CARLO ANTONIO PROCACCINI Lot n° 57

(Bologna, 1571 - Milan, 1630) Drunkenness of Noah Oil on panel, 63X80 cm Provenance: Vienna, Dorotheum, Nov. 10, 2022, lot 232 (as Carlo Antonio Procaccini) Trained in the workshop of his father Ercole, with whom his brothers Camillo and Giulio Cesare also worked, the painter's presence in Milan is attested in 1590 as Camillo's collaborator on the building site of the Visconti Borromeo Villa in Lainate (Cf. A. Morandotti, Milano profana nell'età dei Borromeo, Milan 2005). If Camillo's early works reflect the workshop style, as can be seen by looking at the 'quadrone' depicting the Death of St. Charles Borromeo preserved in the Milan cathedral (Cf. M. Rosci, I quadroni di San Carlo del Duomo di Milano, Milan 1965) and the Madonna del Rosario di Erve, which constitute the most important testimonies of his public production, the painter soon chose to devote himself to the still life genre (cf. A. Morandotti, Carlo Antonio Procaccini, in La natura morta in Italia, edited by F. Porzio; F. Zeri, I, Milan 1989, p. 233; D. Dotti, Carlantonio Procaccini pittore di nature morte, in Paragone, LXII, 2011, 741, pp. 35-41) and landscape, referring to the examples of Paul Brill and Jan Bruegel. This predilection is also confirmed by his use of realizing his works on panel, apt to best evoke the expressive and chromatic delicacies of the Flemish. This aspect is very well grasped in the work under consideration, whose landscape passages, and especially the description of the trees, highlight the preciousness of his art, conducted with miniature attention and a rarefied evocation of the landscape, the backdrop of which is diluted in a delicate blue hue. But in this case we must highlight a mature and autonomous interpretation of Nordic art in a purely Italian key, which differs from the works in which the author carries out his work by faithfully replicating models, as is the case in the Paesaggio con Santa Margherita (Landscape with St. Margaret) preserved in the Ala Ponzone Museum in Cremona, which reveals itself to be blatantly a copy from Jan Brueghel (Cf. A. Lo Conte, Carlo Antonio and the bottega Procaccini, in Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 2020, pp. 13-14, figs. 5-6). This leads one to assume a mature date of execution, around the second and third decade, documenting the artist's best and most autonomous achievements. Alberto Crispo is thanked for the attribution. Reference bibliography: R. Longhi, An Italian in the wake of Elsheimer, Carlo Antonio Procaccini, in Paragone, XVI, 1965, 185, p. 43 A. Morandotti, in Pittura a Milano dal Seicento al Neoclassicismo, edited by M. Gregori, Cinisello Balsamo 1999, pp. 12-17, 235-244 A. Crispo, Carlo Antonio and the Procaccini legacy, in Paragone, LIV, 2003, 639, pp. 42-50 A. Crispo, Some proposals for Camillo Antonio Procaccini, in Parma per l'arte, XVIII, 2012, 2, pp. 69-72