Matita nera, penna e inchiostro, pennello e inchiostro acquarellato, carta cerulea.

Penna e inchiostro, pennello e inchiostro acquerellato, carta bianca. Inv. D1716.

Legato Marcello Durazzo 1848

This drawing, and the sheet of a similar subject also conserved in Palazzo Rosso inv. D 2676 (black pencil, pen and ink, brush and watercoloured ink; white counterfold paper. mm 251 x 182), constitute as many phases of the study for an altarpiece, painted by Piola in the early 1780s for the sacristy of the church of San Filippo Neri (but now conserved in that dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi, in Genoa-Bolzaneto), illustrating the supernatural vision that surprised the Genoese saint Caterina Fieschi Adorno (1448-1510) while she was praying, giving her the sensation of being bound to Jesus with a golden thread. In what must be recognised as the earlier study (inv. 2676), different solutions are present, some of which are taken up in the second sheet, the subject of this card (inv. 4396), or directly in the painting. The Virgin's right arm, for example, is raised in the initial black-pencil sketch, while in the ink drawing she holds the Child who, in this way, is to the left of the sitter. Catherine, who, attracted by the 'God of love', rises from her kneeler, contemplates but is not involved in the space of the supernatural vision, remaining almost distant from it. The compositional variants of the second drawing are not few, although all the elements of the first sheet return, albeit with different values: the Child is on the right, Catherine, raised in mid-air, becomes an integral part of the group centred on the figure of the Madonna, and, at the bottom right, in front of the kneeler, an angel in the form of an adolescent - stylistically revealing the influence that the much younger Gregorio De Ferrari exerted on the fifty-five-year-old Piola - replaces the barely sketched angel of the other drawing. The composition painted on the canvas repeats that of the second sheet, with the exception of the angel, who in the altarpiece returns to being a cherub, albeit in a pose more moved than the original idea; but the correspondence is such that it can be assumed that this last variation was carried out in the course of the work, i.e. without the mediation of a further graphic design. The legacies of Marcello Durazzo (1790-1848) and that of Mary Ighina Barbano - who was the niece of the sculptor, scholar and collector Santo Varni (1807-1885) and had inherited his collections - allowed the two drawings, both of which certainly came from Domenico Piola's house-studio in salita San Leonardo, to be definitively reunited within the collection of the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe di Palazzo Rosso after having been collected at the beginning of the 19th century. Boccardo, Domenico Piola (1627-1703). Projects for the Arts, 2006; Boccardo in Domenico Piola (1628-1703). Percorsi di pittura barocca, 2017. The drawing depicts the Madonna holding the Baby Jesus in her arms, with Saint Catherine and cherubs below her.

An astonishing self-portrait of the most eccentric master of 16th century Italy, this skilfully watercoloured pen and ink drawing reproduces the features of Giuseppe Arcimboldi's face through the artifice of rolled scrolls and sheets skilfully arranged to imitate his physiognomic features. This sheet, however, is unique in Arcimboldo's oeuvre: it is the only 'composite head' drawn on paper, as well as being one of the two known portraits of the master (the other, more traditional, is conserved at the Národní Galerie in Prague) and undoubtedly his most important graphic work. The skilful execution of the drawing ensures that only at close range does the bizarre nature of the portrait fully reveal itself, whose compositional artifice is only fully comprehensible by continually proceeding with the gaze from the particular to the general and vice versa, in a dimension of playfulness, amazement and bewilderment typical of Mannerism. This is one of the artist's most refined works, as a taste for wonder is combined with a fine attention to the natural datum typical of the master's Lombard training, certainly also deriving from his study of Leonardo's graphic work and in particular his realistic 'grotesque heads'. The sheet is dated '1587' (as stated on the handwritten annotation at the base of the gorget), when Arcimboldo was at the height of his career and - at '61' years of age, as indicated on the front of the portrait - had just concluded his more than twenty-year stay at the refined Prague court of Rudolph II of Habsburg. It is, therefore, almost a figurative testament, through which the artist significantly presents himself as a cultured intellectual and 'man of letters', legitimising a 'high', allegorical-symbolic interpretation of his own bizarre inventions. On the other hand, in the service of the emperor, amidst esotericisms and extravagant wunderkammer collections, Arcimboldo had been able to best interpret his multifaceted role as 'court painter' by creating, in addition to ephemeral apparatuses for festivals theatrical costumes, furnishings and precious objects, as well as 'composed' allegorical portraits - between naturalism and surrealism - of which he reinforced the symbolic and encomiastic aspect through ad hoc poetic texts written in his own hand or entrusted to men of letters close to him. Entering the civic collections with the Legato of Marcello Durazzo (1848) as an unknown Genoese artist, the sheet was attributed to the Lombard master by Piero Boccardo (in Maestri del disegno nelle civiche collezioni genovesi, exhibition catalogue, Genoa 1990, cat. 28). (PRIARONE, 2020) Man of letters / Self-portrait

