Lot 32: Bernardo Cavallino , Naples 1618-1654 Tobias curing the Blindness of Tobit; Lot and His Daughters a pair, both oil on canvas

a pair, both oil on canvas Quantity: 2

measurements note each: 66 by 89.5 cm.; 26 by 35 1/4 in.

N. Spinosa, 'Nuevas aportaciones al catalogo de Bernardo Cavallino, in In Sapientia Libertas, Escritos en Homenaje al Profesor Alfonso E. Perez Sanchez, Madrid/Seville 2007, pp. 368-69, reproduced figures 3 & 4.

In the collection of Don Ignacio Despujol y Rigalt, II conde de Caspe;
By descent to his widow, Doña Isabel Trénor y Palavicino, Condesa de Caspe, Spain;
Acquired from the above by the great-grandfather of the present owner, as part of an estate situated in the outskirts of Madrid, in 1923;
Thence by family descent.

PROPERTY FROM A SPANISH PRIVATE COLLECTION
This pair of Old Testament scenes by Bernardo Cavallino can be dated to the artist's early maturity, during the early 1640s, at a time when his earlier dependence on the severe tenebrist style of Ribera had given way to his own more refined and lyrical manner.

Both paintings have only recently come to light, having remained together in the collection of the same family since the early part of the 20th century. Their emergence attests to the strong level of demand that existed for the artist's work by the early 1640s, for they are both known through other autograph versions, as well as numerous old copies.

Tobias curing the Blindness of Tobit exists in a variant today in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Kassel, in which the artist has condensed the narrative to fit the squarer format of the canvas (70 by 77.2 cm.), by grouping the figures more tightly and omitting the figure in red on the left of the present scene. The figure of Tobit's wife Anna - here seen to the left of the angel - has been moved to directly behind the figure of her blind husband, and an additional figure is positioned to her right, further crowding the scene.υ1 In the Seattle Museum of Art a direct replica of the present composition exists, which forms part of a group of stylistically related replicas of known Cavallino compositions, which points either to the artist's employment of a workshop, or perhaps more likely the existence of a close imitator. υ2 Cavallino's painting of Lot and his Daughters is also known in another version, a picture formerly in the Astarita Collection, Italy, which was included in the exhibition of Neapolitan painting in Rome in 1938 and was subsequently with the dealer Gilberto Algranti in Milan during the early 1990s.

The book of Tobit appears to have been a rich narrative source for Cavallino's work. De Dominici records paintings of three other episodes from the Old Testament figure's life, including The Departure of Tobias and The Marriage of Tobias, which were together in the Francesco Valletta and Marchese dei Grazia collections. There are no other known listings of the present pairing.

We are grateful to Professor Nicola Spinosa for endorsing the attribution to Bernardo Cavallino, following first hand inspection, and for suggesting a dating to the early 1640s. 1. See the exhibition catalogue, Bernardo Cavallino of Naples, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, 14 November - 30 December 1984, pp. 96-97, reproduced p. 96.
2. See op. cit., reproduced p. 99, figure 24f.