Lot 14: Luca Penni (Florence 1500/4-1557 Paris)

The Virgin and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist and a donor
oil on panel
30 1/2 x 25 3/4 in. (77.4 x 65.4 cm.)

S. Béguin 'La Madone Strange de Luca Penni' in Arte Collezionismo Conservazione: Scritti in onore di Marco Chiarini, Florence, 2004, p. 188 ff., illustrated.

Sir Robert Strange (1721-1792); Christie's, London, 9 February 1771, lot 151, as Raphael, 'The Virgin, with our Saviour and St. John.... I leave this divine picture (for so I must be allowed to call it) to the judgement and determination of the curious; & shall only beg leave to refer them to the letters I received from Messrs. Mariette and Mengs & which are inserted in my Descriptive Catalogue, published above a year ago', recorded as sold for 695 gns. to Barret, but presumably unsold and the same as the painting offered for sale by his heirs at the European Museum, 8 King Street, St. James's, London, from April 1817, lot 246, erroneously described as 'The Virgin with our Saviour, St. Joseph and St. John: truly a divine performance: the late Chevalier Mengs, one of the first Artists of the age, and who studied Raphael in the Vatican from his earliest youth, pronounced it truly an exquisite production of this divine Master' (unsold); (+) Christie's, London, 23 January 1819, lot 106, as Raphael, 'The Holy Family: a fine specimen of the grand style of this Master' (unsold at 215 gns).
W. Jamieson Forbes, Bournemouth; Christie's, London, 15 November 1946, lot 54, as Follower of Raphael (40 gns. to Mrs. Lillie?).

We are grateful to Everett Fahy for proposing the attribution after examining the picture in the original. We are also very grateful to Sylvie Béguin and Mario Di Giampaolo, who have both independently confirmed the attribution to Penni; Béguin has subsequently published the present picture (loc. cit.).

According to Orlandi (Abecedario pittorico, Bologna, 1704, p. 298), the artist was a pupil of Raphael in Rome. In 1528 he assisted his brother-in-law, Perino del Vaga, in the decoration of the Palazzo Doria, Genoa. He moved to Paris in circa 1530 and from 1538 to 1547/8 he worked with Rosso Fiorentino and Primaticcio at Fontainebleau. From circa 1544 he executed designs for engravers, including Leon Davent, Etienne Delaune and Giorgio Ghisi: for example Ghisi's Allegory of Birth and Calumny of Apelles. His designs were widely reproduced by engravers in France, Italy and Flanders.

Although no signed painting survives, Penni's documented works include portraits and religious subjects. Among those paintings attributed to him is the ?Justice of Otto (Musée du Louvre, Paris), a composition comparable to his Calumny of Apelles for Giorgio Ghisi. He also produced designs for tapestries, and his drawings of the Story of Diana (Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris; Musée du Louvre, Paris; and Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen) may have served as models for a set of tapestries of Diana and Orion (Anet, Château; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen) produced for King Henry II of France.

Sir Robert Strange, Jacobite and engraver, when in Italy in the 1760s assembled a considerable collection of pictures: after a successful sale in these Rooms, 9 February 1771, he formed a further collection which was less profitably sold in 1775. Two Madonnas given to Raphael, including the present work, were included in the 1771 sale.

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