Antonio Maria da Panico Sold at Auction Prices

Antonio Maria Panico (attr.) (Active between 1590

Antonio Maria Panico (attr.) (Active between 1590 and 1620) A Man with a Monkey (after Annibale Carracci) Oil on canvas, cm. 59 x 67 The work is an eighteenth century version of A Man with a Monkey by Annibale Carracci. That is a well-known allegorical work preserved at the Uffizi Vasari corridor and recently examined by Benati (Annibale Carracci, the exhibition catalog edited by D.Benati and Eugenio Riccomini, Bologna, Museo Civico Archeologico, Milan, 2006, IV, p.226 ff.). Diagnostic studies performed on the painted layer detect the lack of a preparatory drawing below, unmistakable sign characterizing the painting as a copy. The undoubtedly ancient high quality of the material, however, can be placed within the first two decades of the seventeenth century: the reddish-brown preparation (evident in areas where the pigment is depleted, as the head of the monkey or some details of the young man's face), several specific saving, a subtle crimp, are all clues of the first Baroque and post Mannerist painting. Claudio Strinati, in a written note, considers that this version of A Man with a Monkey may be referred to the workshop of Annibale Carracci, in particular to an interesting coworker, Antonio Maria Panico, who lived between the XVI and the seventeenth century, that Mancini remembers as a "allievo et amato molto" by Annibale Carracci. Panico came to Rome in 1600, the year of the Jubilee, and was student and close friend of the Carracci in his studio in Rome. As announced by several short but focused contributions of him, he fully understood the Carracci’s lexicon even if always mantaining a fine degree of stylistic independence (see, among others: A.Brogi. Additions to AM Panic, in Comparison, XXXIX, NS, 9, 10, 11 (459, 461, 463), 1988, pp. 39-49. Early bibliography cited in the text). Comparisons between our A Man with a Monkey boy playing with the monkey - the drafting certainly more simplified compared to the prototype Florentine but nevertheless safe and fast - and two blades as the miracle of the Eucharist in the church of San Salvatore in Farnese and crucifix between St. Francis and St. Anthony of Padua at the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin are effective. To Panico catalog - awaiting new specific contributions - Brogi added two works in 1988 (Ibid, 1988, figs. 85 and 86): a Santa Margherita in a private collection and a St. John the Baptist held at deposits of the National Gallery in London, very close to ours in the paint laying. Even the comparisons with the frescoes in the church of Our Lady of the Piano in Barbarano Romano recently made known by Ricci are noteworthy (F.Ricci, Postille Antonio Maria Panico, two works found in information. Periodic Center cataloging BB.CC. the province of Viterbo, VII, 1998, pp. 63-71). We consider the work as done in Rome in 1610.