Port of Ostia in Calm Weather
Port of Ostia in Calm Weather
- Artist
- Leonardo Carlo Coccorante
- Artist Dates
- 1680-1750
- Artist Nationality
- Italian
- Title
- Port of Ostia in Calm Weather
- Date
- 1740s
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 127 x 177.5 cm (50 x 69-7/8 in)
- K Number
- K1665
- Repository
- Lowe Art Museum
- Accession Number
- 61.029.000
- Notes
Provenance
Marchese Ugo Pietro Spinola, Rome. Acquired c. 1929 and donated anonymously to the Presbyterian Hospital, New York; (Sale, Parke-Bernet, New York, 26 January 1949, no. 82 with pendant): William Oelschlager, New York. [1] (Duveen Brothers, Inc., New York and London); sold to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation on 28 June 1949 as Luigi Carbone; gift 1961 to the Lowe art Museum, University of Miami, Coral Cables, no 61.029.000. [1] Correspondence between Oelschlager and the Presbyterian Hospital, Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: reel 86, box 231, folder 23.
Catalogue Entry
Leonardo Carlo Coccorante
Port of Ostia in Calm Weather
K1665
Coral Gables, Fla., Joe and Emily Lowe Art Gallery, University of Miami (61.29 and 61.30), since 1961.(1) Canvas. K1665, 50 x 69 7/8 in. (127 x 177.5 cm.); K1666, 50 1/4 x 70 3/4 in. (127.7 x 179.9 cm.). Inscribed (K1665, at lower right; K1666, at lower left): LC (written as a monogram). Both in good condition; cleaned 1961. These are among a considerable number of known paintings bearing Coccorante's initials inscribed as a monogram, the C intersecting the base of the L.(2) They exhibit a remarkable uniformity of subject matter and style: seaside views with ruins, imaginative, somewhat fantastic interpretations of actual, but seldom precisely identifiable scenes. The mood tends to be somewhat foreboding and sinister, even reminiscent of Monsù Desiderio (K1540, Fig. 176). The crumbling columns and arches are being devoured by a fleecy, creeping moss; an eerie light is reflected from spotty, cumulus clouds; and the restless figures hurry about as if impelled by a sense of impending disaster. The figures in K1665 and K1666, as commonly in Coccorante's pictures, are likely by other artists. The chronological development of Coccorante's style has not been charted; K1665 and K1666 would seem to belong to his maturity, well after the beginning of the eighteenth century. There is no basis for the identification of subject matter with which these two paintings entered the Kress Collection, as Port of Ostia, and their association with the story of the Argonauts is purely speculative. Their attribution to Luigi Carbone was challenged years ago.(3) Provenance: Marchese Ugo Pietro Spinola, Rome. Duveen's, New York. Kress acquisition, 1949.
References
(1) Catalogue by F. R. Shapley, 1961, p. 76, as Coccorante. (2) A number of these signed paintings, including K1665 and K1666, have been published by O. Ferrari, in Emporium, vol. CXIX, 1954, pp. 9 ff. Other examples of Coccorante's painting especially suitable for comparison with K1665 and K1666 are published by M. Soria, in Arte Antica e Moderna, nos. 13-16, 1961, pp. 439 ff., figs. 216c and d, 217c. (3) By R. L. Douglas (in ms. opinion), who was the first to attribute them to Coccorante.