Holy Family with the Infant Saint John and an Angel
Framed: 86 1/2 x 61 1/4 x 4 inches (219.71 x 155.58 x 10.16 cm)
A
Bountiful Decade: Selected Acquisitions, 1977–1987, The
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, October 14–December 6,
1987, no. 47
Special Loan, Saint Louis
Art Museum, March 29–June 20, 1988, no cat. Van Dyck a Genoa, Grande
Pittura e Collezionismo, Palazzo Ducale, Genoa, March 22–July
13, 1997, no. 13. Procaccini in America,
Hall and Knight, Ltd., New York, October 15–November 23, 2002, no. 6. L’Età
di Rubens: Dimore, committenti e collezionisti genovesi,
Genova Palazzo Ducale, Genoa, Italy, March 20–July 11, 2004, no. 43.
Giovanni Carlo Doria (1576–1625), Palazzo Doria di Vico di Gelsomino, Piazza dei Garibaldi, Genoa, by 1617 [1];
Probably by descent to his son Agostino Doria (ca. 1620–1640), Genoa, 1625–1640 [2];
Inherited by his uncle, Marc’antonio I Doria, 1st Prince of Angri (1572–1651), 1640–1651;
Inherited by his son, Giovan Francesco Doria (1601–1653), Palazzo Doria di Vico di Gelsomino, Genoa, 1651–1653 [3];
Possibly by descent to his son, Marc’antonio II Doria, 3rd Prince of Angri (1632–1710), 1653–1710 [4];
To his grandson, Marc’antonio III Doria, 5th Prince of Angri (1702–1760), Palazzo Doria di Vico di Gelsomino, Genoa, by 1760 [5];
Probably by decent to his grandson, Marcantonio IV Doria, 7th Prince of Angri (1765–1837), Naples, by 1837 [6];
Probably by descent to his daughter, Anna Maria (1792–1852), second wife of Don Ferdinando Colonna, 4th Prince of Stigliano (1785–1834), Naples, 1837–1852 [7];
By descent in the Colonna di Stigliano family, Naples, until about 1950 [8];
Art market, Geneva, until about 1977;
With P. and D. Colnaghi, Zürich and London, stock no. L703/C712, in joint shares with Poliarco Management, A.G., and Allwa, Zug, Switzerland, by July 20, 1977–1979 [9];
Purchased from Colnaghi by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1979.
NOTES:
[1] Giovanni Carlo Doria may have commissioned the painting from the artist. According to
Brigstocke and D’Albo, eds., Giulio Cesare Procaccini (2020, p. 331), the painting may be the one referred to as “Una Madonna del Precacchino grande del naturale fatta in due giorni cornice di mischio et oro” in the first inventory of Giovan Carlo Doria’s collection, ca. 1617. See “Inventario de’ quadri,” ca. 1617, ASN, Archivo Doria d’Angri, Naples, I, fascio 52/10, folio ff. 7r-12r, reprinted in Farina (2002, p. 192, 196), no. 284.
[2] Agostino Doria died without issue. According to Piero Boccardo, in conversation, May 1989, the picture does not appear in a 1644 inventory of Agostino’s collection.
[3] See Brigstocke and D’Albo, eds., Giulio Cesare Procaccini (2020, p. 331). Marc’antonio I Doria had an elder son, Niccolò, 2nd Prince of Angri (1599–1688), but Brigstocke and D’Albo say that Giovan Francesco was the “head of the younger branch and residing in the palace on Vico del Gelsomino, formerly Giovan Carlo’s.”
[4] Marc’antonio II Doria inherited the title of Prince of Angri after the death of his uncle, Don Niccolò I, 2nd Prince of Angri, 2nd Duke of Eboli (1599–1688).
[5] The painting is probably the one in the unpublished inventory by Lilla Grimaldi Doria (née Cebà, d. 1777) after the death of her husband Marcantonio III in 1760, as “un Quadro co’ cornice dorata rappresentante Nostra Signora co’ il Bambino e San Gio. Batta.” See Piero Boccardo, L’Età di Rubens (2004, p. 238). It is also cited as in the palace of Marcantonio III Doria by Ratti in 1766 and 1780.
[6] Marc’antonio III Doria’s son was Don Giovanni Carlo II, 6th Prince of Angri, 6th Duke of Eboli (1732–1791). Marcantonio IV Doria may have inherited the painting from his father Don Giovanni Carlo II along with the titles.
[7] Federico Zeri (in conversation, January 25, 1992) noted the picture’s provenance from the Colonna di Stigliano family; this was confirmed by Mauro Natale, Université de Genève, in a letter to Eliot Rowlands, Assistant Curator, March 29, 1992, NAMA curatorial files.
Marcantonio IV’s two daughters Giovanna (1790–1817) and Anna Maria (1792–1852) both married Don Ferinando Colonna, 4th Prince of Stigliano (1785–1834), first Giovanna and then Anna Maria upon Giovanna’s death.
