(Genoa 1609–1664 Mantua)
The Departure of Abraham to Canaan,
oil on canvas, 150 x 173.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Duchi Durazzo Pallavicini Negrotto Cambiaso, Castello di Arenzano (from 1645-1978); with Napoleone Zecchini, Milan 1978;
sale Semenzato, Florence, 11-12 November 1987, lot 119a (as Giovanni Battista Castiglione, il Grechetto);
sale Finarte, Milan, 21 November 1996, lot 19 (as Giovanni Francesco Castiglione);
European private collection

We are grateful to Mary Newcome-Schleier for confirming the attribution. We are also grateful to Timothy Standring and Jonathan Bober for both independently confirming the attribution of the present work on the basis of a high resolution digital photograph.

According to Newcome-Schleier, the present composition is related to a smaller painting of the same subject in Dresden (71.5 x 138.5 cm). In both paintings the patriarch and his wife on a horse are set in a pastoral landscape, following a young man carrying a pitcher on his shoulder.

With extensions in the upper and lower area of the canvas, the present work is also related to Grechetto’s painting in the Brignole-Sale collection, signed and dated 175(4?) in the Galleria di Palazzo Rossi in Genoa (186 x 282 cm). In this work, the two figures accompanying the patriarch are missing, the groups of figures and animals are arranged in a more complex manner, and framed on the right by two large vases.

Newcome-Schleier notes that the buildup of pastosity of paint in the area of the still life in the foreground, and the thinner application of colour in the figures in the background may indicate that the painter began finishing the work in the foreground, possibly without completing the work as a whole. The painting is a rare example in which the underdrawing of the hands and faces of several figures, as well as several of the details executed with only a few, rapid brushstrokes, are clearly visible, as can be seen in the lustrous, vertically-held vase. The Rembrandtesque quality of the patriarch and the well-proportioned animals and figures, together with the sweeping application of colour, suggest that the painting dates to the late 1630s or early 1640s.Timothy Standring concurs with these dates.

Castiglione returned to Genoa in 1637 where he remained until 1647-48. Many paintings attributed to Castiglione from this period are recorded in the inventories of important Genoese families, including the Spinola, Raggi, Balbi, Doria, Durazzo, Invrea and Lomellini, demonstrating that he was already one of the city’s most renowned painters.
If the painting dates from this period, then the present work is the earliest in a group of Castiglione’s paintings purchased by the Durazzo Pallavicini family, and may well have also inspired the Brignole-Sale family, for whom he worked from 1641 onwards, to commission a larger painting with a similar composition.

Castiglione was a pupil of Giovanni Battista Paggi and through his teacher he came into contact with the diverse range of stylistic trends in Genoa; late Mannerism, early baroque Classicism, Flemish Naturalism and local Genoese Realism. He was influenced by the works of Giovanni Andrea de‘Ferrari and Anthony van Dyck. His later interest in Sinibaldo Scorza and Jan Roos’ landscapes with animals, as well as Bassano’s biblical scenes, can be clearly perceived in his works. He travelled to Rome and Naples, later working in Venice and at the courts in Parma and Mantua. Most of his paintings show scenes taken from the life of the Old Testament patriarch, enriched with figures of animals and still life elements and executed with extreme technical skill, such as the present work. His son Giovanni Francesco Castiglione was also a painter, and closely followed his father’s style.