(Pesaro 1612–1648 Verona)
Lot and his daughters,
oil on canvas, 122 x 148 cm, framed

Provenance:
Collection of Marchese Niccolò Rangoni Machiavelli, Modena;
sale, Casa d’Aste Meeting Art , 26 April 2015, lot 250;
Private European collection

Literature:
M. Pulini, Le antinomie di Simone Cantarini, Fano per Simone Cantarini Genio ribelle, exhibition catalogue, Fano 2012, p. 103, note 16.

The scene depicted in the present composition is based on chapter 19 of the Book of Genesis. While Lot’s daughters pour wine for him, Sodom and Gomorrah are consumed by the fire of heaven, with smoke rising from the region as if from a fiery furnace. This was a popular subject in the seventeenth century and is also a recurring theme in Cantarini’s oeuvre. Two related drawings by Cantarini are known, one is in the Pinacoteca di Brera, inv. no. 515 (see M. Cellini, in: A. M. Ambrosini Massari et al., Simone Cantarini nelle Marche, exhibition catalogue, Venice 1997, p. 185, no. 44), and the other is in the Museo Horne in Florence (inv. no. 6189H). Both are pencil drawings characterised by a highly naturalistic description of shadow and detail (M. Cellini, Disegni di Simone da Pesaro, Cinisello Balsamo 1996, p. 112, no. 9).

The present composition by Cantarini is also known from another autograph painting which was exhibited in Bologna in 1997 (see Simone Cantarini detto il Pesarese 1612–1648, ed. by A. Emiliani, exhibition catalogue, Bologna-Milan 1997) and sold at Christie’s, Rome, on 7 December 1999 (lot 959). However, unlike the present painting, it seems to have remained unfinished. Anna Maria Ambrosini Massari remarks that the two paintings (written communication): ‘demonstrate Cantarini’s extraordinary ability to move with eclectic agility among the magisterial influences of Reni, which here stimulate a distillation of perfectly calibrated classical formalism […] in the wake of his closest moments to the master, around 1637: the fatal year before the quarrel that would separate them forever […]. This ability to alternate his sources […] was to remain a constant for Cantarini, even at an advanced stage of his career.’

Cantarini’s varying language of form, as described by Ambrosini Massari, was influenced by the artist’s relationship to his teacher, Guido Reni, and he was one of the latter’s most outstanding pupils. As a self-taught artist, Cantarini had already studied the work of Reni and his contemporaries by the time he entered the master’s studio. His work also reveals a strong influence of Raphael and of Federico Barrocci (see E. Negro, M. Pirondini, La scuola di Guido Reni, Modena 1992, p. 111). Cantarini’s admiration for Reni prompted him to join his workshop in 1634, however, the relationship between the two artists is known to have been difficult. Cantarini sought to stand out by using his own language of form and by placed emphasis on his own style (see R. Morselli, in: Simone Cantarini detto il Pesarese 1612–1648, exhibition catalogue, Milan 1997, p. 114). In the present composition, he therfore approached the theme of Lot and his daughters, which Reni treated in his painting from 1615-16 (National Gallery, London, inv. no. NG193), from an entirely different perspective. Not only is the present composition strongly governed by geometry and diagonals, but it also differs from Reni’s composition with regard to the landscape background, drawing its stylistic inspirations from Federico Barocci.

Cantarini’s painting displays an idiosyncratic style based on a careful analysis of painterly effects using the suggestive force of colours and their nuances, with carefully positioned figures. The way in which the artist combined Bolognese classicism with a bold naturalism made him celebrated among his contemporaries and also brought him important patrons.