Giovanni Bernardo Carbone (Genoa 1616-1683) Portrait... Lot 20

Giovanni Bernardo Carbone (Genoa 1616-1683) Portrait of a Genoese nobleman. On the back a label " Thos, Agnew & Sons B 7931". Height 116 cm, width 93 cm. Provenance: - Agnews gallery, London in 1958 (advertisement in International Studio, New York, August 1958), - acquired from this gallery by David Ogilvy, château de Touffou, Poitou. A 17th century portrait of a Genovese nobleman by Giovanni Bernardo Carbone. Oil on canvas. A student of the realist painter Giovanni Andrea De Ferrari, Giovanni Bernardo Carbone, after a few religious paintings, established himself in the genre of portraiture satisfying the demands of the Genoese elite. He took up the compositions of the great genre of the noble portrait, with column and curtain, that Anthony Van Dyck had left in the Ligurian city thirty years earlier. Carbone is characterized by his mastery of blacks, especially in the clothes, which allow the model to stand out from the background. In our painting, the model is an artillery officer; he carries a sword, his right hand is on his helmet, and the fire of a cannon is visible in the lower right. This military aspect is tempered by a very beautiful Augsburg clock that evokes a collector's personality. Its high quality can be compared to the "Portrait of a Magistrate" (Genoa, Palazzo Rosso Gallery), especially in the treatment of the clothes and in the mid-body framing, or even to the "Portrait of a Senator" in the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.