2/5/23 - Acquisitions - Washington, National Gallery of Art - Following the example of Luisa Roldán, known as La Roldana (see news item of 7/11/22), Lavinia Fontana (see news item of 31/8/22), Gretchen Woodman Rogers (see news item of 22/3/23) and Gesina ter Borch (see news item of 8/4/23), two new 17th-century Italian painters, Fede Galizia (ill. 1) and Caterina Angela Pierozzi (ill. 2), are entering the collections of the National Gallery of Art in Washington which is determined to expand its roster of women artists. Still life on panel and small Annunciation in gouache on vellum, the two new works were acquired from the Conalghi Gallery in London thanks to the Funds from Roger Sant, the Funds from Deborah Burkland and the Patrons’ Permanent Fund. Both recently rediscovered, these landmark works from the London gallery were previously exhibited at Tefaf in June 2022.
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- 1. Fede Galizia (c. 1578-c. 1630)
Still Life of Apples, Pears, Cucumbers, Figs, and a Melon, c. 1625-1630
Oil on panel - 35.3 x 59.1 cm
Washington, National Gallery of Art
Photo: Washington, National Gallery of Art - See the image in its page
Acquired in December 2020 by the Conalghi Gallery, Fede Galizia’s Still Life with Apples, Pears, Cucumbers, Figs, Plums and a Melon had previously remained in private hands. The crowned SG on the reverse of the panel shows that the work belonged to the infant Sebastian Gabriel of Bourbon before joining the private collection of the Calini family in Brescia around 1900, where it later remained through descent. A lavish composition featuring seven varieties of fruit arranged in a basket, a porcelain dish and on the table itself, this still life is thought to have been executed by the artist in his last years, around 1625-1630. As Sam Segal points out in his article An early still life by Fede Galizia in the March 1998 Burlington Magazine, Galizia’s still lifes are known to be simpler, rarely containing more than one or two varieties of fruit arranged in a single wicker basket, metal, glass or porcelain dish or bowl, with a few fruits or flowers, always secondary, placed on either side of the container. Exceptionally signed with the artist’s monogram in the lower left and dated 1607 in the lower right, the Crystal Fruit Cup with Peaches, Quinces and Jasmine Flowers, which was on long term loan to the Cleveland Museum of Art (1992-2001) and then to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (2001-2015) before being sold at Sotheby’s in London on July 8, 2015 where it sold for £1,565,000 (€1,773,055), is a perfect example.
Although the catalogue raisonné devoted to the artist by Flavio Caroli in 1989 lists sixty-three works, forty-four of which are still lifes, Fede Galizia was more renowned during his lifetime for his portraits and religious compositions, which today constitute a minor part of his preserved works. Among them, the Portrait of Paolo Morigia in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan or the Judith with the Head of Holofernes in the John and Mable Ringling Museum in Sarasota, Florida, of which several versions are known. Probably born in Milan or Trento in 1577 or 1578, Fede Galizia was the daughter of Nunzio Galizia, a painter and miniaturist from Trento, who may have been her teacher. She lived and worked in Milan, where she died, probably shortly after her will was drawn up on 21 June 1630, of the plague that was then affecting much of Italy. This late still life by Fede Galizia joins the remarkable body of seventeenth-century European still lifes already in Washington. Among these is the small still life on copper by Clara Peeters acquired at Sotheby’s in London in July 2018 (see news item of 2/9/19), a perfect Flemish counterpart to the new Italian still life. Exactly contemporaries, the two women artists were among the pioneers of the genre, which they influenced considerably.
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- 2. Caterina Angela Pierozzi (active c. 1670-1690)
Annunciation, 1677
Gouache on vellum - 13.4 x 18.1 cm
in a frame of metal and blue glass - 22.5 x 27.8 cm
Washington, National Gallery of Art
Photo: Washington, National Gallery of Art - See the image in its page
Before joining the Conalghi Gallery in London, it had first appeared publicly on the Paris art market in December 2020, then offered for sale by Millon. The small gouache on vellum signed and dated in the centre, on the gold fillet framing the Archangel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary, "CATERINA ANGELA PIEROZZI FIORENTINA FACEVA 1677" proved to be an important discovery. Previously held in a private collection, this small Annunciation, bordered by a large floral garland and mounted in a period frame of metal and blue glass, is the first surviving work by the Florentine artist. Mentioned in various contemporary biographies, including a biographical dictionary of Florentine artists compiled by Filippo Baldinucci - Notizie de’ professori del disegno da Cimabue in qua - Caterina Angela Pierozzi is documented in Florence at the end of the 17th century. Niece of the painter Fra Manetto Pierozzi, who may have trained her in miniature painting, wife of the painter Michelangelo Corsi, second woman to be admitted to the Academia del disegno in Florence in 1684, sixty-eight years after Artemisia Gentileschi, Pierozzi worked for the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, Vittoria della Rovere, wife of Ferdinand II de’ Medici, as recent research by Eve Straussman-Pflanzer, curator of Italian and Spanish paintings at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, has shown. No works from this most prestigious career were previously preserved. As the museum’s notice states, the composition of this Annunciation was inspired by the reputedly miraculous fresco in the Basilica della Santissima Annunziata in Florence, of which we know that the Medici family, who were custodians of it, commissioned numerous copies.
Having said this, we can ask ourselves: was this charming but modest gouache on vellum acquired by the National Gallery for its artistic qualities or because it was painted by a woman artist? We will leave it to the reader to decide.