(Genoa 1635–1676 Venice)
Joseph interpreting dreams,
oil on canvas, 146 x 198.5 cm, framed

We are grateful to Anna Orlando for confirming the attribution and for her help in cataloguing the present lot.

Langetti’s manner of painting is consistent throughout the course of his brief career and it is characterised by the great speed of his densely laden brushwork together with a tendency to use a dark pallet. In his compositions, importance is given to the nude figure, as well as to an intensity of expression and gesture. His usual choice of positioning the figure’s torso on a diagonal invites the viewer to look beyond the picture plane, conferring vitality and dynamism to his images.

The present canvas is previously unpublished and demonstrates great quality and painterly confidence. Orlando suggests that it should be considered as among the master’s finest works.

The subject, drawn from the Bible (Genesis 40: 18-19), was handled by Langetti on various other occasions and in differing formats, both vertical and horizontal, according to his frequent habit of revisiting subjects, probably in response to specific commissions from patrons, reflecting the success he enjoyed during his career.

Other autograph versions of this subject are in both public and private collections including the Bob Jones University, Greenville, South Carolina (132 x 166 cm), Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest (135 x 111 cm); Collezione Borromeo, Isola Bella, Lago Maggiore (76 x 100 cm); Scönbron-Wiesentheid Gallery, Pomersfelden (130 x 105 cm, oval); Palazzo Durazzo Pallavicini, Genoa (109 x 99 cm); Brukenthal Museum, Sibiu, Rumania (109 x 125 cm); and another, formerly with Galleria Lampronti, Rome (136 x 180 cm), see op. cit. Stefani Mantovelli, 2011, cat. nos. 62, 63, 64, 113, 117, 119, 120, 157. According to Orlando it is of significance that the present painting is larger than all those mentioned, and it confirms its prominence, which is reinforced by this work’s exceptional quality.

In the present compostion the arrangement of figures appear elegant and composed and this work reveals Langetti’s painterly qualities. The application of paint is rich and the colouring is varied. A sense of classicism is evident in the figure of Joseph, that is treated to display his sculpturally arranged form. The same pose, which is similar except for the positioning of the legs, is in Langetti’s Samson in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nimes. As in the Nimes painting it is possible to note the ‘more harmonious and rounded modelling of the limbs’, with ‘the nude body illuminated by highlighting’ such as Stefani Mantovanelli observes in the Samson showing the painter’s interest in the work of Gian Lorenzo Bernini (op. cit. Stefani Mantovanelli, 2011, pp. 159-160).

Orlando has suggested that this work should dated to 1650s or the early 1660s.