Lot Details

Description

Agostino Ciampelli

Florence, 1565 - Rome, 1630

Rest of the Holy Family during the Journey

1620 - 1630

Oil on canvas

in 36,61x47,24

The present painting comes from a Tuscan noble collection and has been attributed to Agostino Ciampelli, a Florentine painter by birth and a pupil of Santi di Tito, among the leading exponents of Tuscan Counter Reformation painting. He was active for a long period in Rome, where he settled around 1594. The attribution to Ciampelli was first proposed by Sandro Bellesi when the work was exhibited at a Florentine auction house (Pananti, 17 October 2020), and was later confirmed by Sandro Franco Nesi in October 2024 in a study titled A New Painting by Agostino Ciampelli, in which he emphasized Ciampelli’s remarkable skill as a landscape painter. Bellesi dated the work to the second half of the 1620s, during the artist’s final period of activity; Ciampelli died in Rome in 1630. The correct interpretation of the subject depicted remains difficult. Thus far, scholars have proposed reading it as a Rest during the Return from Egypt, when the Holy Family, having learned of Herod’s death, returned to Nazareth after spending several years in Egypt. Since neither the canonical nor the apocryphal Gospels specify exactly when the return took place, Jesus is usually depicted as a child of five or six years old, led by Mary and Joseph, with the scene read from right to left, in the opposite direction to that of the Flight, which is normally represented the other way round. The theme of the Rest during the Return remains relatively rare in Western art, although there are distinguished precedents, such as Correggio’s Madonna della Scodella in the National Gallery of Parma, Federico Barocci’s Madonna of the Cherries in the Vatican Pinacoteca, a painting by Paolo Veronese known in several versions the most significant formerly in a Milanese private collection an fresco in Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome by Ferraù Fenzoni, and a painting by Carlo Maratta executed in 1695 for Marquis Niccolò Pallavicini, now lost but known through various derivations. In all these cases the Christ Child appears approximately five or six years old, whereas in Ciampelli’s painting he is clearly older, already an adolescent of about twelve years the age he had when the Holy Family travelled from Nazareth to Jerusalem and following the Finding in the Temple rather than during the journey toward Jerusalem, which, according to the Gospels, took place together with a group of pilgrims. In this case the work would represent a true iconographic unicum, since no comparable scenes are currently known. Particularly interesting is the meal prepared by Joseph on a stone ledge serving as a table, on which bread and cheese taken from a basket are laid out, while Mary distinguished by a wide hat tied beneath her chin with a ribbon to protect her from the sun offers Jesus a bowl containing what appears to be a soup. Essentially a picnic beneath the shelter of a leafy tree, quite different from the customary palm that characterizes landscapes of the Rest during evangelical journeys to and from Egypt, miraculously bending to offer its dates to the Holy Family. In the background, one glimpses a building before a body of water that is difficult to identify.

From the caption by Angelo Loda, presented as a guest work in the exhibition held at the Diocesan Museum of Brescia, 2025.

The painting is accompanied by an expertise by Dr. Sandro Bellesi.

The painting is also supported by diagnostic investigations, including infrared reflectography.

Dimensions

in 36,61x47,24

Provenance

Pananti Gallery, October 2020

Private Collection

Exhibitions

Guest work in the exhibition held at the Diocesan Museum of Brescia, 2025.

Conditions

Imperfections and restorations.

Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each product to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Coradi Rare Finds is merely a subjective opinion.