Lot Essay
The present work is an unpublished version of a composition thought to derive from a lost original by Annibale Carracci (see C. van Tuyll van Serooskerken, Badalocchio's 'Entombment of Christ from Reggio': a new document and some related paintings, The Burlington Magazine, XCXXII, March 1980, no. 924, pp. 180-6). Around twelve treatments of this theme have now been recorded, most assumed to be by Sisto Badalocchio, one of Annibale's most able pupils. The primary version is widely accepted as that in the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, (Inv. no. 265), and is datable to circa 1607. Other versions, executed on canvas and panel, as well as on copper, are dated from 1608-20 and include the much larger work in the Galleria Borghese, Rome, (Inv. no. 43, circa 1608-9); that with Piero Corsini, New York, 1992 (circa 1610) of very slightly larger proportions that the present work; and that in the Palazzo Patrizi, also on copper (circa 1614). Though there is little documentation, and only three dated works to support the chronology of his oeuvre, Badalocchio completed his apprenticeship with Agostino Carracci in Parma and, following his death, established himself in Rome in the studio of Agostino's brother, Annibale Carracci, at the request of his protector Ranuccio Farnese, Duke of Parma. He remained with Annibale in the Palazzo Farnese and worked there, together with his friend, Giovanni Lanfranco, until Annibale's death in 1609. The years immediately following the death of his master were spent in Rome and Parma where he reacquainted himself with the styles of Lodovico Carracci and Correggio.