GIOVAN BATTISTA GAULLI, called il Baciccio Portrait of Alessandro VII Chigi 1668-1670

GIOVAN BATTISTA GAULLI, called il Baciccio Portrait of Alessandro VII Chigi 1668-1670 approximately Collection Chigi Albani Della Rovere Oil on canvas, cm 90 x 78 The painting we are examining, recently appeared on the Italian market (Ancient paintings and 19th century paintings, Wannenes 3.12.2013), is an original replica of the portrait of Pope Alessandro VII Chigi owned by the National Gallery for Foreign Art of Sophia. It has been made popular by Francesco Petrucci who has also published our painting of the collection Chigi Albani Della Rovere di Castel Fusano, as an authentic version by Gaulli (Francesco Petrucci, Baciccio. Giovan Battista Gaulli 1639-1709. Bozzi publishing, Roma 2009. Pages 147 and ss; cat A8, with special reference to cat. A9a). Rediscovered by Petrucci in 2009 in Sophia and published in the monograph mentioned above, the Bulgarian prototype, already in the Collection Messinger (collection lost in 1918 after a public auction in Munich), was made popular together with a second canvas found in the same situation, the portrait of Mario Chigi, Alessandro VII's brother, currently residing in the the same museum of the Bulgarian Capital. Actually, the two portraits in Sophia, especially the one of Pope Chigi, are the most remarkable of Baroque portrait painting, a sort of counterpart to the coeval sculpture by Bernini and, in fact, they are considered similar to it. The high quality of Alessandro VII in Sophia allows us to see a very good painting layer and it is easy to recognise the hand of the master either in the perfect definition of the portrait or in the layer of the papal clothing. The soft refinment and the iridiscent brightness of Gaulli's chromatism (an artist who managed to make an official portrait the best expression of the Baroque naturalism) are evident especially on the pope's face and hands of our painting. The mozzetta and the biretta show a layer which is slightly less vibrated than the one in the Bulgarian prototype, but, in any case, it is an enamelled substance with an intense command of the light that confers solidity on the whole figure and this is a clear evidence of an original painting. Petrucci dated the prototype of Alessandro VII in Sophia to 1666, so that our replica might be dated not later than later 1670. Petrucci reports that features of the authentic replica Chigi such as the seven pairs of buttons instead of the six ones in the version in Sophia and the extension of the mozzetta can confirm a clear evidence of the origin of the painting: the house of Colonna. Actually, there was a friendly familiarity between Flavio Chigi and the Prince Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna (Petrucci, op. Cit., p. 365, A9a) There are several replicas and copies of the portrait of Pope Chigi: the one in the Civic Museum of Udine (Petrucci, op. Cit, p. 364, A9a) and the one in Walters Art Gallery of Baltimore, some copies of good make can be found in the depository of the Civic Museum in Siena, in the National Museum of Stokholm and in the gallery of Chigi palace in Ariccia. The painting is in a sound state.