18th Century, Pair of Italian Paintings with Stories of Rome by Felice Cervetti

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18th Century, Pair of Italian Paintings with Stories of Rome by Felice Cervetti

About the Item

Felice Cervetti (attributed) (Turin 1718-1779) Couple of paintings depicting Coriolano meets his mother Veturia and his wife Volumnia with their son and Clelia crosses the Tiber Oil on canvas, cm H 107.7 x L 110 cm (without frame) each The paintings presented here, in good condition and made of oil on canvas, depict two episodes related to myths and legends about the birth of the Roman Republic. The first work, presented here on the left, represents Coriolano who meets his mother Veturia and his wife Volumnia with his son, while the second canvas shows Clelia crossing the Tiber. Both episodes are told to us by Livy in his Ab Urbe seasoned books. Stylistically they are attributable to a painter active in Piedmont (Italy) in the 18th century belonging to the school of court painter Claudio Francesco Beaumont (Italy, Turin 1694 - 1766) and updated to the taste widespread in Turin in the first half of the eighteenth century. Some expressive choices are very close to the works of Felice Cervetti (Italy Turin 1718 - 1779), a painter still little studied but of which we know enough works and documents useful to outline his manner, his style and his palette. The first canvas of the two works in this studio represents Coriolano meets his mother Veturia and his wife Volumnia with their son. The scene is very accurate in the definition of the characters and details, and you can read clearly what told in the episode reported by Livy (Livy Tito, Ab Urbe seasoned books, lib. II, par. 39, 40). He tells of Gaius Marcius Coriolanus, a member of the ancient Gens Marcia, a politician and valiant general at the time of the wars against the Volsci. Under the consulate of Marcus Minucius Augurinus and Aulus Sempronius Atratinus, in 491 BC, Coriolanus strongly opposed the reduction of the price of wheat to the plebs, who took him in strong hatred. According to Livy, Coriolanus refused to go to court from the tribunes of the plebs, choosing voluntary exile with the Volsci, and for this reason he was sentenced in absentia to exile for life. Animated by strong feelings of revenge against Rome, the Volsci and Coriolano began to plot a new war against Rome. He then placed himself at the head of the Volsci, invaded the Roman territory and conquered numerous cities. The painting depicts the moment when at the gates of the city, at the fourth mile of the Via Latina, Coriolano was stopped by the entreaties of his mother Veturia and his wife Volumnia, who came with her son, who convinced him to desist from his intention to destroy Rome. The painter captures, in particular, the dialogue between his mother kneeling to him as he asks if "here we are with an enemy or a son and if in your camp I must consider myself a prisoner or a mother." Coriolano is depicted, according to tradition, as a man of high Roman military rank: with chiseled helmet with crest, armor with fringes, gladium, caligues, red mantle, shield, all with profusion of golden decorative details. Veturia and Volumnia wear long tunics and the wife is styled with tiara and pearls as befits the high rank of matron. The composition is calibrated and not static and all the characters, even the secondary ones, They appear linked to each other by the gestures of the poses while their displacement contributes to create the depth of the spaces echoed by the structures of the tents of the camp and by the glimpse of the landscape in the distance. The second work depicts Clelia crossing the Tiber. According to what Titus Livius (Patavium, 59 B.C. - Patavium, 17 B.C. (II, 12, 6-11) handed down in his "Ab Urbe condita libri", which tells of the history of Rome, Clelia was a young Roman woman who demonstrated her courage at the time when Rome was besieged by Porsenna, king of the Etruscans. The Etruscans and the Romans had stipulated peace but Porsenna, in 507 BC, had asked for nine girls hostage that the Romans had punctually delivered him. The girls soon escaped from the Etruscan camp and headed towards the Tiber. Since the Sublicio Bridge no longer existed, Clelia, the girl who led the group of fugitives, invited the girls to swim across the river. All threw themselves into the water without fear of the cold. Meanwhile, the Roman sentries had spotted them and, believing that they were enemies, gave the alarm. Led before the consuls, they were sent back to Porsenna to comply with the terms. Porsenna questioned Clelia, who had come forward to plead guilty to having instigated the other girls to flee; she proudly answered the questions, even saying that she had not repented of what she had done and that she would certainly do it again. The king was admired by the girl’s pride and impressed by the loyalty of the Romans, so he allowed Clelia to return to Rome and bring with her five other girls of his choice. Clelia chose the youngest and