Boni Jacopo Antonio - Gio. Francesco II Brignole-Sale

 

Commissionato da Gio.Francesco Brignole (1582-1637) nel 1627, il grande ritratto raffigura la moglie del committente assieme ad Aurelia, una delle due figlie. Il dipinto è attualmente conservato a Palazzo Rosso per volontà di Gio.Francesco I Brignole-Sale (1643-1694) di mantenere il ritratto legato alla casata. L’intervento di restauro eseguito per la mostra genovese dedicata all’artista fiammingo nel 1997, ha rivelato una stesura pittorica ben conservata in entrambe le figure e ha restituito freschezza al viso della madre quarantaduenne. 
La pulitura ha pure confermato la complessiva severità dell’immagine data dal nero vestire della dama, secondo il gusto spagnoleggiante dell’epoca, e dal fondo buio, dal quale una luce proveniente da sinistra rivela solo una colonna su un alto plinto e un ricco tendaggio rosso. Il quadro mostra le eccellenti qualità pittoriche dell’artista nella ricchezza dei chiaroscuri, che conferiscono alla bianca veste cerimoniale della fanciulla un accento luministico drammatizzato e scultoreo.

Rigaud. Francesco II Brignole Sale (foto Visconti 2011)

Questa aulica e raffinata immagine è stata realizzata nel 1739 da Rigaud, ritrattista ufficiale del re di Francia Luigi XV, in occasione del soggiorno a Parigi di Gio. Francesco II Brignole - Sale in qualità d’ambasciatore della Repubblica di Genova. L’artista, a partire dall’ultimo decennio del Seicento, aveva iniziato a lavorare come ritrattista esclusivamente per la corte del Re Sole, elaborando un modello
di ritratto ufficiale vivace e insieme solenne nel taglio e nella composizione, a mezza figura o a figura intera, sullo sfondo di modelli architettonici e paesistici.
Nella sua opera appare evidente una attenta riflessione sui modelli di Anton van Dyck, rielaborati però in impianti di maggior rigidezza e austerità.
Il ritratto di Palazzo Rosso – il cui pendant raffigurante Battina Raggi, moglie di Gio. Francesco II, non fu eseguito dal vivo, ma in effige – è stato realizzato per soddisfare un evidente intento autocelebrativo da parte del committente, che desidera perpetuare la memoria di sé e della sua nobile famiglia. Il gentiluomo è stato ritratto di tre quarti e indossa, sopra la corazza da parata, un manto di prezioso velluto dai freddi toni viola-rosati su cui la luce riflessa crea effetti di raffinato cangiantismo. Sullo sfondo si vede un lussureggiante paesaggio e a destra una colonna di candido marmo, elemento spesso presente anche nei ritratti di Van Dyck, con una precisa connotazione simbolica: rimanda infatti  pur genericamente a un lussuoso palazzo gentilizio divenendo allusione al potere e alla ricchezza del protagonista.