Luca Cambiaso

(Moneglia 1527–1585 El Escorial)
Diana and Callisto,
oil on canvas, 230 x 185.5 cm, unframed

Provenance:
probably Collection of Rudolf II (1552–1612), Holy Roman Emperor, Prague;
art market, Vienna, circa 1900;
Collection of Adolf Lorenz (1854–1946), Austria, circa 1903;
thence by descent to the present owner

Literature:
probably B. Dudik, Die Rudolphinische Kunst- und Raritärenkammer in Prag, in: J. A. Freiherr von Helfert, Mitteilungen der K. K. Central-Commission zur Erforschung und Erhaltung der Baudenkmale, Wien 1867, vol. 12, p. XXXVIII, no. 186 (as Eine ‘Landschaft Callisto mit nakenden Weibern’);
probably H. Zimmermann, Das Inventar der Prager Schatz- und Kunstkammer vom 6. Dezember 1621. Nach Akten des k. und k. Reichsfinazarchivs in Wien, in: Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses, vol. 25, 1905, p. XLV, no. 1196 (as ‘Luca de Genua’);
A. Lorenz, Ich durfte helfen. Mein Leben und Wirken, Vienna 2017, pp. 273–275 (as ‘das schöne alte Bild feirte […] seine Auferstehung. Der Maler des Bildes war völlig unbekannt. Aber ein Zufall brachte seinen Namen ans Licht. Bei einem Besuche einer Gemäldegalerie in Genua fand ich […] eine Sammlung von Bildern des Luca Cambiaso […] Kein Zweifel, mein Bild gehörte in diese Sammlung und stammte von demselben Meister.’)

We are grateful to Anna Orlando for endorsing the attribution after examination of the present painting in the original and for her help in cataloguing this lot. She suggests a date of execution between the early 1570s and 1580s, prior to Luca Cambiaso’s departure to Spain in 1583.

We are grateful to Maurizio Romanengo for independently endorsing the attribution to Luca Cambiaso on the basis of a photograph.

This painting, unseen for over a century, is an important rediscovery and a significant addition to the oeuvre of Luca Cambiaso.

Cambiaso was born in Moneglia, La Spezia, on the Ligurian Riviera di Levante. He is considered the founder of the modern Genoese school of painting, at the beginning of a flourishing artistic period that culminated with Alessandro Magnasco (1667–1749). This golden age of Genoese painting also included artists such as Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, called il Grechetto (1609–1664) and Gioacchino Assereto (1600–1650).

The origin of the present masterpiece: the probability of a Rudolfine provenance

The pictorial quality of the present painting, with no evidence of assistance from aides or workshop collaborators, is remarkable. Its large scale, multi-figure composition, and the fact that it was created during the artist’s mature period, strongly suggests that this work was commissioned for a significant and important patron.

A 1621 inventory of the collection of Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor (1552–1612) records a painting described as ‘Ein Baad mit Callisto vom Luca de Genua’ [‘A bathing scene with Callisto by Luca of Genoa’], listed under no. 1196 in Prague Castle in the Spanische Saal (today the Rudolfina Gallery).

To better understand the context in which the present work was probably displayed, it should be noted that the Spanische Saal housed an impressive collection, almost all of which were mythological in theme and infused with the subtle eroticism that reflected the emperor’s taste. In the same section of the room several works by Italian masters are recorded, including paintings by Titian, Veronese and Tintoretto. Rudolf II is considered to be one of the most refined and enlightened patrons in art history and his collection, now dispersed, was of immense importance.

Other versions of Diana and Callisto by Luca Cambiaso

There are at least two other known paintings of the subject of Diana and Callisto by Luca Cambiaso, including a version in Kassel (Hessen Kassel Heritage, inv. no. GK 948) and another version in the Galleria Sabauda, Turin (inv. no. 365).

The provenance of the Turin version is known, as it was originally in the Spinola Collection in Genoa. Until the present version emerged, the Kassel version, acquired in circa 1749, was considered to be the work from Rudolf’s celebrated collection. However, Anna Orlando argues that the present version is undoubtedly the most beautiful and important of the three versions. She further suggests that there is significant evidence to support the hypothesis that the present painting is the one recorded in the 1621 Rudolfine inventory.

Influence of Cambiaso on Spranger: Splendor and Eroticism in Imperial Prague

Orlando has underlined the importance of the work of Luca Cambiaso on Rudolf II’s Senior Court Painter, Bartholomaeus Spranger (1546–1611).

A generation younger than Cambiaso, Spranger encountered Cambiaso’s work in Prague and undoubtedly regarded him as a ‘master.’ Significantly there were five paintings by Bartholomaeus Spranger on display along with Cambiaso’s Diana and Callisto in the Spanische Saal, all depicting mythological subjects. None of these works have been definitively identified, leaving open the possibility that they were also of large format.

Spranger’s relationship with Cambiaso’s work is fully supported by stylistic comparisons between the two artists’ work, including drawings and engravings. Orlando argues that the present painting must have been in Prague as it appears to be the source of inspiration for compositions by Spranger produced in Prague in the early 1580s, including a drawing of Diana and Actaeon now in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. no. 1997.93) and a drawing of Diana in the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich (inv. no. 1978:38). As well as an engraving after a lost work by Spranger also in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. no. 49.95.2283).

