Giulio Benso

Unidentified collector's mark (L.3000), with inv. no. 48 and attribution to Joseph Porta dit/Le Salviatti;

bears unidentified collector's mark with initials AG

Newcome-Schleier, 'Giulio Benso', Paragone, 1979 (September), p. 35, pl. 34a, p. 40, under note 31

S.C. Lumetta, The Art of Giulio Benso. Genoese Figure between Mannerism and Baroque, Ph.D. dissertation, Art and Art History. Université Paris sciences et lettres; Università degli studi di Roma “Tor Vergata”, no. D155, rep.

The subject of this drawing by the Genoese artist Giulio Benso is an allegorical representation of the story of Palamedes inventing the game of chess during the Trojan War (see also the following lot). It depicts a chess game between a boy and a soldier, in the presence of a crowned female figure seated under a baldachin, along with a group of soldiers. The present sheet is intended for transfer and is in reverse with respect to the related print, known in different impressions (one of which is included in the present lot), by Camillo Cungi (1570/80-1649).

Besides this and the following lot, two further drawings by Benso related to this composition are known, each with small variations, respectively in a private collection and in the National Museum in Warsaw.¹ Stefania Lumetta, in her Ph.D. dissertation (see Literature), has analysed the sequence of the drawings, suggesting the evolution of Benso’s creative process in developing the present composition. According to Lumetta’s reconstruction, the first study, least similar to Cungi’s engraving, is the one mentioned above, sold on the art market and now in a private collection, followed by the drawing in the following lot (Lumetta, no. D153, rep.).² In both of these drawings, the seated soldier in the foreground, seen from behind, has both hands on his hips - a detail that changes in the later versions, including the present sheet and in the engraving. The third drawing, in the National Museum in Warsaw, is closer to the engraving, though the present sheet is rightly considered by Lumetta to represent the final stage in Benso’s inventive process. Although the commission is undocumented, Lumetta dates all the known drawings and the related print to 1650.

Cungi was an engraver from Borgo San Sepolcro, active in Rome and Genoa, who often collaborated with Benso, translating the painter’s inventions into prints. One of the engravings of this composition by Camillo Cungi, after Giulio Benso’s invention, shows on the shields held by the two boys standing at the left and right of the central scene the coats of arms of the Pallavicini (left) and Centurione (right) families (see M. Newcome, op. cit., 1979, 335, p. 35). These two families were influential dynasties in the government of Genoa for centuries. It has been suggested that the Doge Agostino Pallavicini (1577-1649) may have been the patron of this project, intended to commemorate historical events involving his family and the Centurione family (see M. Faber, Das Schachspiel in der europäischen Malerei und Graphik, Wiesbaden, 1988, pp. 120-152).³

Moreover, Benso’s composition was adapted by Cungi for different patrons by changing the coats of arms on the engraving. For example, one impression shows the coat of arms of Cardinal Marzio Ginetti from Velletri (see M. Faber, op. cit., pp. 138–141, rep.).

^1.Respectively: New York, Christie's, 26, January 2023, lot 11; previously with Colnaghi, London (exh. cat., Master Drawings, New York, 1989, no. 16, rep.); Warsaw, National Museum, inv. no.: Rys. Ob. d. 295; see, Lumetta, D.152 and D.154, both reproduced

^2.Interestingly, this drawing is also indented for transfer and must have been a discarded idea, although quite advanced in the process towards the final engraved composition

^3.The presence of the motto in the print Mens non Fors, on the sash worn by the boy, clarifies the allegorical meaning of the chess game as an opposition between intellect and strength, and adds to the motto in the written in capital letters on the foreground, Munit et Arcet (defends and protects)