Lot 30: PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION GIOVANNI BATTISTA NALDINI FIESOLE CIRCA 1537 - 1591 FLORENCE

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION GIOVANNI BATTISTA NALDINI FIESOLE CIRCA 1537 - 1591 FLORENCE THE LAMENTATION OVER THE DEAD CHRIST

oil on poplar panel

PROVENANCE

Major J.C. Harford, Blaise Castle, Bristol, by 1880 (see under Exhibited below);
By whom sold, London, Christie's, 23 January 1920, lot 119 (as by Daniele da Volterra);
Acquired by the father of the present owner during the mid-20th century;
Thence by descent.
EXHIBITED

London, Royal Academy of Arts, 1880, no. 109 (as by Daniele da Volterra), lent by J.C. Harford.
LITERATURE AND REFERENCES

A. Graves, A Century of Loan Exhibitions 1813-1912, London 1914, p. 1589 (as by Daniele da Volterra).
CATALOGUE NOTE

Naldini was one of Florence's leading mannerist painters and he is perhaps better known today as a prolific draughtsman, largely due to the fact that the majority of his paintings remain in situ in the churches for which they were originally painted. As a young man - prior to 1549, that is - Naldini, together with Francesco Morandini called il Poppi, appears to have enjoyed the protection of Vincenzo Borghini in Florence. From the age of twelve Naldini entered the workshop of Jacopo Pontormo and remained there until the latter's death in 1556. After a trip to Rome in the late 1550s Naldini returned to Florence, where he was to remain for the rest of his life, and where he painted numerous works for the Medici (in particular Francesco) and collaborated on a number of projects in the Palazzo Vecchio with the painter and biographer Giorgio Vasari.

This painting almost certainly dates from around the same time as Naldini's work in the Studiolo at Palazzo Vecchio, that is circa 1572-73. The composition is closely related to Naldini's large altarpiece of 1572 in the Church of Santa Maria Novella, Florence (see fig. 1; also reproduced in A. Venturi, Storia dell'Arte Italiana. La Pittura del Cinquecento, vol. IX, part V, Milan 1932, p. 266, fig. 150). This panel is to be considered an independent work, however, and not just a replica of the Santa Maria Novella painting. Given its dimensions and the numerous (but not insignificant) small differences, it was most likely painted by the artist as a ricordo intended for a private patron. The refined palette, with the pastel hues so typical of Tuscan mannerist painting, and the astonishingly free handling of paint reveal Naldini to be not only a skilled colourist but also technically brilliant. The peripheral figures in this composition, as well as in the other two altarpieces Naldini painted for the same church (The Nativity and The Presentation of Christ at the Temple; both reproduced A. Venturi, op. cit., figs. 145 and 146), demonstrate Naldini's departure from the stiffness of comparable figures in works by Alessandro Allori. The painting illustrates the stylistic affinity between Naldini's works and those of Giorgio Vasari, but at the same time it reveals him to be a much less academic and far more spirited painter (perhaps in part due to his training with Pontormo).

The composition here is extremely complex and at the same time very sophisticated, with numerous figures assembled around the dead Christ who is dramatically placed in the centre of the picture space. Naldini almost certainly conceived the painting's design through numerous preparatory studies, and indeed many sheets of drawings of this subject survive (though they cannot be directly linked to this composition but are more likely preparatory for his painting in San Simone, Florence): see, for example, the drawing in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin (reproduced in Firenze e la Toscana dei Medici nell'Europa del Cinquecento. Il primato del disegno, Florence 1980, p. 151, no. 327). The use of repoussoir figures at the outer edges of the composition is not only a motif typical of Naldini's multi-figural compositions (compare, for example, his Pietà in the Molinari Pradelli collection; reproduced in Firenze e la Toscana...(op. cit.), p. 150, no. 323) but it is also characteristic of Florentine mannerist painting in general.

A drawing of this composition, formerly believed to be by Naldini and considered preparatory for the Santa Maria Novella painting, was correctly identified by Popham as a work by Naldini's pupil and collaborator, Giovanni Balducci called il Cosci, based on Naldini's altarpiece (British Museum, London, inv. 1950.4.1.5; see N. Turner, Florentine Drawings of the sixteenth century, exh. cat., London, British Museum, 1986, p. 229, cat. no. 178, reproduced in colour p. 230). It should be noted that both Balducci's drawing and Naldini's altarpiece in Santa Maria Novella are of a more elongated upright format than the present panel (which is squarer in shape); another reason for which one would assume that the composition was adapted specifically by the artist for a separate private commission.

123.7 by 90 cm.; 48 3/4 by 35 1/2 in.