Adoration of the Magi

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Antonio Tempesta
Adoration of the Magi
1624

About the Item

Antonio Tempesta (Florence 1555 - 1630 Rome) Adoration of the Magi Signed on the quiver-strap of the black soldier holding the two white horses: “ANT TEMPES FECI[T]” Oil on alabaster 17 ¾ x 23 5/8 inches (45 x 60 cm) Provenance: Probably Cardinal Francesco Barberini, Rome 1624 Sale, Sotheby’s, Amsterdam, Nov. 12, 1996, lot 55 Stanley Moss & Co., New York Private Collection Literature: Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, Seventeenth Century Barberini Documents and Inventories of Art, New York 1975, p. 41, doc. 330 Antonio Vannugli, “Antonio Tempesta: un retablo portátil en la cathedral de Segovia y otas pinturas sobre piedra.” In In Sapientia Libertas; Escritos en Homenaje al Profesor Alfonso E. Pétrx Sánchez, Madrid 2007, p. 233, fig. 2 (image reversed). Although paintings on slate supports first appeared in Italy toward the beginning of the Cinquecento (Vasari credits Sebastiano del Piombo with being the first to perfect the technique), it was not until the end of the century that works on colored marble, alabaster, and semi-precious stones are first encountered. Among the masters of this genre and perhaps its first practitioner was Antonio Tempesta. Although he lived in Rome from about 1580 until his death in 1630, Tempesta remained in style and temperament very much a mannerist artist of the Florentine tradition—as well befits a student of Giovanni Stradano (Jan van der Straet), the Flemish “alumnus” of the studiolo of Vasari. The theoretical idea behind pictures on stone—works of art born jointly of artifice and nature—was very much a mannerist conceit. The painter employed the striations and markings of the natural material as both a determinant of the composition and a challenge to conceive and integrate his own invention within the limits presented. That the support was in its own right a precious object of natural beauty made such paintings on stone among the most sought after objects for the Kunst-und Wunderkammern of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, devoted as they were to rarities of art and nature. Although a prolific printmaker (1461 prints by him are recorded by Bartsch), few paintings on stone by Tempesta have survived. Of these nearly all have descended in collections of noble or royal origins: the Louvre, Galleria Doria-Pamphilj and Galleria Borghese in Rome, the Galleria Sabauda in Turin, Fine Arts Museum in Budapest, and the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (whose two Hunting Scenes were recorded in the 1607 inventory of the Kunstkammer of Rudolf II of Prague). The Adoration of the Magi is especially rare, being one of Tempesta’s few signed paintings. The artist’s name is prominently, if minutely, inscribed on the quiver-strap of the elaborately dressed black soldier who restrains the two white horses at the right of the composition. In his recent article on Tempesta, Antonio Vannugli associates the present painting with a work for which Tempesta received payment from Cardinal Francesco Barberini in 1624. Vannugli posits that the Adoration of the Magi’s absence from later Barberini inventories suggests that it was intended as a gift, probably for a non-Roman recipient. As with Tempesta’s other works on stone, the artist exploits and incorporates features of the natural colors of the alabaster in his composition. Here, most prominently, he uses the brilliant yellow gold to form the heavenly cloud in which God the Father and a host of angels appear. Natural patterns in the stone form the basis of the terrain on which the scene takes place, while the myriad details of figures and objects are created by the clever use of opaque paints, translucent glazes, and unpainted reserves.

Creator:
Antonio Tempesta (1555 - 1630, Italian)
Creation Year:
1624
Dimensions:
Height: 17.75 in (45.09 cm)Width: 23.625 in (60.01 cm)
Medium:
Alabaster,Oil
Movement & Style:
Old Masters
Period:
17th Century
Condition:
Gallery Location:
New York, NY
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU1027009402