Post Memorial Day Auction
Lot 27:
Description
A 17th century old master painting of St Cecilia playing a violin, wearing a white blouse and attributed to Orazio Gentileschi, an Italian painter from Pisa. Orazio Gentileschi (1563-1639) was in Rome by the time he was sixteen and began a career of painting for Popes including Sixtus V, Clement VIII and Paul V. He became close friends with Michelangelo Caravaggio. This painting is almost identical to the St. Cecilia at the Detroit Institute of Arts (Attached). In fact Keith Christiansen, former head of European Paintings at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, stated after seeing and confirming the work, “Orazio used tracing both to replicate compositions and to do variants of them”. Saint Cecilia was a Roman Christian virgin martyr, who is venerated in Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, and the Church of Sweden. She became the patroness of music and musicians, it being written that, as the musicians played at her wedding, Cecilia “sang in her heart to the Lord”. Provenance: Provenance:The painting was released from the Szepmuveszeti Muzeum, Hungary, around 1950s (as several museum labels indicate-probably on loan from the prominent Hungarian family). The painting was inherited from the Hungarian grandfather to the mother to the daughter who eventually moved to Portsmouth NH from Hungary. It was sold to an NH art collector in 2013, examined first by Skinners Auction in Boston who forward it to Keith Christiansen in 2015-2016 timeframe, who emailed his review to the NH art collector on August 5th 2016 and finally given to NH Auctions in 2025. Dimensions: 29″ x 38″ Image size, 36 x 45″ Overall
Condition report:
Needs professional restoration to gain full value of this masterpiece
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