BARTOLOMEO BASSANTE Lot n° 1286

(documented during the first half of the 17th century) San Sebastiano curato dalle pie donne Oil on canvas, 212X153 cm Provenance: Private collection Bibliography: N. Spinosa, Seventeenth-century Painting in Naples, from Caravaggio to Massimo Stanzione, Naples 2010, p. 166, no. 10 (cited as Bartolomeo Bassante on Anna Orlando's recommendation) G. Porzio La scuola di Ribera, Naples, 2014, p. 89, fig. 54 (as circle of the Master of the Announcements to the Shepherds [Master of Bovino]) N. Spinosa, Il maestro degli Annunci ai pastori e i pittori dal tremendo impasto (Naples 1625 - 1650), Rome 2021, p. 269, F.2 (cited and catalogued to Bartolomeo Bassante) V. Farina, Artemisia and the Count's Painters. La collezione di Giangirolamo II Acquaviva d'Aragona, exhibition catalog edited by V. Farina, Cava de Tirreni 2018, p. 316 with previous bibliography (cited as Maestro di Bovino alias Bartolomeo Bassante) The painting is assigned to Bartolomeo Bassante (Brindisi, 1618 - Naples, 1648), an artist formerly known as Maestro di Bovino and several times circumscribed to the circle of the famous Maestro degli Annunci ai Pastori (documented during the first half of the 17th century). The composition finds comparison with the canvas now preserved at the College Museum of Art in Middlebury, and as clarified by critics since the time of Raffaello Causa (cf. Farina 2018, p. 314, figs. 4-6), this work has undoubted similarities in style with the Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine that bears the apocryphal signature to Bartolomeus Bassante Pinsit (cf. Farina 2018- R. Causa, Seventeenth-Century Painting in Naples from Naturalism to the Baroque, in Storia di Napoli, V. 2, Cava dei Tirreni-Naples 1972, pp. 930, 974, notes 53-55), the Holy Family belonging to the Causa collection, the Holy Family of Capodimonte (cf. S. Causa, 2008), and the Middlebury Saint Sebastian. These works highlight a painterly feeling akin to Giovanni Ricca and Francesco Guarino that, following Farina's words: appear to document the maturity of the so-called Master of Bovino, aka Raphael Causa's Bartolomeo Bassante. Having said that, the corpus listed here is placed in the fifth decade, also finding genesis in the delicacies of Bernardo Cavallino, modulating Caravaggio's chiaroscuro with a Vandican pictoricism inaugurated by Massimo Stanzione and Vaccaro. The outcomes, as we can see, are of refined elegance and mark the overcoming of naturalistic harshness dictated by the examples of Bolognese classicism, particularly looking to the models of Guido Reni visible in the Girolamini. Returning to the canvas under examination, although affected by oxidized varnish and dirt, we must note its fine quality, not at all inferior to the American version as can be seen from the fine photo published by Giuseppe Porzio in 2014 where similar conservation is evident. Reference bibliography: N. Spinosa, The Master of the Announcement to the Shepherds, Bartolomeo Bassante, Antonio De Bellis or Bernardo Cavallino? Reflections and doubts on the early Neapolitan seventeenth century, in Ricerche sul '600 napoletano. Essays and Documents for Art History 1994-1995, in Scritti in memoria di Raffaello Causa, Naples 1996, pp. 242-256 S. Causa, The Strategy of Attention. Painters in Naples in the early seventeenth century, Naples 2007, fig. 59 S. Causa, in Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte. Paintings of the Seventeenth Century. The Neapolitan School. The Bourbon and post-unification collections, Naples 2008, pp. 223-224, no. 244