The Sacrifice of Noah

Details

Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (Genoa circa 1616-circa 1670)
The Sacrifice of Noah
brush and brown and red oil paint on light brown prepared paper
15½ x 21 3/8 in. (394 x 542 mm.)

Provenance

N. Hone (L. 2793).
W. Schrott (L. 2383)
Anonymous sale; Bassenge, Berlin, 11 May 1964, lot 67.
with Katrin Bellinger, London and Munich.

Literature

A. Percy, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, Master Draughtsman of the Italian Baroque, exhib. cat., Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1971, under no. 91 (as studio).
H. Macandrew, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, Catalogue of the Collection of Drawings, Italian Schools: Supplement, Oxford, 1980, III, under no. 812a (as Castiglione).
M. Newcome Schleier, Le dessin á Gênes du XVe au XVIIIe siécle, exhib. cat., Musée du Louvre, Paris, 1985, under no. 72 (as Castliglione).
L. Tagliaferro in Il Genio di Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, Il Grechetto, exhib. cat., Accademia Ligustica di Belle Arti, Genoa, 1990, under no. 52 (as Castiglione).

Special notice

From time to time, Christie's may offer a lot which it owns in whole or in part. This is such a lot.

Lot Essay

The attribution was confirmed verbally to the previous owner by Ann Percy. Castiglione treated this subject, always with variations, in numerous pictures and drawings. The composition derives from a work by Poussin known through an engraving by Frey, although reworked in Castiglione's distinct, looser style. Pictures are in the Palazzo Bianco, Genoa, the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nantes, in a private collection, Genoa (A. Percy, op. cit., figs. 2, 19 and 31) and in the Los Angeles County Museum. Drawings of the Sacrifice of Noah are in the British Museum (A. Percy, op. cit., no. 91), in the Louvre (M. Newcome Schleier, op. cit., no. 72), in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (H. Macandrew, op. cit., no. 812a, pl. LIII), at Windsor Castle (A. Blunt, The Drawings of G.B. Castiglione & Stefano della Bella, London, 1954, no. 163, pl. 39), in the Fogg Art Museum and sold at Christie's, London, 18 April 1989, lot 74. Ann Percy dates the British Museum drawing to 1655-60 and that of Windsor slightly later.

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