It should also be noted that works by Cambiaso and Spranger hung side by side between the galleries in Prague Castle, as documented in the aforementioned 1621 inventory. Under no. 1009 a painting by Luca Cambiaso is listed, showing the Judgement of Paris. No. 1010 records a Perseus with the Head of Medusa by Spranger. Orlando argues that the work by Spranger may have been painted as a companion piece to the already existent work by Cambiaso. Whether or not this is the case, the influence of the Genoese master on the younger artist is already acknowledged by art historians and sometimes their works have even been confused (see e.g. S. Metzler, Batholomeus Spranger. Splendor and Eroticism in Imperial Prague, New York 2014, p. 244).

Rudolf’s visit to Genoa in 1571

Rudolf would have come across Cambiaso’s work during his visit to Genoa in the Summer of 1571 when he was a guest of Giovanni Andrea Doria (1540–1606) in the Villa Doria di Fassolo. Rudolf was travelling from Spain to Vienna, together with his brother Ernst (1553–1595) and his cousin, the half-brother of Phillip II of Spain, Don Juan de Austria (1547–1578).

Rudolf was 19 years old, and he must have been enraptured by the beauty he saw in Genoa. The city was not a kingdom and the villa at Fassolo was not a palace, but the pomp and wealth were even more impressive than most of the great courts of Europe. Various events were organised for the young Habsburgs. Among others, a banquet with eighteen dishes with ‘fifty two of the principal ladies of the city, all dressed in ermine and white satin, adorned with beautiful jewels, which was followed by festivities where the highness of the said Signior Don Giovanni of Austria, and the two Princes were masked, with the Prince of Florence, with that of Urbino, and with that of Parma, and with many Italian and Spanish knights’ (see L. Stagno, Giovanni Andrea Doria (1540–1606). Immagini, committenze artistiche, rapporti politici e culturali tra Genova e la Spagna, Genoa 2018, p. 129).

Significantly Rudolf’s hosts, the Dorias, were patrons of Cambiaso and they even sent King Philip II of Spain, Rudolf’s cousin, a work by the artist in 1578, shortly before Cambiaso was called to Spain as Court Painter at the Escorial in 1583.

It is documented that Rudolf acquired at least one painting which he must have seen during this visit to Genoa (the Venus Cythereia with a view of Genoa in the background by Jan Massys, today conserved in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, inv. no. NM 507). At the time of Ruldolf’s visit to Genoa, that painting was in the villa of Ambrogio Di Negro (1519–1601). The Villa Di Negro was close to the Villa Doria di Fassolo. Ambrogio Di Negro, was one of the major financiers of Rudolf’s father Maximilian II and it is therefore highly likely that the young prince visited his residence and saw his collection of art.

Di Negro’s villa housed an impressive collection of paintings and may have well provided a source of inspiration for the young Rudolf who would soon become one of Europe’s most refined and sophisticated patrons. The Genoese financier’s inventory of 1618 documents a number of works by Luca Cambiaso and several canvases by other artists of sensual images, including a ‘naked Venus’, Lucretia, Susanna and a ‘naked Veronica’ – as well as an important series of sculptures of mythological subjects.
As Ambrogio Di Negro had a close financial relationship with the Habsburgs and was a direct patron of Luca Cambiaso, it is highly likely that he was the intermediary between Rudolf II and Cambiaso for the commission, or purchase of the two Cambiaso canvases later documented in Rudolf’s collection under nos. 1196 and 1009 (see above). It is perhaps no coincidence that Di Negro’s collection also included a work by ‘Bartolomeo Splanges’, a painter who is rarely recorded in inventories of seventeenth-century Genoese collectors.

Further documentary evidence of Rudolf’s interest in Cambiaso

Although there is no specific documentary evidence for the purchase of the two works by Cambiaso in Rudolf II’s collection, there is a letter written by Albrecht Fugger dated 1601, in which he offers Rudolf a Venus and Mars with Cupid ‘von dem künstlichen mahler Luca Cambiaso Genovese’, for the price of 500 gulden and painted on a large canvas. Fugger advised Rudolf not to delay, because many painters felt that the Cupid could not be painted better (see H. v. Volteline, Urkunden und Regesten aus dem k. u k. Haus-, Hof- und Staats-Archiv in Wien, in: Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses, no. 19, 1898, pp. XXVI–XXVII, reg. 16266).

The artist’s critical fortune

Cambiaso’s work regained importance in the mid-20th century due to a monographic exhibition in Genoa in 1956, followed by further exhibitions in America in the 1960s curated by Bertina Suida Manning. They attracted interest in the artist’s work making Cambiaso one of the three Genoese artists most coveted by museums.

William Suida, and his daughter Bertina, produced the authoritative catalogue raisonné on Cambiaso published in 1958, which, to this day, after almost seventy years, remains an indispensable source of knowledge on the painter. Cambiaso’s ability not only as a painter – as the author of works on canvas, as well as of frescoes, but also as a graphic artist – became more evident. He was a prolific draughtsman and developed a groundbreaking geometric system for drawing figures which remains unique. In his famous ‘nocturnes’, or night paintings he reveals himself as a true genius of light with theatrical artificial lighting effects, producing them well before the emergence of Caravaggio.

Further important insights into the context of the work of Cambiaso have been offered more recently through a monograph on the artist by Lauro Magnani and in an exhibition in Austin and Genoa in 2006–2007 which included a quantity of previously unpublished material. Earlier critical acclaim for Cambiaso’s work includes a record of his life by the first biographer of Genoese painters, Raffaele Soprani in 1674, who dedicated one of the longest and most exhaustive Vite to him, including no less than seventeen pages full of circumstantial information and, of course, of appreciation and praise. Even before Soprani, the poet Giovanni Battista Marino included a Cambiaso’s Christ at the Column in his famous work La Galeria (1619) referencing a work in the collection of the Doria.