DOLCI, Carlo

This painting is one of Dolci’s many half-length compositions. The angel holds a Bible and with his right hand points to a line therein. The child, his hands clasped together in prayer, looks not at the book, but at the angel, showing with his rapt expression that he has understood the message of the Scriptures. In the seventeenth century the iconography of the guardian angel is generally close to the depiction of Tobias and the angel.

This is among the most noted works of Carlo Dolci. It was once at the Uffizi, and was placed in the Pitti during the rearrangement of 1928.

Carlo Dolci painted three versions of the martyrdom of St Andrew, who was crucified in Patras and, according to hagiography, was tied - and not nailed - to a cross, with his arms placed diagonally so as not to look like the sacrifice of Jesus in any way.

The scene, inspired by the Golden Legend by Jacopo da Varazze, illustrates the moment immediately before the crucifixion, when the saint is being stripped while his executioners set out the wooden poles to which he will be tied. Dolci translates the excited, crowded action into stories of emotional truth, which we can read in the expressions of the saint, of his executioners, and of the remaining bystanders, many of whom are genuine portraits. In the background, in the group bystanders watching the event, there are two outstanding figures, framed within the arc defined by the legs of the youth in a hat, shown in the foreground. One of these, wearing a red hat, faithfully copies the Portrait of a Man in a Red Cap by Titian, now in the Frick Collection, a painting evidently familiar to Dolci, although for reasons of which we are unaware.

There are several known versions and copies of the painting.

Moses gazes rapt and hollow-cheeked at a private vision like any penitential Christian saint. Only two spots of blue paler than the surrounding background - the “horns” of light spoken of in the Bible - identify him.

This portrait was painted by Dolci, as appears from an inscription on the back, at the age of sixteen years; and it surpasses both for the conception and the success and brilliance of the execution of later pictures by this precocious artist.

Fra Ainolfo de’ Bardi, Knight of Jerusalem, was a very notable soldier and man of politics in his day. He was born in 1573 and died in 1638.

Ainolfo de’ Bardi is shown against a countryside backdrop and with his right hand, he seems to be pointing to the group of men in the back, intent on their hunt.

Vittoria della Rovere (1622-1694) was Grand Duchess of Tuscany as the wife of Grand Duke Ferdinando II de’ Medici. She survived her husband by nearly twenty-five years. For all her married life, she kept in her personal cloakroom the cherished art collection she had brought from Urbino as a child bride.

In his first artistic period Dolci was a popular portraitist. However, in the 1650s, he began to focus increasingly on religious works that served a didactic purpose. St Jerome in Prayer, dated 1655, reveals the fervid religious sentiment that became his guiding force during this decade and continued to prevail throughout his career.

Dolci was a painter of intense religiosity. His work was much sought after internationally during his own lifetime and his reputation reached its apogee during the eighteenth century, particularly in England. The meticulous finish, careful elaboration of detail and concentration of expression, especially in those compositions with single figures, are the hallmarks of a style that proved to be influential even in the late eighteenth century in the work, for example, of Jean-Baptiste Greuze.

The biblical source for the painting is Matthew 14:6-11 or Mark 6:21-8, where the daughter of Herodias danced for her stepfather, Herod, on his birthday. As a reward he promised her anything she wanted and, prompted by her mother, she chose the head of Saint John the Baptist, which she then carried to Herodias on a silver charger. The daughter subsequently became known in literature as Salome, and the theme was memorably treated in the nineteenth century by Richard Strauss and Oscar Wilde amongst others.

Dolci painted several versions of Salome. According to Baldinucci, the original version was painted, probably during the 1660s, for the Marchese Rinuccini in Florence and it proved to be the artists most popular work, known through two other variants of good quality (Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen and Glasgow, City Museum and Art Gallery), which in turn spawned numerous copies. Of the three versions recorded by Baldinucci, the present painting is the second, which was acquired by Sir John Finch (1626—82) who gave it to Charles II. Finch was the English Resident at the court of the Grand Duke Ferdinand II in Florence from 1665 to 1670.

You can view other depictions of Salome with the Head of John the Baptist.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 15 minutes):

Richard Strauss: Salome, closing scene

This famous work by Dolci is executed in the somewhat motley colour scheme favoured by the artist.

This painting is a fine work from the artist’s late period. Similar pictures, apparently copies, are in various collections.

This painting is from the mature period of the artist.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 15 minutes):

George Frideric Handel: Concert for Organ in F major op. 4 No. 4

The present painting is an autograph version of the picture in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence. The prime version belonged to Cosimo III de’ Medici.

This small copper piece is most probably a preparatory example for two other versions of this subject on large canvases, although traces of these have been lost. The scene illustrates the episode narrated in the book of Apocalypse (XII, 1-6): the Evangelist, exiled on the Greek island of Patmos, receives a vision of the woman of the Apocalypse, elevated against a crescent moon and threatened by a terrible seven-headed dragon.

The copper creates a whole with the spectacular 17th-century gilded wooden frame, which shows genuine virtuosity in the intertwined dragons’ heads that refer to the subject of the painting.

This small copper piece is most probably a preparatory example for two other versions of this subject on large canvases, although traces of these have been lost. The scene illustrates the episode narrated in the book of Apocalypse (XII, 1-6): the Evangelist, exiled on the Greek island of Patmos, receives a vision of the woman of the Apocalypse, elevated against a crescent moon and threatened by a terrible seven-headed dragon.

The attribution to Dolci is supported by a drawing, most likely a preparatory sketch for the painting, now in the Devonshire Collection, Chatsworth. A later version of the subject can be found in the Sz�pm�v�szeti M�zeum (Museum of Fine Arts), Budapest.

The subject of this painting is unusual, a variation on the traditional theme of the Sacra Conversazione, a venerable one among Florentine painters. In this representation, the mature Christ is shown between the Virgin and his father St Joseph. He gazes upward at the Holy Spirit and above him God the Father. The combination of the figures, therefore, void of other extraneous saints, represents the “Celestial” and “Terrestrial” Trinities together.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 3 minutes):

Girolamo Frescobaldi: Ricercar No. 8

This oval piece, with its exceptional pictorial quality, was painted for Vittoria della Rovere, wife of Ferdinando II de’ Medici. The Grand Duchess was a great admirer of the painter and owned more than thirty of his works, which she continued to purchase after his death.

The iconographic subject of the naked child, resting on a red velvet blanket in the foreground is taken from the ancient statues of Eros sleeping and of Hermaphrodite, a subject interpreted here in a religious context. St Elisabeth, shown behind her child, is looking to the heavens, while Zechariah is immersed in reading a holy text. Their positions allude to the story of the Baptist and his dramatic end, foreshadowed from the time of his birth. The blood red velvet evokes the beheading of John, while the rush cross with phylactery and the inscription, “ecce agnus dei” are symbols of his role as the precursor of Christ.

The painting is in an original frame by Giambattista Foggini.

This painting, of which many variants and copies are known, was produced for private devotion. The deep blue robe and the pearly fleshtones are characteristic, as is the placement of the protagonist so close to the pictorial plane.