(Bologna 1675–1749 Rome)
The Drunkenness of Noah,
oil on canvas, 49.5 x 66 cm, framed

Provenance:
Collection of Prince René of Bourbon-Parme (1894–1962), Denmark (according to a label on the reverse);
sale, Sotheby’s, New York, 26 January 2012, lot 150 (as Bolognese School, 17th Century);
sale, Tajan, Paris, 22 March 2018, lot 33 (as Aureliano Milani);
where acquired by the present owner

We are grateful to Francesco Petrucci for confirming the attribution of the present painting on the basis of a digital photograph.

The present painting is the pendant of lot 405, sold at Dorotheum, Vienna, 30 April 2019.

Noah is portrayed stretched out and asleep, lying with abandon in an alcoholic stupor. At his shoulder Cham points him mockingly, while his two brothers Shem and Japheth hurry to cover the elderly Noah with a mantle. While Noah’s body is rendered with impressive naturalism, by the smooth modelling of his torso which is bathed in light falling from the left, his sons, steeped in shadow, are by comparison merely sketched in with fast and informal brush strokes.

The light distributed across Noah’s body contributes to the rendering of the nude figure in a sculptural manner. Noah is represented as a strong muscular man, giving Milani the opportunity for exercising his skills in human anatomy. Indeed, Aureliano Milani’s production is typically characterised by the male nude and somewhat taught, muscular, anatomies, pervaded by a mannerist undercurrent, which is also typical of the Bolognese tradition. The pose taken up by Noah is reminiscent for example of Michelangelo, and particularly his sculpted figure of Night for the tomb of Giuliano de’ Medici in the New Sacristy of San Lorenzo, Florence. The torsion in the bust of Noah also distantly revisits classical prototypes such as the Torso del Belvedere in the Vatican Museum.

Aureliano Milani worked between Rome and his native city of Bologna. After an initial apprenticeship with his uncle he studied with Lorenzo Pasinelli before entering the studio of Cesare Gennari. When he was in Rome in the 1720s he espoused a return to the art of the Carracci and became recognised as among the foremost painters of the Bolognese school. He received important commissions among which the most prestigious was the frescoed vault decoration of the Galleria degli Specchi of Palazzo Doria Pamphilij in 1733.