(Venice 1570–1596)
Angelica and Medoro,
inscribed on the trunk: Angelica Me…,
oil on canvas, 77.5 x 108.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Mario Barbieri collection, Padua (as Alvise Benfatto del Friso);
thence by descent to the present owner

Literature:
C. Ridolfi, Le maraviglie dell’arte, 2nd edition, Padua 1837, p. 85;
C. Crosato Larcher, Per Carletto Caliari, in: Arte Veneta, 21, Venice 1967, pp. 108-109, fig. 119;
T. Dalla Costa, Paolo Veronese e la bottega. Le botteghe dei Caliari, in: Paolo Veronese. L’illusione della realtà, exhibition catalogue, ed. by P. Marini/B. Aikema, Verona 2014, p. 324

We are grateful to Thomas Dalla Costa for his help in cataloguing this lot.

Carlo Caliari, called Carletto, was the youngest and most talented son of Paolo Veronese (1528–1588) and the present picture is a significant example of his oeuvre.

Born in 1570, Carletto was initially trained in his father’s workshop, where he was also influenced by the teaching of his uncle Benedetto (1538–1598). His apprenticeship then continued in the workshop of Francesco Bassano (1549–1592), although it is believed to have been more of a partnership, between 1585–1587. After Veronese died in 1588, Carletto joined Benedetto and his brother Gabriele, forming the ‘Haeredes Pauli Caliari Veronensis’ and continuing his father´s workshop. Carletto unfortunately died at only twenty-six years of age in 1596.

The subject of Angelica and Medoro is taken from the epic poem Orlando furioso by Ludovico Ariosto (1516). Medoro, a follower of the Saracen leader Dardinello, is seriously wounded after attempting to rescue the body of his Prince from the Christian camp. Angelica, daughter of the king of China, heals his wounds and then falls in love with him and the poem goes on to recount of Angelica and Medoro’s union as they visit forest groves carving their names on trees and rocks. Carletto represents the moment when the two lovers are carving their name into a tree trunk, while one putto is seated on the left with a torch and a sheep and another putto is walking towards them holding a goat. The painting, with its landscape of animals and flowers and rich details, bears a close relationship to the works of both his father and the Bassano family. In fact, while the underlying forms of the figures of the protagonists are clearly connected with Veronese’s oeuvre, the very detailed landscape, the diverse presence of other animals (goats and sheep, but also a couple of ducks and two birds), reveal the influence of the Northern artists and of the Bassano school. In spite of this, the silver glare of the colours, together with the details in the foliage and the treatment of the hair and adornment, sets it apart from his father’s work, and are more typical of Carletto’s own style.

If we must give credit to Carlo Ridolfi (see literature), Carletto executed this painting when he was only seventeen-years old, therefore the Angelica and Medoro would represent one of his earliest independent works. It seems likely that around 1587-88, just before his death, Paolo Veronese helped Carletto establish an independent market for his own paintings (Dalla Costa 2014, p. 324), in some cases also working on his early works (S. Gritt, Like a mirror that shows his idea…: Interaction in the Veronese Workshop, in: Paolo Veronese. A Master and His Workshop in Renaissance Venice, exhibition catalogue, ed. by V. Brilliant and F. Ilchman, Sarasota 2012, pp. 230-232). Therefore, we cannot exclude the idea that Veronese retouched and improved some of the more high quality parts of the present painting too, such as the drapery of the two main figures and Medoro’s intense face.

According to Ridolfi, Angelica and Medoro was acquired and taken to Germany by a ‘cavalier oltramontano’ (a foreign gentleman), together with a canvas showing the Death of Adonis. It is undeniable that this composition obtained immediate success, as confirmed by Aegidius Sadeler’s engraving taken from this painting (see fig. 1). Moreover, another version of the painting is known to be in Prague, at the Narodni Galerie, Stenberg Palace: the two canvases differ in format and the present painting is richer in details. The present lot also reveals a greater delicacy of touch, which is revealed in its looser and fresher brushstrokes, thus leading to the deduction that the Czech painting is a later variant.

The provenance of the present painting is not fully clear, although it is likely to be the one mentioned by Ridolfi taken north of the Alps by the ‘foreign gentleman’. In fact, it returned to Italy in the 1960s, when it entered the Barbieri collection in Padua (see literature, Crosato Larcher 1967-68, p. 108).