Lot 222: Jacopo Vignali (Pratovecchio 1592-1664 Florence).

Jacopo Vignali (Pratovecchio 1592-1664 Florence).
The Judgement of Solomon
signed and dated 'JAC. VIGNALI.F.1632.' (lower right, on the step)
oil on canvas
81 x 93¾ in. (205.8 x 238.3 cm.)

S.B. Bartolozzi, Vita di Jacopo Vignali, pittor fiorentino, Florence, 1753, p. XIX.
G. Ewald, 'Opere sconosciute di Vignali', Antichità Viva, 1964, pp. 10 and 19, nos. 7-8, fig. 15.

Private collection, Stuttgart.
Anonymous sale; van Marle & Bignell, The Hague, 19 June 1956.

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.
We are grateful to Dr. Francesca Baldassari for confirming the attribution, on inspection of the original, and for her assistance in cataloguing this lot.

A preparatory drawing for this composition is now in the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe of the Uffizi, Florence (published in Ewald, op. cit., p. 10). In this sketch, the foreground figures are highly finished while those in the background are only suggested in outline. The composition as a whole is quite developed, bearing close resemblance to the finished painting. The lady in the central foreground and the man wearing a turban beyond may be portraits of the donors, a practice that was popular among Florentine patrons of the period.

The painting is most probably the one described by Vignali's biographer Sebastiano Benedetto Bartolozzi as executed in 1632 for the celebrated collector Giovanni Gualberto Guicciardini (S.B. Bartolozzi, op. cit.).