Lot 117: PIETRO BENVENUTI AREZZO 1769 - 1844 FLORENCE

THE GOOD SAMARITAN

measurements note
229 by 287.5 cm.; 90 1/8 by 113 1/4 in.

oil on canvas, unframed

PROVENANCE

Painted for Priore Leopoldo Ricasoli Zanchini Marsuppini, Chamberlain to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Florence, in 1806.

EXHIBITED

Florence, Reale Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze, 1806.

LITERATURE

Gazzetta Universale, no. 80, 7 October 1806;
N. Palmerini, Pitture del Cavaliere Pietro Benvenuti, Direttore della I. e R. Accademia delle Belle Arti di Firenze, Pisa 1821, (unpaginated), reproduced in engraved form and described in ensuing pages I-II;
G. Orlov, "Essai sur l'histoire de la Peinture (Saggio sulla storia della pittura in Italia dai più remoti tempi fino all'età presente del signor conte Gregorij Orlov...)", in Antologia, vol. XXXI, July 1823, p. 95;
L. Fornasari, Pietro Benvenuti, Florence 2004, p. 213, footnote 21, and p. 218.

ENGRAVED:
By Pietro Fontana (1762-1837), before 1821.

NOTE

We are grateful to Dott. Adriano Cera for having identified this as a work by Pietro Benvenuti. The attribution has also been endorsed on the basis of a colour transparency by Dott.ssa Liletta Fornasari, to whom we are also grateful.

The Good Samaritan was considered by Benvenuti's contemporaries and biographers to be amongst the artist's finest works. Gregorij Orlov described it as such in 1823 and the picture had already been praised by Niccolò Palmerini, who two years earlier had published a volume of engravings after Benvenuti's paintings: "Non ci fermeremo a descrivere ad uno ad uno i pregi di questa pittura, essendo estraneo al nostro scopo. Non possiamo però astenerci dal fare eco alla voce generale degli'Intelligenti, i quali convengono essere questa una delle più sublimi Opere del nostro Autore" (see Literature).

Benvenuti painted this picture in 1806 for Priore Leopoldo Ricasoli Zanchini Marsuppini, Chamberlain to the Grand Duke of Tuscany in Florence. It was one of three paintings by the artist - "Samaritano Evangelico, l'Apollo Pitio e la Sacra Famiglia" - exhibited in Florence in 1806, and eulogised by Niccolini on 30th March of that year (G.B. Niccolini, Orazione recitata nella Reale Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze, Florence 1806, cited by Fornasari, see Literature, 2004, p. 213). The Good Samaritan and the Apollo Pitio were further picked out for special mention in the Gazzetta Universale on 7th October 1806: "In uno aveva espresso di grandezza naturale a qualche distanza dal suo cavallo il buon Samaritano che con un ginocchio a terra è in atto di spargere il salutifero liquore sulla ferita del nudo semivivo viandante steso supino sul proprio mantello; intanto che il sacerdote e il levita proseguono indolenti nel loro cammino..." (cited by Fornasari, ibid., p. 218).

A preparatory drawing for the composition, in pencil on paper, squared for transfer (465 by 643 mm.), is in the Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Palazzo Pitti, Florence, Inv. Giorn. 5809 (see Fig. 1; also reproduced in L. Fornasari, op. cit., 2004, p. 212, fig. 176). An engraving of the composition by Pietro Fontana, based on a drawing by Emidio Cateni after Benvenuti, was published by Palmerini in 1821 and the painting was described as still hanging in Ricasoli's palazzo (see Fig. 2; also reproduced in Fornasari, op. cit., p. 212, fig. 177). The pose of the reclining nude is very similar to that of the murdered Abel in Benvenuti's fresco representing The death of Abel in the Cappella dei Principi, Church of San Lorenzo, Florence (reproduced in A. Cera, La pittura neoclassica italiana, Milan 1987, no. 129).

Please note that the painting has been requested for the forthcoming monographic exhibition on Pietro Benvenuti, due to be held in 2007-8.