(Turin 1692–1761)
Portrait of Charles Emmanuel III, Duke of Savoy and King of Sardinia, wearing Armour and the Order of the Annunziata and his second wife Polyxena, born Princess of Hesse-Rheinfels-Rotenburg,
oil on canvas, oval, 69 x 52 cm and 71 x 52.5 cm, framed, a pair (2)

We are grateful to Arabella Cifani for suggesting the attribution. Her written analysis accompanies the present lot.

Charles Emmanuel III (1701–1773) was the Duke of Savoy and King of Sardinia from 1730 until his death in 1773.

Maria Giovanna Battista Clementi, also known as La Clementina was a portraitist active in the Savoy court in Turin in the first half of the eighteenth century. Unlike most women painters of the period, she undertook an artistic career independent from family connections: her father was a surgeon, and little is known about her husband, Giuseppe Bartolomeo Clementi. She was a mother of at least ten children, including two priests.

The present pair of paintings are early examples of the artist’s works. La Clementina trained under the court painter Giovan Battista Curlando (1648–1710), who introduced her to portraiture. However, her work also bears the influence of Pietro Antonio Pozzi, with whom she collaborated in the early 1720s and the Swedish portraitist Martin van Mytens, who visited Turin in the late 1720s, as well as French painters who worked for the Piedmontese aristocracy.

La Clementina began her career by producing portraits of the Savoy Royal Family to be sent to other European courts and thereby her reputation spread across Europe. She was commissioned to paint portraits by the most powerful ruling families of the continent. As well as the Savoy Royal Family, she worked for the Habsburgs, the Hesse, and the Bourbons (both the French and the Spanish branch). The present pair of paintings possess many characteristics typical of la Clementina’s early period.

Arabella Ciffani, in her analysis, lists and illustrates a very similar portrait of the Queen at Racconigi, Castello Reale, and another one at the Santuario di Vicoforte di Mondovì. There are far fewer variations of the Portrait of the King, according to Cifani. A much weaker example in a simpler composition is in Racconigi, Castello Reale. Cifani intends to publish the present pair in her forthcoming book on Piemontese portraiture. Cifani comments on the frames: ‘Le cornici dei due dipinti, particolarmente sontuose, sono di tipologia piemontese settecentesca, come si può notare da un confronto con analoghi modelli presenti in residenze sabaude’ [‘The particularly sumptuous frames of the two paintings are of the eighteenth-century Piedmontese type, as can be seen from a comparison with similar models in Savoy residences.’].