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Dimensions: measurements note 121 by 98.3 cm.; 47 5/8 by 38 3/4 in.
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Provenance: J. Baptiste de Boyer, Seigneur d'Aiguilles, Aix en Provence, by 1709;
Sir Arthur Du Cros Bt.,Canons Park, Middlesex, by 1916, where it hung in the dining room (see fig. 3);
By descent to Roy Du Cros, from whom acquired by the husband of the late owner in 1959.
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Literature: J. Coelemans, Receuil des plus beaux tableaux du Cabinet de Messire J.B. Boyer, seigneur d'Aiguilles, Conseilleur au Parlement d'Aix, Aix en Provence 1709, reproduced 2nd ed., 1744, plate XXXIII;
C. Manzitti, Valerio Castello, Genoa 1972, p. 134, no. 56, reproduced (engraving);
C. Manzitti, Valerio Castello, Turin 2004, p. 237, under C7 (listed under 'Lost works known through copies'). ENGRAVED
By J. Coelemans, 1709 (fig. 1).
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Notes: PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF THE LATE MARGARET HARTOG
This masterpiece of seicento Genoese painting has only recently come to light, and had been previously known to scholars only through an engraving made in 1709 (fig. 1), and through two copies, one in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Aix en Provence, and another in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen.υ1 The painting is recorded as early as 1709, roughly fifty years after its execution, in the collection of a certain Jean-Baptiste Boyer. It therefore seems probable, as is the case with much of Castello's oeuvre, that the painting was originally commissioned by a Frenchman, probably from the south near the border with Italy, where he was well known. This powerful composition is a tour-de-force of baroque design. The figures are arranged along a dominant diagonal and are executed with a vigorous brushwork that is typical of Valerio's maturity. The Madonna herself, her head thrown back over her left shoulder, reappears in the same pose in a Flight into Egypt, her attention caught by an angel behind rather than as here, by St. Joseph. The Flight, which Manzitti dates to the 1650s and of which two bozzetti exist, employs an equally dominant upper right to lower left diagonal so that a similar dating for the present work seems appropriate. It should also be closely compared to another Holy family with the infant St John the Baptist, of very similar dimensions and also dated by Manzitti to the 1650s, in a private collection.υ2
1. See C. Manzitti, 1972, p. 134, both reproduced.
2. One in the Palazzo Bianco, Genoa, the other in a private collection, Genoa; Idem, pp. 186-88, nos. 105 & 106, both reproduced.
