Lot 65: Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari (Rome 1654-1724) The Rest on the Flight into Egypt unframed

The Rest on the Flight into Egypt
oil on canvas
66.5 x 52cm (26 3/16 x 20 1/2in).
unframed

We are grateful to Giancarlo Sestieri for confirming the attribution to Chiari on the basis of a photograph.

The only signed version of the composition of the present painting is the full-scale altarpiece by Lorenzo Masucci in the church of Santa Maria dell'Orazione e Morte, Rome. However, the initial format, which later became well known through the work of the Masucci, can be ascribed to Chiari. There are several earlier versions given to the artist such as that offered at Sotheby's London, 11 December 1996, lot 88, and that at Calke Abbey, Derbyshire. Each of these pictures differs from the others in small elements, such as the positioning of the angels in the background or the contents of the basket offered to the Infant Christ. Given the pentimenti evident in the work offered at Sotheby's in 1996 and the larger scale of the picture, it may be considered the primary version of this group. The present painting may have served as a ricordo for the larger Sotheby's composition. In the catalogue entry for the Calke Abbey picture, which was exhibited at the National Gallery in 1995-96, it is suggested that Chiari made later reductions of his earlier pictures in response to the relative lack of commissions in Rome at that time for works on a larger scale and also in order to profit from the growing trade in easel pictures which had opened up with the increasing influx of Grand Tourists in the city (see A. Laing, In Trust for the Nation: Paintings from the National Trust Houses, 22 November 1995 - 10 March 1996, exhibition catalogue). On comparison with the Calke Abbey version, Sestieri considers the present work to be 'di qualita' superiore, piu' rifinita e delicata nell'esecuzione dei particolari'.