.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
This intimately scaled Adoration of the Shepherds dating to the 1550s was painted early in the career of Paolo Veronese and is a rare example of the artist’s work on panel. Publishing the painting in 1978, Federico Zeri considered it to have been painted at some point after the artist’s Bevilacqua Lazise altarpiece of 1548 (now Muso Castelvecchio, Verona) and before his Giustiniani altarpiece in San Francesco della Vigna, Venice, painted between 1551 and 1555 (loc. cit.). The painting has been widely published since and all scholars consider the work to date from the 1550s, with the exception of Terisio Pignatti (loc. cit., 1978) who hypothesized that it might be a ricordo done by the artist much later, in the 1580s. Rodolfo Palluchini dated it around the same moment, circa 1555-56 (loc. cit.), William R. Rearick dated it circa 1559 (loc. cit.) and then Pignatti, publishing it again with Francesco Pedrocco in 1991 and 1995, placed it in the second half of the 1550s (loc. cit.).
The choice of panel as a support was uncommon for Veronese. He used it rarely and usually only for furniture paintings or small sections of ceilings, such as those for the sacristy of San Sebastiano, Venice, to which Rearick compared the present work (loc. cit.). The Adoration appears to have undergone restoration at some point in the twentieth century before its publication in 1978 and the panel was marouflaged, with areas of the architecture, sky and figures being retouched. This is most notable in the shepherd at lower left, whose blue drapery is no longer correctly foreshortened across his shoulder and whose mantle in orange – a color which invariably suffered in Veronese’s works due to chemical degradation – here is overpainted.
The Adoration was exhibited in Leeds in 1868 while in the collection of the liberal British politician, Edward Adam Leatham (loc. cit.). It was later included in Leatham’s 1898 catalogue of paintings in Misarden Park, as a ‘Worship of the Shepherds’ and listed as a ‘sketch,’ presumably due to its small dimensions. It was then hanging in the first drawing room and Leatham noted under its entry, ‘I possess the original engraving, same size’ (ibid.), presumably the engraving by Matteo Piccioni (for which see below). The painting did not, however, appear in Leatham’s deceased sale just three years later in 1901, suggesting that it was either sold in the intervening years, or perhaps more likely that it descended in his family.
Though the early history of this Adoration is undocumented, the painting was engraved by Matteo Piccioni in Rome on 26 May 1641 according to an inscription (fig. 1). Assuming, therefore, that the painting itself was in Rome in the 1640s, Zeri hypothesized that it may be identifiable as the Nativity recorded in 1648 by Carlo Ridolfi in the Ludovisi collection (see C. Ridolfi, Le meraviglie dell'arte […], Venice, 1648, p. 306). In his biography of Veronese, Ridolfi recalled the painting as having been formerly in the convent of San Nazaro (presumably Santi Nazaro e Celsi, Verona) before being gifted to Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi and subsequently in the Ludovisi princely collection in Rome at the time of his writing.
Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi (1595-1632) amassed a vast collection of art which, upon his death in 1632, was inherited by his brother, Niccolò I Ludovisi, Prince of Piombino, presumably the ‘Signor Prencipe Luduisio’ in possession of the Veronese Nativity cited by Ridolfi. The 1623 Ludovisi inventory documents three paintings by the artist but without listing their subjects (see C.H. Wood, ‘The Ludovisi Collection of Paintings in 1623,’ The Burlington Magazine, CXXXIV, 1073 (1992), p. 521, nos. 203 and 214), while the 1633 inventory lists only two, a Magdalene and a Circumcision (see K. Garas, 'The Ludovisi Collection of Pictures in 1633 - I,' The Burlington Magazine, CIX, 771, 1967, p. 340, no. 22 and p. 343, no. 33). Zeri suggested the third, unidentified painting by Veronese cited in 1623 might be the present panel, but without more concrete evidence linking this Adoration to the Ludovisi, for the moment that hypothesis remains tentative.
We are grateful to Xavier Salomon for endorsing the attribution following firsthand inspection and for proposing a date in the 1550s.
The choice of panel as a support was uncommon for Veronese. He used it rarely and usually only for furniture paintings or small sections of ceilings, such as those for the sacristy of San Sebastiano, Venice, to which Rearick compared the present work (loc. cit.). The Adoration appears to have undergone restoration at some point in the twentieth century before its publication in 1978 and the panel was marouflaged, with areas of the architecture, sky and figures being retouched. This is most notable in the shepherd at lower left, whose blue drapery is no longer correctly foreshortened across his shoulder and whose mantle in orange – a color which invariably suffered in Veronese’s works due to chemical degradation – here is overpainted.
The Adoration was exhibited in Leeds in 1868 while in the collection of the liberal British politician, Edward Adam Leatham (loc. cit.). It was later included in Leatham’s 1898 catalogue of paintings in Misarden Park, as a ‘Worship of the Shepherds’ and listed as a ‘sketch,’ presumably due to its small dimensions. It was then hanging in the first drawing room and Leatham noted under its entry, ‘I possess the original engraving, same size’ (ibid.), presumably the engraving by Matteo Piccioni (for which see below). The painting did not, however, appear in Leatham’s deceased sale just three years later in 1901, suggesting that it was either sold in the intervening years, or perhaps more likely that it descended in his family.
Though the early history of this Adoration is undocumented, the painting was engraved by Matteo Piccioni in Rome on 26 May 1641 according to an inscription (fig. 1). Assuming, therefore, that the painting itself was in Rome in the 1640s, Zeri hypothesized that it may be identifiable as the Nativity recorded in 1648 by Carlo Ridolfi in the Ludovisi collection (see C. Ridolfi, Le meraviglie dell'arte […], Venice, 1648, p. 306). In his biography of Veronese, Ridolfi recalled the painting as having been formerly in the convent of San Nazaro (presumably Santi Nazaro e Celsi, Verona) before being gifted to Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi and subsequently in the Ludovisi princely collection in Rome at the time of his writing.
Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi (1595-1632) amassed a vast collection of art which, upon his death in 1632, was inherited by his brother, Niccolò I Ludovisi, Prince of Piombino, presumably the ‘Signor Prencipe Luduisio’ in possession of the Veronese Nativity cited by Ridolfi. The 1623 Ludovisi inventory documents three paintings by the artist but without listing their subjects (see C.H. Wood, ‘The Ludovisi Collection of Paintings in 1623,’ The Burlington Magazine, CXXXIV, 1073 (1992), p. 521, nos. 203 and 214), while the 1633 inventory lists only two, a Magdalene and a Circumcision (see K. Garas, 'The Ludovisi Collection of Pictures in 1633 - I,' The Burlington Magazine, CIX, 771, 1967, p. 340, no. 22 and p. 343, no. 33). Zeri suggested the third, unidentified painting by Veronese cited in 1623 might be the present panel, but without more concrete evidence linking this Adoration to the Ludovisi, for the moment that hypothesis remains tentative.
We are grateful to Xavier Salomon for endorsing the attribution following firsthand inspection and for proposing a date in the 1550s.