(Bologna 1629–1700)
The Massacre of the Innocents,
oil on canvas, 56,7 x 43,2 cm, framed

This monochrome painting is stylistically related to other oil sketches by Lorenzo Pasinelli. Taking up a method already employed by his first teacher Simone Cantarini, Pasinelli generally prepares the ground for his paintings using numerous studies. The original drawings were developed into monochrome oil sketches on paper with the primary goal of determining the distribution of light and shadow. There are numerous examples that illustrate this work practice and also serve to support the authorship of the sketch at hand, for example the three preserved modelli for Cornelia Swooning formerly in the Pepoli Collection (Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Inv. 6413; Grafenau, Schlichtenmaier, 1986; Bologna, private collection: cf. C. Baroncini, Lorenzo Pasinelli, Rimini 1993, p 343–345, No. 82–84), a study for the Miracle of St Antonius of Padua completed in 1689 for San Francesco and today at Bologna (Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Inv. 817: ibid., p 347–348, No. 86), as well as another sketch for an incomplete Annunciation (ibid., p 360, No. 98) once in the Heim Collection, to name just a few.

In the present work the artist appears to have sought after clear references to Guido Reni’s acclaimed Massacre of the Innocents of 1611/12 for the Berò Chapel of San Domenico (today at Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale). These are particularly evident in the fleeing woman with a child on her arm, as well as in the group of putti tossing crowns and palm leaves onto the slain children: Contemporary sources confirm that Pasinelli produced a final painting, though it still remains to be identified (N. Baldelli, Protheo vagante ammiratore delle marauigliose opere dell’immortal pennello del Signore Lorenzo Pasinelli, Bologna 1691, p 10; Baroncini, op. cit., p 266). According to Baldelli Antonio Lorenzini also produced an engraving of this painting, but again no prints have been found to date. Among the paintings remaining at the artist’s studio after his death and also listed in an inventory dated 4th August 1707 by one of his heirs, is a monochrome painting by the hand of an unknown student by the name of ‘Bartolomeo’ („Un Martirio d’Innocenti del d. o [Bartolomeo] fatt[o] à chiaro, e scuro“ [“A Massacre of the Innocents by the same (Bartolomeo), in chiaroscuro]: cf. R. Morselli, Collezioni e quadrerie nella Bologna del Seicento. Inventari 1640–1707, Los Angeles 1998, p 376, note 17). In 1783, a drawing with the same composition is mentioned in the collection of Contessa Angelica Teresa Zanchini Zambeccari („La strage degli Innocenti fatto a chiaro e scuro cavato dal pensiere del Pasinelli cornice intagliata e lastra“ [“The Massacre of the Innocents in chiaroscuro, after a composition by Pasinelli, with carved and inlaid frame”]: cf. The Getty Provenance Index Databases).

A few sketchy sections notwithstanding, the excellent quality of the draughtsmanship and the gentle elegance of the monochrome sketch as a whole allow the certain attribution to Lorenzo Pasinelli.

We are grateful to Daniele Benati, who identified the painting as the work of Lorenzo Pasinelli after inspecting it in the original, for his assistance in cataloguing the above lot.