"Madonna of the Cherubs" Own interpretation

27,5" x 35,5" Inches

Depiction:

Above a bust of the Virgin in prayer, two cherubs look down in adoration; below, two additional cherubs follow the Virgin´s heavenward gaze. This painting is one of several versions Sassoferrato derived from the upper part of the Assumption of the Virgin, now in the Massey Museum in Tarbes (France). Other versions now reside in Turin, with only two cherubs, Karlsruhe, Bergamo, Frankfurt and Baltimore, all without cherubs. B. Fredericksen´s Census of Italian Paintings in America lists nine in the United States. Studies for the painting, including the hands in prayer and a drawing for the figure of the Madonna, are located at the Massey Museum in Tarbes and Windsor Castle in London, respectively.

Attribution:

Sassoferrato´s linear, soft classical style suggests the influence of both Raphael (1483-1520) and Guido Reni (1575-1642). A painter of the Roman School and pupil of Domenichino (1581-1641), Giovanni Battista Salvi (called Sassoferrato after his place of birth) is best known for his sacred compositions based on Italian, German (Dürer) and French (Mignard) models of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. His first major work was Madonna of the Rosary, painted in 1641 for the Church of Santa Sabina in Rome. Executed primarily for private patrons, Sassoferrato´s devotional images were, until the end of the nineteenth century, considered among the finest. The artist´s predilection for sacred images, especially the Virgin, was not an isolated phenomenon during the seventeenth century. Pietistic painting was characteristic of a generation of artists during the Counter-Reformation who expressed devotion through an intense worship of the Virgin.

The proliferation of Madonnas as well as a declining interest in devotional images toward the end of the nineteenth century contributed to the underestimation of Sassoferrato´s works in particular, and of Italian seventeenth-century painting in general. In part, their rediscovery can be attributed to an exhibition organized in 1989 at the Grand Palais in Paris. The show, curated by F. Mace de Lepinay in 1990 on the third centenary of Sassoferrato´s death, was an occasion to photograph and catalogue the works attributed to the Master. Comparisons and rigorous selections were conducted to distinguish between originals, replicas and late copies.

Provenance:

The mode of acquisition for the Sassoferrato painting is at present unknown. The Boston College files date back to the 1950s but it may have been in the University´s possession before that time. The painting was previously hung in the Periodical Room of Bapst Library at Boston College.

Restoration:

May 17, 1992

Dianne Dwyer Studio, Inc.

"An exceptionally thick and discolored varnish was removed from the surface. Two to three inches of the edges of the composition were completely repainted and the surface was somewhat distorted. The canvas had been wax lined in the past and was mounted on an inadequate stretcher. The lining was detached along the bottom. "The canvas was mounted on a new stretcher. The losses were retouched using dry pigments bound with PVA AYAB and glazed with water color or Maimeri varnish colors. The surface was brushed with two coats of Talens Rembrandt Retouching varnish which is a stable, low molecular weight polycyclohexanone resin. In some formulation, which changes periodically, it has been in use by conservators since the fifties. It is completely reversible, aesthetically acceptable, similar to damar in its look, and yellows only slightly after 35 years. I have examined many paintings varnished with this resin thirty-five years ago which look today completely acceptable and do not need to be cleaned.
Dianne Dwyer."

Bibliography/Literature:

Borea, E. Domenichino. Milan, 1965.

Spear, R.E. "The Early Drawings of Domenichino at Windsor Castle and some Drawings by the Carracci", Art Bulletin, XLIX (1967), 52.

Pepper, D. Stephen. Guido Reni. New York: New York University Press, 1984.

Wittkower, Rudolph. Art and Architecture in Italy 1600-1750, Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1972.

Giovan Battista Salvi. Il Sassoferrato, catalogue of the exhibition, 29.6 - 14.10.1990, p.122.

Haskell, Francis. Patrons and Painters: A Study in the Relations Between Italian Art and Society in the Age of the Baroque, New York: Knopf, 1963.

E. Waterhouse. Baroque Painting. The Seventeenth Century. London, 1937. See especially pp. 25 and 27, where Waterhouse first discusses the archaizing tendencies of the 1640´s.