SPADA, Lionello

Spada, trained by the Carracci in Bologna, discovered Caravaggio in Rome, and established a synthesis of their styles: in Aeneas and Anchises the dramatic tension sustained by a violent chiaroscuro is combined with classical colours and rigour.

This painting is based on a lost work by Caravaggio, intended for the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo but rejected by the client.

This work entered the National Gallery in 1952 as a work of the school of Ribera, an attribution that was accepted until 1997. Recently the artist was identified as Lionello Spada, on the basis of a citation in the inventory of the property ceded by Maffeo Barberini to his brother Carlo in 1623, immediately before the former’s assumption of the papacy.

Stylistically, the Barberini Saint Jerome differs significantly from the rest of the accepted production of Spada. A close connection is evident to the works of Ribera, to whom this painting was in fact once attributed. This would suggest that Spada encountered the Spanish artist in Rome; however Ribera’s documented presence in the papal city from only 1613 onward does not match the proposed chronology of Spada’s voyage there in 1608-09. This discrepancy opens new questions about the chronology of this Bolognese painter and the reconstruction of his career.

The Musicians was undoubtedly Caravaggio’s most frequently imitated musical painting. An impressive number of concerts by Caravaggesque painters were derived from it. Whereas the paintings by Caravaggio’s earliest followers, those executed during the first two decades of the seventeenth century, adhere closely to the original and generally depict a chamber concert with musical scores, painting in later decades, especially by foreign artists, present scenes which are substantially different. The Concert by Lionello Spada belongs to this first category.

In this painting the emphasis falls on the ludicrously foppish gull, his dress so extravagant, and his exaggerated stance based on the contrapposto of classical sculpture, while the majestic gypsy was perhaps inspired by the Borghese Zingarella.

It can be noted that Spada’s language figuratively embraces Caravaggio’s, but is stylistically closer to the “academic” vision of the Carracci.