(San Matteo della Decima 1728-1781 Ravenna)
The Madonna and Child appearing to Saints George and Francis,
oil on canvas, 56.5 x 37.5 cm, framed

We are grateful to Donatella Biagi Maino for confirming the attribution after examining the present work in the original and for cataloguing this lot.

This work is an important addition to the oeuvre of Ubaldo Gandolfi and it relates to his altarpiece, which is monogrammed and dated U:G: F/1775, for the high altar of the church of the Capuchin Franciscans of Castelbolognese; the order of Friars Minor for which the artist worked on several occasions due to the patronage of their guardian father, Doroteo Caminada da Bologna, who paid him fifty-three scudi for the altarpiece (see D. Biagi Maino, Ubaldo Gandolfi, Turin 1990, pp. 80, 266; D. Biagi Maino in: Gaetano e Ubaldo Gandolfi. Opere scelte, exhibition catalogue, ed. by D. Biagi Maino, Turin 2002, no. 20, p. 90).

This exquisite study, which Ubaldo must have used as a presentation piece for the patron should be dated to the same year as the altarpiece, or a little earlier. Indeed, the present painting. along with another preparatory study for the altarpiece at Cingoli which dates to a few years later, have been conserved together until now (see lot 92). Evidently both studies were acquired by the same collector, who appreciated the remarkable freshness of Ubaldo Gandolfi’s preparatory studies which reveal his talents in invention and studied compositions, created in multiple drawn sketches on paper. Ubaldo was a formidable draughtsman and among the finest in Italy, and his sketches reveal a great immediacy of touch and vivacity of colour. Indeed, save a few minor losses of media, the present work appears to be in a rare state of conservation, and thereby revealing the freshness in paint handling, the fine brush strokes suggesting the forms of the composition and emphasizing the highlights. A close exchange of gestures binds the picture’s protagonists: the warrior saint, the Child offering him a palm frond and Saint Francis wearing the Capuchin habit, to whom the Madonna turns in pity. The pose of the two figures of saints derive from precedents by Guido Reni whom Gandolfi especially admired, and who during the early decades of the Seicento was among the leading artists working for the same Order of Friars.

Indeed, the Saint George revisits both the palette and description of dress seen in Guido Reni’s Saint Proculus in his altar for the Mendicants (Bologna, Pinacoteca; see Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna. Catalogo Generale. 3. Guido Reni e il Seicento, Venice 2008), while Saint Francis is based on Reni’s rendering of the same saint in his celebrated canvas for the Capuchins of Faenza executed in 1613 (the painting was partially destroyed during the Second World War; see D. Biagi Maino, Guido Reni e i frati minori cappuccini: storia di una committenza, in: Prospettiva, 47, 1986, p. 65). Both Gandolfi’s figures are in reverse compared to their admired models and they are rendered with a greater degree of emphatic pathos, more typical of the era’s culture which found one of its finest interpreters in Ubaldo Gandolfi. There are very few variants between the study and the finished altarpiece: however, in the study Mary’s face is covered, rather than uncovered, by her veil. This change was likely imposed for reasons of cult, however the quasi mysterious effect of the shadow playing across her features in the study adds a quality of fascinating intensity to the divine Mother’s presence.