Roman school, circa 1800 - Lot 383

Roman school, circa 1800 Marine Triumph, after Agostino Carracci Oil on canvas The shells in the gilded wood corners remain. (restoration of a vertical tear in the center) 205 x 410 cm (canvas) 237 x 443 cm (frame) Provenance: Former French Private Collection Marine Triumph" is the second (and last) reported painting by Agostino Carracci. Its theme is highly uncertain. The traditional interpretation, proposed even by Bellori, identifies the painting as a representation of Galatea's triumph. On the other hand, that Agostino Carracci may have used Raphael's fresco (Villa Farnesina) dedicated to the apotheosis of the beautiful nymph as a model for his marine procession is a conclusion widely shared by scholars. Despite the theme of the Raphaelian model, however, modern critics tend to rule out the possibility that this gallery scene represents the same subject as that of the Farnesina. There are several alternative interpretations of this painting's argument. According to one of the earliest theories, Agostino depicted an episode from Apuleius' Golden Ass (or Metamorphoses), whose protagonists are the marine deities Portunus and Salacie (Book IV). Subsequent hypotheses have seen in the painting a representation of the myth of Glaucus and Scylla, or an episode from the stories of Thetis and Peleus, the latter based on the fact that this theme was tackled by Agostino shortly after his departure from Rome (around 1600) in a fresco in the Palazzo del Gardino in Parma that bears compositional similarities to the one on the vault of the Farnese Gallery. It has also been suggested that the Gallery's Marine Triumph is a depiction of Venus leading a nuptial ceremony on the sea. The inspiration for the theme is said to come from an epithalam by Claudius, written for the wedding of the emperor Flavius Honorius. The thesis is based on the celebratory function of the Farnese-Aldobrandini nuptials, taking as a starting point the criticism identified in the frescoes of the gallery vault and noting that Claudian was a familiar author to Annibale Carracci, whom he also cited in the Sleeping Venus with Lovers, closely following the decoration of the Farnese vault, but also in the previous Venus dressed by the Graces of Washington (1590-1595). Although there is no doubt that the fresco is attributed to Agostino Carracci, some authors have identified in this painting, inspired by the one preserved on the naval vaults, some of Annibale's interventions on the original canvas: in particular, the cherub at the bottom (a little to the right), swimming next to a fish, and the tritone on the right blowing into a shell used as a whelk. This may well have been the inspiration for Bernini's well-documented admiration for Annibale Carracci's Triton fountain. A sweetheart next to the whelk-playing triton plugs his ears to protect himself from the noise: this is another quotation from a Correggio invention[80] for the Camera della Badessa (it) in the San Paolo (it) monastery in Parma. Cartoon of the fresco, National Gallery. The pose and facial features of the female figure in the fresco have been likened to the statue of the Callipagus Venus, while the face of the male figure embracing the goddess at the center of the marine procession is identified with the bust of the emperor Caracalla. Both sculptures were formerly in the Palazzo Farnese and are now in Naples' National Archaeological Museum. Finally, it's interesting to compare Agostino's fresco with the carton (one of the only surviving ones). We can see that, in the original idea, the female divinity's pubis was not covered with the linen seen in the painting. The male figure's left-handed gesture lends a decidedly erotic connotation to the scene. For authors who read the stories of the vault in a hedonistic key, the Marine Triumph is one of the most significant testimonies to the spirit of enjoyment that characterizes the frescoes on the ceiling of the Farnese Gallery. Appraiser: Cabinet Turquin 69, rue Sainte-Anne - 75002 Paris Tel.: 01 47 03 48 eric.turquin@turquin.fr stephane.pinta@turquin.fr Please ask for the condition reports: they are not included in the sheets. After the sale, your lot will go to Drouot's magasinage (storage), from the morning of December 9th, attention service for a fee. After the sale, this lot will go to Drouot's magasinage (storage) 9th rue drouot, Paris.