Belisario Corenzio

Don Gaspar Méndez de Haro y Guzman, Marqués del Carpio (1629-1687), Rome and Naples,

his sale and others, London, Christie’s, 20 March 1973, lot 12 (bt. Lowe for 380 gns.),

with Lorna Lowe, London,

from whom purchased by Ralph Holland (1917-2012), Newcastle in November 1973,

his sale, London, Sotheby's, 'Galleria Portatile' The Ralph Holland Collection, 5 July 2013, lot 256

As the inscription at the bottom of the sheet, in the hand of Padre Sebastiano Resta, records, these are preliminary studies for Corenzio's decoration in the church of the Benedictine abbey at Monte Cassino (destroyed in 1944). The 18th century writer De Dominici records that Corenzio was responsible for this project, executed between 1605 and 1609. The dome was dedicated to the Glory of St. Benedict and the pendentives to the virtues required of monastic life: Poverty, Chastity, Contemplation and Obedience. The use of blue wash is characteristic of Corenzio, as is the use of white heightening, for dramatic effect.

The present drawing came from an album from the collection of Don Gaspar Méndez de Haro y Guzman (1629-1687), which had already been dismembered prior to the 1973 sale (see Provenance), leaving about 38 drawings, mostly by Neapolitan artists.¹ The characteristic inscription in pen and brown ink at the bottom of the sheet is in the hand of the famous Oratorian priest and collector Padre Sebastiano Resta (1635-1714). Resta's calligraphy was first associated with the albums of the Marqués del Carpio by Simonetta Prosperi Valenti Rodinò, who published her findings together with Giulia Fusconi in 1983-4.²

Padre Resta and Don Gaspar knew each other from the time the Marqués spent in Rome, but in 1683, when the latter was seriously ill in Naples, the Oratorian joined him and, as suggested by Prosperi Valenti Rodinò, it was probably at this moment that Padre Resta organized the volumes systematically. The industrious Padre Resta not only classified the collection, but also acquired for the Marqués many drawings then on the art market in Naples.

The Marqués del Carpio was Viceroy of Naples from 1682 until his death. Before that he had served as Spanish Ambassador in Rome (1677-1682) and he seems to have begun collecting there, as Bellori records that he had assembled 30 volumes of drawings. His collection of drawings expanded even further when he got to Naples, with the guidance of Padre Resta; a 1687 inventory records a total of forty-three volumes.³ For a full discussion of this album, and the several others that survive in various public collections, see Beatrice Cacciotti (op. cit., note 3 below) and the articles by S. Prosperi Valenti Rodinò and other scholars, as well as the introduction to the 1973 sale catalogue.⁴

^1.Other drawings by Corenzio were included in the sale, as lots 11, 13, 14 and 15

^2.Giulia Fusconi and Simonetta Prosperi Valenti Rodinò, “Un aggiunta a Sebastiano Resta collezionista: il ‘Piccolo preliminare al grande Anfiteatro pittorico’,” Prospettiva, nos. 33–36, 1983–84, pp. 237–259

^3.Beatrice Cacciotti, 'La collezione del VII marchese del Carpio tra Roma e Madrid,' Bolletino d’Arte, 86–87 (1994), p. 175, note 35

^4.S. Prosperi Valenti Rodinò, 'Additions to the Drawings Collection of the Marqués del Carpio, Master Drawings, XLVI, no.1, 2008, pp. 3-35; see also, Mario Epifani, 'Resta e il disegno napoletano', in Padre Sebastiano Resta (1635-1714), Milanese, oratoriano, collezionista di disegni nel Seicento a Roma, Alberto Bianco et al., eds., Rome 2017, pp. 303-328; Viviana Farina, 'La collezione del Viceré: il marchese del Carpio, padre Sebastiano Resta e la prima raccolta ragionata di disegni napoletani,' in Francesco Solinas and Sebastian Schütze, eds., Le Dessin Napolitain, Rome, 2010, p. 184, p. 196, note 15.