IPPOLITO SCARSELLA detto LO SCARSELLINO Lot n° 15

(Ferrara, 1550 - 1620) Adoration of the Shepherds Oil on canvas applied in antique on panel, 32.5X23 cm. Provenance: Rome, private collection Traced back to the catalog of Ippolito Scarsella by Valentina Lapierre, the artist was one of the most important protagonists of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Emilian art, and the most astute critics (Mahon and Longhi) saw in him the reference of the young Guercino and the Caracci. Also important for the master's collecting fortunes, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world, were Berenson's studies, while in Italy even Longhi's impressive Officina Ferrarese failed to fully popularize his name until recent times. The canvas under scrutiny reveals interesting qualitative aspects, primarily by observing the pigments and the drapery layering, as well as the drawing and the scenic setting that attest to a homage to Venetian art. The painter's early interest in lagoon painting was certainly dictated by his father Ludovico, who, nicknamed the Paolo de' Ferraresi, according to Baruffaldi and Giulio Mancini stayed three years in Venice attending Veronese's workshop and studying Titian, Tintoretto and the Bassanos. Documenting this early predilection of taste on Ippolito's part is the celebrated Supper in the House of Simon kept at the Galleria Borghese in Rome, which, documented since the eighteenth century under the name of Caliari, turns out to be an excellent execution datable to the last decade of the century. The canvas under consideration exhibits in particular points of comparison with the Mysteries of the Rosary kept in the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary in Bondeno, which, datable to 1592, offer an adequate chronological reference. We thank Valentina Lapierre for the attribution. Reference bibliography: G. Baruffaldi, Vite de' pittori e scultori ferraresi (1697-1730), I, Ferrara 1844, p. 193, II, 1846, pp. 65-107 V. Lapierre, In the Sign of the Lion, in V. Lapierre ; M. A. Novelli, The Story of Negro Sole Re del lito moro. A rediscovered example of Scarsellino's pictorial narrative, Ferrara 2004, pp. 9-53 M. A. Novelli, Scarsellino, Milan 2008, ad vocem V. Lapierre, Scarsellino copyist between devotion and collecting, in Image and Persuasion. Seventeenth-century masterpieces from the churches of Ferrara, exhibition catalog edited by G. Sassu, Ferrara 2013, pp. 41-47