VINCENZO CAMUCCINI (Rome 1771 - 1844) PAPA PIO... Lot 288

VINCENZO CAMUCCINI (Rome 1771 - 1844) PAPA PIO VII Oil on canvas, 61 x 49 cm. Unsigned PROVENANCE Formerly Ettore Petrolini collection, Rome Formerly Silvio D'Amico collection, Rome Silvio D'Amico heirs, Rome The fine painting presented here is familiar to the rich existing bibliography on the Portrait of Pius VII, executed by Vincenzo Camuccini in 1814 at his Castel Gandolfo residence upon his return from exile in Fontainebleau. In fact, the painting in the D'Amico collection is related by Gianna Piantoni (Piantoni 1978, p. 91) to the drawing made by Camuccini in fat pencil in 1814 and preserved at the Camuccini heirs in Cantalupo in Sabina, and Roberta Olsen (Olsen 1992, p. 131) refers to it as an oil study of the pontiff's head. The first ascertained autograph version is the one executed in 1814 for Duke Frederick IV of Saxony Gotha (Hiesinger 1978, p. 307) and identified with a work sold at auction in 1968, which was followed by the replica executed for Cardinal Ercole Consalvi in 1815, preserved in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the seat of Congress and a symbolic place of the ancien regime. Because of the fluid pictorial rendering that renders the pontiff's gesture vibrant and expressive, the present painting is closely related to these early works that brought fame to the artist and are counted at the origin of an important international series of portraits of Pius VII, done first by Ingres and later by Lawrence and Wicar. Interesting is the memory of the transfer of ownership of this work that took place in 1936 from the collection of the well-known entertainer Ettore Petrolini to that of another giant of the theater, Silvio D'Amico, who recalls its inclusion in his will in one of his writings (D'Amico 1943, p. 250) BIBLIOGRAPHY S. D'Amico, Petrolini's Mask, in Mouth of Truth, Rome 1943, reprinted Bulzoni 1991, pp. 250-251 G. Piantoni De Angelis, Vincenzo Camuccini (1771-1844). Bozzetti e disegni dallo studio dell'artista, exhibition catalog, Rome, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, October 27-December 31, 1978, De Luca Editore, Rome 1978, pp. 91-92, no. 196 U. Hiesinger, The paintings of Vincenzo Camuccini, 1771/1844, in The Art Bulletin, 60, New York 1978, pp. 307, 309, 318, n. 23 R.J.M. Olson, Vincenzo Camuccini, in Ottocento. Romanticism and revolution in 19th century Italian painting, exhibition catalogue, Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, November 4, 1992/January 3, 1993, New York 1992, pp. 130-131, no. 21 F. Petrucci, Vincenzo Camuccini, in The Faces of Power. Portraits of illustrious men in Rome from the Roman Empire to Neoclassicism, edited by F. Petrucci, De Luca Editori d'Arte, Rome 2004, pp. 114-115, no. 34 CORNICE Roman gilded wood frame with molded edges, 18th century Sheet edited by Dr. Laura Moreschini