the same evening the six girls were able to reunite their parents. The grateful Romans honored him with an equestrian statue on the top of the sacred road. The legend is an attempt to explain an ancient equestrian statue, still seen by the most ancient annalists, of which the meaning was no longer known, and which represented, according to the most common interpretation, Venus Equestris, identified by many with the Venus Cluilia or Cloacina (hence the name Cloelia), goddess of the maximum cloaca. There is an engraving from a fresco by Polidoro Caldara, called Polidoro da Caravaggio (Caravaggio, 1499/1500 circa - Messina, 1543 circa), executed between 1525-26 a time on the facade of Santa Lucia della Chiavica (now called Gonfalone), in Rome, as Vasari remembers. On the same theme, Polidoro made another fresco, for the time of the Hall of Villa Lante, now in Palazzo Zuccari headquarters of the Bibliotheca Hertziana, in Rome. From this fresco came another engraving that De Wit erroneously attributed to Bonasone, on the invention of Rosso Fiorentino, while instead it is the work of Pierre Milan and René Boyvin. Although there are already evident relations between Polidoro and our painting, there is a print taken from a work by Andrea Procaccini (1671-1734) taken from Carlo Maratta (Camerano, 15 May 1625 - Rome, 15 December 1713) that reveals the primary inspiration for the final draft of the work. As you can see in the canvas the artist takes the freedom of invention, making some changes. Finally, there is still a variant of the same model that for knowledge we report to follow. Stylistically the two canvases can be returned to the hand of the painter Giovanni Felice Cervetti. The Turin painter Giovanni Felice Cervetti (1718-1779) enjoyed until a few years ago little critical and historical consideration and even today his figure lives of little information from eighteenth-century sources or references of generic quotations. Confused in the pleiade of the followers of Beaumont who in Turin were indeed many numerous during the course of the eighteenth century and who still lie for the most part indistinct within the convenient box of Beaumontiani, Cervetti, has been deepened on the documentary plane and its historical and artistic events. The main and fundamental source is the contemporary Francesco Bartoli, who published in Venice in 1776 the work "News of the paintings, sculptures, and architectures that adorn the churches, etc." , in which appears a detailed description of the works of Cervetti present in the churches of Turin, written at a time when the painter was still alive. Then follow the studies of Arabella Cifani and Franco Monetti who reconstruct with punctuality what is known until today. Felice Cervetti He was born in Turin on 16 October 1718 to Paolo Antonio Cervetti and Caterina with whom he lived, together with several brothers, in a house owned by the Cistercian fathers of the Consolata. He married Antonia Maria Boggietta in 1749 and one of the wedding witnesses is the painter Mattia Franceschini, as it testifies to his inclusion within the circle of painters active in Turin at the time. In 1759 he was a confrere of the Compagnia di San Luca and between 1763 and 1769 as a painter for the Arazzeria regia. He died on 2 August 1779. In artistic historiography he emerges as a follower of Claudio Francesco Beaumont, first painter of Carlo Emanuele III, also collaborator of Franceschini. He worked in several different commissions in Turin and we see him active at the sanctuary of the Consolata in Turin, in Sant'Agostino, Carmine, Crocetta, San Domenico, Santa Maria di Piazza, Santi Processo and Martiniano, in the parish church of Agliè and in the Hermitage of the Camaldolesi of Pecetto, just to name a few. He was therefore an appreciated and highly sought-after artist, working in areas limited to the territory of Piedmont. In other known works it has been shown how it was usual to draw inspiration from engravings that circulated as models, a custom also affirmed by the great masters. Characteristic of the technique of Cervetti is the color vein, strongly marked and rich in chromatic contrasts. Although, if not at the beginning, as a pupil of Beaumont, Cervetti did not work continuously in the royal entourage, he proved up to date on what painting proposed at the time and to have the ability to assimilate and rework, with remarkable technical quality, also very different styles.

Dimensions:
Height: 42.52 in (108 cm)Width: 43.31 in (110 cm)Depth: 1.19 in (3 cm)
Style:
Baroque (Of the Period)
Materials and Techniques:
Canvas,Hand-Painted
Place of Origin:
Italy
Period:
Early 18th Century
Date of Manufacture:
First Half of the 18th Century
Condition:
Refinished. Wear consistent with age and use. A restoration was carried out that removed the yellowed paint. The paintings have been repainted with a transparent and protective finish.
Seller Location:
IT
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU4405222590122

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