(Viterbo 1590–1625 Rome)
Madonna and Child,
oil on canvas, oval, 105 x 80 cm, framed

Provenance:
with Galleria Petrella, Viterbo 1985;
Private European collection

Literature:G. Zanelli, in: Bartolomeo Cavarozzi. 'Sacre Famiglie' a confronto, ed. by D. Sanguineti, exhibition catalogue, Milan 2005, pp. 60-61, illustrated (as attributed to Bartolomeo Cavarozzi)

We are grateful to Gianni Papi for confirming the attribution after examining the present painting in the original.

This work reveals the refinement of Bartolomeo Cavarozzi’s painterly style; in particular in the handling of flesh tones which are typical of the artist’s compact and highly naturalistic manner which is seen especially in the depiction of Mary’s hair and the Child’s clothes. Cavarozzi was one of Caravaggio’s early followers and the present composition with its grouping of the two figures is marked by a naturalistic pose and intimacy. The Mother and Child look out and engage the viewer, and the painting contains a Caravaggesque monumentality, as well as a refinement which distinguishes Cavarozzi’s œuvre.

Papi dates the present work to the final years of the artist’s career, and the painting can be compared to the Madonna and Child at the Museo del Colle del Duomo, Viterbo, dated to 1621, in particular because of the smooth and more ‘classical’ treatment of the flesh tones (see M. von Bernstorff, Agent und Maler als Akteure im Kunstbetrieb des frühen 17. Jahrhunderts. Giovan Battista Crescenzi und Bartolomeo Cavarozzi, Munich 2010, pp. 49-50, fig. 15). The present composition also relates to other works by Cavarozzi, including the Holy Family formerly in the Zerbone collection and on loan to the Galleria Nazionale di Palazzo Spinola in Genoa (now in a private collection, Turin; see G. Papi, in: Galleria Giamblanco – dipinti antichi: pittura italiana dal Seicento al Settecento, D. and S. Giamblanco (ed.), exibition catalogue, pp. 12-15, illustrated). Another autograph version of the Zerbone picture (Pinacoteca dell’Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti, inv. 107, see M. von Bernstorff, op. cit., p. 53, fig. 17) documents the great success of this composition.

The present painting differs, however, as it is of oval format and Saint Joseph is absent.The Zerbone picture must have already arrived in Genoa by the 1630s. This is evinced by the insertion of Cavarozzi’s image in a painting by Giovanni Carlone (Saint Secondus invoking the protection of the Holy Family for the town of Ventimiglia) in the cathedral of Ventimiglia.

The hypothesis of an important link between Cavarozzi and Genoa was suggested by Papi (see G. Papi, Indagini sulla fase matura di Bartolomeo Cavarozzi, in: Arte Cristiana, 807, 2001, pp. 427-438); however Papi noted how hard it was to establish with any certainty the artist’s residence in the city; if this was the case, it might have been during the years following Cavarozzi’s return from Spain, and thus between 1619 and 1621, when he is not documented as being in Rome.

The repetition of a subject without variation is not rare in the painter’s corpus: for example there are at least three identical versions of the Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine. This might suggest that Cavarozzi produced cartoons of his works in order to be able to later reproduce them again exactly at a later stage.

An autograph Holy Family was sold at Sotheby’s London 4th December 2013 (lot 29) and another example of the success of the former Zerbone Holy Family is the copy conserved in the Musée Baron-Gerard at Bayeux (see P. Curie, Bartolomeo Cavarozzi. Un exemple problématique de diffusion du caravagisme en France et en Espagne, in: P. F. Bertrand (ed.), Nicolas Tournier et la peinture caravagesque en Italie, en France et en Espagne, proceedings of the international conference (7-9 June, 2001), Toulouse 2003, p. 212).