Portrait of Giovanni Battista Silva
Portrait of Giovanni Battista Silva
- Artist
- Attributed to Carlo Francesco Nuvolone
- Artist Dates
- 1609-1662
- Artist Nationality
- Italian
- Title
- Portrait of Giovanni Battista Silva
- Date
- c. 1660
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 106.7 x 76.2 cm (42 x 30 in)
- K Number
- K1180
- Repository
- Museum of Art and Archaeology
- Accession Number
- 61.79
- Notes
Provenance
Private Collection, Milan. (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi [1878-1955] Rome-Florence); sold to Samuel H. Kress [1863-1955] on 1 September 1939 as Francesco del Cairo or Carlo Francesco Nuvolone; gift to Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Missouri in 1961, n. 61.79.
Catalogue Entry
Attributed to Carlo Francesco Nuvolone
Portrait of Giovanni Battista Silva
K1180
Columbia, Mo., University of Missouri, Study Collection (61.79), since 1961.(1) Canvas. 42 x 30 in. (106.7 x 76.2 cm.). Inscribed on folded paper in sitter's hand: Per V [ostra] S[ignoria] M[olto] Ill[ustre] Sig[nore] Gio[vanni] Batt[ist]a Silva Mio Sig[nore] ecc.(2) Sue Mani. (For your most illustrious lordship Giovanni Battista Silva, my master, etc. Delivered into your hands.) Good condition. It is the sitter, no doubt, who is identified by the inscription on the folded paper which he holds. He is presumed to belong to the Milanese Silva family since the style of the portrait points to Milan, toward 1660. But while there is general agreement in placing the artist in the Milanese School, his identity is disputed. K1180 has been attributed to Francesco del Cairo(4) and to Filippo Abbiati,(5) as well as to Nuvolone.(6) Convincing parallels to K1180 are to be found among the few portraits which have been identified as by Nuvolone: the Family Group Portrait in the Brera, Milan, and the full-length Portrait of a Lady in the Museo d' Arte Antica, Castello Sforzesco, Milan, for example.(7) The near-impressionistic brushwork of K1180, which is executed with very small, feathery brush strokes, seems to have been characteristic of Nuvolone's technique.(8) Provenance: Private Collection, Milan. Contini Bonacossi, Florence. Kress acquisition, 1939 –exhibited: Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pa., 1950-53.(9)
References
(1) F. R. Shapley (in Missouri Alumnus, vol. XLIX, no. 8, 1961, p. 4), as attributed to Abbiati. (2) The sign used here apparently stands for ecc. (etc.). (3) In a letter of Oct. 16, 1950 (in the Kress archives), C. Baroni, of Milan, citing an entry (vol. III, SILVA, Tav. III) in C. Calvi's Famiglie notabili milanesi, suggests that the sitter in K1180 may be the Giovanni Battista Silva who was a son of the well-to-do Gian Antonio Silva (died 1647). (4) By R. Longhi, in ms. opinion. (5) By W. E. Suida, loco cit. in note 9, below. One is tempted to suggest as another possible candidate the Bolognese Benedetto Gennari, to whom a painting in the National Gallery, London, with close family resemblance to K1180, is attributed as a self-portrait; or is it possible that the London portrait, the attribution of which to Gennari has been questioned (see C. H. Collins Baker, in Burlington Magazine, vol. XXII, 1913, p. 344), may be by Nuvolone? Indeed it seems possible to see in the London portrait the same man – only some fifteen years older, perhaps – as the one who appears as a self-portrait in the Brera family group by Nuvolone. (6) By G. Fiocco, F. M. Perkins, and A. Venturi, in ms. opinions. (7) Cf. the paintings reproduced as Nuvolone's by M. P. Garberi, in Arte Lombarda, vol. XIV, pt. II, 1969, pp. 137 ff. (8) In attributing two busts of young women to Carlo Francesco Nuvolone, R. Longhi (in Paragone, no. 185, July 1965, p. 46) remarks that Nuvolone 'giunge a una morbidezza d'impasto piumoso da non dispiacere ad un buon francese intorno al 1880.' (9) Suida, in Philadelphia Museum Bulletin, vol. XLVI, Autumn 1950, p. 18, as Abbiati.