubaldo, Gaetano e Mauro Gandolfi, in Da Bononia a Bologna. Percorsi nell’arte bolognese: 189 a.C. – 2011, Torino 2012.
5 L. Lanzi, Storia Pittorica dell’Italia dal Risorgimento delle Belle Arti fin presso la fine del XVIII secolo, V, Remondini, Bassano 12809 (the edition I refer to is the one edited by M. Capucci, vol. III, Firenze 1974, p. 140).
6 D. Biagi Maino, Benedetto XIV e la Repubblica delle Arti del Disegno. L’accademia Clementina e l’Europa, in Benedetto XIV e Bologna. Arti e scienze nell’età dei lumi, catalogue of the exhibition, Bologna 2025.
7 Id., Gaetano e Ubaldo Gandolfi, cit, fig. 8, 9, 10, pp. 84-85, captions curated by J. Moore.
8 This was called Pinacotheca Bassiana by its creator. See D. Biagi Maino, Gaetano Gandolfi. I volti della scienza nella Pinacotheca Bassiana di Bologna, Parma 2016.
9 See the catalogue of the 2002 exhibition, fig. 1, 2 captions p. 81.
10 D. Biagi Maino, Gaetano Gandolfi, cit., fig. LX, caption on p. 354.
11 V. Ferrone, Il mondo dell’Illuminismo. Storia di una rivoluzione culturale, Torino 2019.