(Genoa 1609/1616–1664/1670 Mantua)
A satyr and flock near a herm,
oil on canvas, 36 x 70.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private European collection

We are grateful to Anna Orlando for endorsing the attribution of the present painting on the basis of a photograph. She dates this work to circa 1632–1633, during Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione’s first stay in Rome. Her written analysis accompanies this lot.

The balanced arrangement of the figurative and landscape elements, as well as the dominating earthy ochre tones with highlights in blue, red and green are typical of Grechetto’s work. The horizontal composition of this painting relates to two similar works by Grechetto representing Circe and Ulysses and Juno with Io and Argus, both in private collections (see Anna Orlando, Gio. Benedetto Castiglione. Il Grechetto Genovese a Roma. Commitenza e opera, Genoa 2022, cat. nos. 4a, 4b, pp. 104–107). Despite the differing measurements, Orlando has suggested, that the three paintings may have been part of a series created for the decoration of a private room, such as a studiolo of one of his collectors.

Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione was born in Genoa in 1609. During the 1620s he trained in the studio of Sinibaldo Scorza, as well as being influenced by the work of Giovanni Battista Paggi and Andrea de Ferrari, in an artistic climate heavily influenced by the Genoese sojourns of Rubens and Van Dyck. From 1632 he is documented with his brother Salvatore in Rome where within a brief period of time he was elected a member of the Accademia di San Luca. His exposure to Rome’s cultured circles, the influence of Nicolas Poussin’s painting evoking the ancient classical world, as well as his subsequent contact with the Neapolitan art world, in particular with Aniello Falcone and Andrea De Leone, were to be determining and transformative factors in Castiglione’s assimilation of the Baroque style. Subsequently he resided in Rome for a second time between 1647 and 1651. At the start of the 1650s Grechetto was summoned to the court of the Gonzaga where he worked for over a decade, also acting as an agent in the acquisition of paintings for the ducal collections. He died in Mantua in 1664.