The Vision of Saint Louis of Toulouse
The Vision of Saint Louis of Toulouse
- Artist
- Carlo Dolci
- Artist Dates
- 1616-1687
- Artist Nationality
- Italian
- Title
- The Vision of Saint Louis of Toulouse
- Date
- c. 1675-76
- Medium
- oil on panel
- Dimensions
- 55.3 x 36.2 cm (21-3/4 x 14-1/4 in)
- K Number
- K1637
- Repository
- New Orleans Museum of Art
- Accession Number
- 61.84
- Notes
Provenance
Private collection, New York as Carlo Maratta. (Sixtina, New York); sold to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation on 6 April 1949 as Carlo Dolci; gift to the New Orleans Museum of Art in 1961, no. 61.84.
Catalogue Entry
Carlo Dolci
The Vision of Saint Louis of Toulouse
K1637
New Orleans, La., Isaac Delgado Museum of Art (61.84), since 1953.(1) Wood. 21 3/4 x 14 1/4 in. (55.3 x 36.2 cm.). Good condition. This is easily recognized as a study for the altarpiece which a contemporary(2) describes as having been commissioned in 1675 by Canon Bocchineri for his family chapel in the Church of San Francesco, Prato. Having been deposited in the Uffizi, the altarpiece was transferred to the Pitti Gallery in 1928.(3) On the back of the study, K1637, is an inscription recording the payments for the altarpiece: '1676 à 17 novembre prima partita scudi cento. 1678 à 10 di novembre seconda altri cento. 1679 à 15 di novembre, terza partita scudi cinquanta. 1681 quarta 11 novembre altri cinquanta '(4) The length of time covered by the four installments of payment, from November 1676 to November 1681, verifies a contemporary report of Dolci's slow, deliberate work on this large altarpiece.(5) The inscription would also imply that K1637, the study for the altarpiece, must date between October 1675, when the commission was given, and November 1676, when the first payment for the altarpiece was received. Differences of composition between the study and the altarpiece are minor: in the altarpiece the right hand of St. Louis is raised and the group of figures above is arranged a little more compactly than in the study. More notable are the changes in expression, which is everywhere more intense, less conventional in the study. This vision of St. Louis of Anjou, Bishop of Toulouse, is little known in the iconography of the saint; equally rare seems to be the representation of the Beata Solomea, who accompanies the Virgin and Child in St. Louis' heavenly vision.(6) Provenance: Private Collection, New York (attributed to Maratta). Sixtina, New York. Kress acquisition, 1949.
References
(1) Catalogue by W. E. Suida, 1953, p. 54, and by P. Wescher, 1966, p. 56, as Carlo Dolci. (2) F. Baldinucci (died 696), Notizie dei professori del disegno, vol. V, 1702, pp. 355 f. of 1847 ed. (3) Catalogue by A. J. Rusconi, La R. Galleria Pitti in Firenze, 1937, p. 110. (4) In the Kress Foundation archives is Dr. Suida's copy of this inscription. Such inscriptions as this one, recording payments to the artist, occur on the backs of at least two other paintings by Dolci: David with the Head of Goliath and Herodias, sold from the San Donato Collection, Florence, in 1870, nos. 148 and 149 of the sale catalogue. (5) Baldinucci (loc. cit. in note 2, above) says that the altarpiece (for which K1637 was a study) was still unfinished, in the artist's studio, when Dolci died, in 1686. Luca Giordano, when he and Dolci met in the 1680s, praised Dolci for the beauty of his work but marveled that, with his slow execution, he could make a living (see A. T. Lurie, in Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1968, p. 229 n. 15). (6) Baldinucci's description of the altarpiece (cited in note 2, above) identifies the holy woman as the Beata Solomea.