Carlo Dolci, 1616 Florenz – 1686 ebenda Lot n° 280

JOHN THE EVANGELISTOil on canvas. 85,2 x 65,3 cm. In partly open carved and gilded foliate frame. Attached an expertise of Sandro Bellesi, Sesto Fiorentino, without date, who emphasizes the good condition of the painting and dates it to the 1630s, in copy. The youngest of the twelve apostles, the principal author of the Gospel of John, is captured by Dolci in three-quarter view as he sets down the text of the Gospel in an open book at hand, one hand gesturing upward, the other pausing with the quill. Even more than the versions mentioned below, the quill compositionally continues the open page to the left, creating a line that coincides with the connecting line of his two eyes at the left edge of the picture. Thus Dolci creates a composition of an angle whose legs frame the laurel on the right edge of the picture. According to the Legenda aurea by Jacopo da Varazze and other medieval texts dealing with the lives of saints, John, who was almost a hundred years old, was condemned to martyrdom by boiling oil in Rome at the time of the persecution of Christians by Emperor Diocletian. He survived this cruel ordeal unscathed, then was blinded and sent to Ephesus, where he eventually died. Like most paintings of saints dedicated to the evangelist, the painting shows the saint in mystical rapture, as evidenced by the holy head with its divine aura ecstatically turned toward heaven as he writes a few sentences in an open book. The young age of the saint suggests that the book he is writing about is the Gospel, since the Apocalypse, as we know from hagiographic sources, was written shortly before the end of his earthly existence, in his old age. Born in Florence in 1616, the son of Andrea Dolci, a tailor, Carlo was introduced to the study of painting at the age of about nine in the school of Jacopo Vignali, an important Tuscan painter who had emerged from the studio of Matteo Rosselli, according to the historical recollections of his friend and biographer Filippo Baldinucci. Close adherence to the style of this master, as well as knowledge and study of the works of other local painters of the early 20th century, especially those of Cristofano Allori, characterize the artist's first known works from the 1920s, which are characterized by an extremely refined formal language, largely based on acute realism, clearly visible in the careful rendering of figures and in the almost maniacal attention to detail, executed with a rigor that could be described as hyperrealistic. In this painting, as in most of Dolci's important and appreciated works, the artist used a model that bears more or less direct resemblance to other autographs by Dolci. The painting is known to us exemplarily in the three following variants in museum possession, which all differ slightly among themselves: 1. Berlin version: In the Gemäldegalerie of the Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz in Berlin is kept under Inv. No. 423 an octagonal work of Dolci (113 x 92 cm), which was once acquired by Frederick William II of Prussia and is compositionally similar to the painting offered here, but shows John with a full beard and lacks the beautiful pointer on the right, which closes our painting on the right. 2nd Moscow version: In the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, under inventory number 7, a small painting is kept, signed on the verso and dated 1643 or 1647. It is very similar to our picture, the incarnate parts are probably a bit paler, the branch on the right side is missing here, too. In a sense, it depicts a section of our painting. 3rd version in Sarasota: In the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida, USA, a small brilliant painting on copper is kept under the inventory number SN137 (25.9 x 20.6 cm). This one seems to want to depict John a bit younger, the skin seems smooth and radiant, which may also be in the medium. The coloring is the one most likely to survive the centuries and thus impressively shows how Dolci intended the colors to work. The branch on the right side is also missing here, the nimbus has been replaced by a delicate radiance. (1302021) Literature: See Francesca Baldassari, Carlo Dolci. Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, Florence 2015, p. 136, no. 43; p. 145, no. 50; p. 147, no. 52. Carlo Dolci, 1616 Florence - 1686 ibid. SAINT JOHN THE EVANGELIST Oil on canvas. 85.2 x 65.3 cm. Accompanied by a copy of the expert's report by Sandro Bellesi, Sesto Fiorentino, n.d., emphasizing the good condition of the paint