A regrettable New Acquisition

Ludovico Carracci (1555-1619)
"Vision of Saint Francis"



While listing all the current shows last week,
I discovered this one
I hadn't known about,
so I had to run downtown
and see it.

Ouch!

Flaccid, insipid,
saccharine,
and completely enervated.

Like what you'd expect to find
in a parish gift shop.

(and at 14" X 11",
it's not much larger
than a big postcard)




Here's some detail views
from
the auction house
that sold it.







Why would anyone attribute this
to the same artist ....




...who painted this version
from the National Gallery, London
(dated 1583-6)




Christie's quotes
a leading scholar as follows:



Brogi, however, dates this copper to c.1602-1604, comparing it to the Genoa Annunciation and to the Birth of Saint John the Baptist, Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale, which displays evident parallels to the present lot in the profile of the Virgin and the treatment of the hands and draperies. 'The enameled luminosity of the color', he writes, 'notwithstanding the nocturnal ambience, the exquisite drawing and above all the totally idealised delicacy of the forms and even more of the sentiment lead one to a much later dating [than previously thought], and place this work in the middle of of the most decisively classicising phase of Ludovico's career'.


Text on the A.I.C. site picks up on that "classicising" theme as it asserts that the Carracci "transformed painting in Bologna at the end of the 16th century into the compelling blend of classical and naturalistic elements that would dominate 17th-century Italian painting"


But one should note
that everything
about the attribution
of this painting
is speculative.

The artist
did not sign
or date it.

There is no original
bill of sale,
and incredibly enough,
its provenance
only goes back
to 1973.

The primary value
of this piece
is the scholarship
that has enshrined it.
(which primarily consists of
A. Brogi's 1989 PHD dissertation)


And yet,
the A.I.C.
paid $842,500 for it.




Ludovico

The Carracci family
is best known
in America
for its sketches
which show up
in almost every exhibit
of Italian master drawings,
and the A.I.C.
owns quite a few of them.

Ludovico

Agostino

Annibale



Ludovico




All of which
are so much stronger
than the
newly acquired painting.

It's fun
to go through
the rest of
Christie's Sale #2282
and dream
about how you'd
like to spend $842,000

So many of the lots
are long on famous names
but short
on aesthetic quality.

It may be some consolation
that the A.I.C.
could have spent much more
and gotten even less.





...................




Note:
a discussion of
recent AIC accessions
can be found
here

The worst
would have to be
this one,
while I'm quite fond of
this one


Why hasn't the

A.I.C. blog
ever discussed
the new acquisitions
of historic art?

The A.I.C.
is so secretive
about everything.

No listing of acquisitions,
no listing of de-accessions,
no listing of personnel.

And even the participants
in its own blog
are mostly anonymous
except to insiders.