[8] See note [7]. A possible line of descent is to her son, Andrea Colonna di Stigliano (1820–1872). He continued the lineage of the princes of Stigliano and had at least five children: Ferdinando, Amalia, Marcantonio, Carlo, and Filippo. See “Collona Andrea,” Patrimonio dell’Archivio Storico: Senato della Repubblica, https://patrimonio.archivio.senato.it/repertorio-senatori-regno/senatore/IT-SEN-SEN0001-000610/. Andrea’s eldest son was Ferdinando Colonna di Stigliano, 7th Prince of Stigliano (1858–1926), who was born and died in Naples. His eldest son was Andrea Colonna di Stigliano, 8th Prince of Stigliano (1885–1943). He was born in Paris and married Alys Rieben (1903–1971) in 1924 in Geneva. Their children were born in Geneva, and she died in Geneva. Possibly the painting was inherited by her and was sold after her death in 1971.
[9] COL3/8/119, Colnaghi Archive, Waddesdon Archive at Windmill Hill, Stock files series.
Carlo Giuseppe Ratti, Istruzione di quanto puo vedersi di più bello in Genova in pittura, scultura, ed architettura ecc. (Genoa: Paolo, e Adamo Scionico, 1766), 307, as Famiglia Sagra.
Carlo Giuseppe Ratti, Instruzione di quanto può vedersi di più bello in Genova in pittura, scultura, ed architettura (Genoa: I. Gravier, 1780), 332, as S. Famiglia.
Hugh Brigstocke, “G. C. Procaccini et D. Crespi: Nouvelles découvertes,” Revue de l’art, no. 48 (1980): 35, 36, (repro.).
Hugh Brigstocke, “A Procaccini Holy Family for Kansas City,” Bulletin (The Nelson Gallery and Atkins Museum) 5, (January 1981): 3–17, (repro.).
Jonathan Bober, “A ‘Flagellation of Christ’ by Giulio Cesare Procaccini: Program and Pictorial Style in Borromean Milan,” Arte Lombarda, nos. 73–75 (1985): 76n2, 76n7, 80n97, (repro.).
Around 1610: The Onset of the Baroque, exh. cat. (London: Matthiesen Fine Art, 1985), 73.
Roger Ward, ed., A Bountiful Decade: Selected Acquisitions, 1977–1987, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1987), 114, (repro.).
Hugh Brigstocke, “Giulio Cesare Procaccini (1574–1625): Ses attaches génoises et quelques autres faits nouveaux,” Revue de l’art, no. 85 (1989): 50, 52, 59n22.
Roger Ward, “Selected Acquisitions of European and American Paintings at The Nelson–Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, 1986–1990,” Burlington Magazine 133, no. 1055 (February 1991): 156.
Nicholas H. J. Hall, ed., Colnaghi in America: A Survey to Commemorate the First Decade of Colnaghi New York (New York: Colnaghi Gallery, 1992), 129.
Michael Churchman and Scott Erbes, eds., High Ideals and Aspirations: The Nelson–Atkins Museum of Art 1933–1993 (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 99–100.
Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 163, (repro.).
Alessandro Morandotti, Pittura Lombarda, 1450–1650, exh. cat. (Milan: Compagnia di Belle Arti, 1994), 50, 51, 56, (repro.).
Eliot W. Rowlands, The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: Italian Paintings 1300–1800 (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1996), 21, 239–242, 260, (repro.).
Susan J. Barnes, Van Dyck a Genoa, Grande Pittura e Collezionismo, exh. cat. (Genoa: Palazzo Ducale, 1997), 176–77, (repro.).
Hugh Brigstocke, Procaccini in America, exh. cat. (New York: Hall and Knight, 2002), 46, 86–87, 129, 158, (repro.).
Viviana Farina, Giovan Carlo Doria: promotore delle arti a Genova nel primo Seicento (Firenze: Edifir, 2002), 146, 196, 258, (repro.).
Piero Boccardo, L’Età di Rubens: Dimore, committenti e collezionisti genovesi, exh. cat. (Genoa: Skira, 2004), 238–39, (repro.).
Nancy Ward Neilson, Giulio Cesare Procaccini: disegnatore (Nomos, Busto Arsizio, 2004), 72, 77.
Daniele Cassinelli, Musei civici di Varese: catalogo dei dipinti e delle sculture, 1500–1950 (Varese: Comune di Varese, Assessorato alla cultura, Varese, 2014), 65.
Odette D’Albo, “Giulio Cesare Procaccini: Per un catalogo dei Dipinti” (PhD diss., Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore Milano, 2016), no. 59, pp. 219–20.
Hugh Brigstocke, “Three pictures by G. C. Procaccini at Conalghi: ‘The Agony in the Garden;’ ‘Christ Meeting his Mother on the Road to Calvary;’ ‘The Holy Family,’” Colnaghi Studies Journal (2017): 158.
Kristie C. Wolferman, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A History (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2020), 264.
Hugh Brigstocke and Odette d’Albo, eds., Giulio Cesare Procaccini: life and work with a catalogue of his paintings (Turin: Allemandi, 2020), no. 64, pp. 34, 66, 68–69, 81, 117, 200, 331, (repro.), as Holy Family with Saint John the Baptist and Angels.
