CALLISTO FINE ARTS 44 Duke Street London SW1Y 6DD +44 (0)207 3397037 [email protected] www.callistoart.com Carlo Francesco Nuvolone (Milan 1609 - 1662 Milan) Susanna and the Elders c.1650 Oil on canvas, 149.6 x 120.6 cm Provenance: Christie’s, London, 2 Nov 2016, Lot 158 (As Giuseppe Nuvolone); Private Collection, London Literature: F. M. Ferro, Nuvolone: Una Famiglia Di Pittore Nella Milano Del’ 600, Soncino (CR) 2003, P. 207 Under no. 136, fig. 44c, ill. p. 362, fig. 44c (as Carlo Francesco Nuvolone) Our outstanding painting depicts the biblical episode of Susanna and the Elders. Susanna, a beautiful married woman, is accosted by two lustful elders who had voyeuristically observed her while she was taking a bath in her garden unattended by her servants. The two old men threaten to claim that she was meeting a young man unless she agrees to a sexual encounter with them. Susanna stands firm against this blackmail and is arrested for promiscuity and sentenced to death. However, following a cross-examination of the two elders, in the end truth prevails, and virtue triumphs. Nuvolone successfully interprets the dramatic environment resulting from the moment of threat and contempt by choosing a diagonal composition layout and by using contrasting warm and cold colours to emphasise the two opposing groups. On the one hand, one of the two elders, dressed in red, leans forward and forcefully grabs Susanna’s pale azure-green garment that chastely covers the woman’s lower body. Susanna, on the other hand, employs all her forces to press him away with her left arm, pushing against the elder’s elbow. Similar compositional solutions have appeared into the international art market. This proves that Nuvolone frequently employed the same model. For instance, the female character may be put in relation with another work by Nuvolone, Christ and the Adulteress, in the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Carlo Francesco Nuvolone, Christ and the Adulteress, Photo: Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna More precisely, Nuvolone has experimented on the subject of Susanna and the Elders on numerous occasions, which testifies to his great interest in the theme of dramatic seduction. 1 Carlo Francesco Nuvolone, Susanna and the Elders, Photo: M. F. Ferro 2003, p. 207, no. 136, ill. p. 89, plate XLI Carlo Francesco Nuvolone was a leading Lombard painter in the mid-seventeenth century. Born into a family of artists in Milan, he first studied with his father Panfilo (1581-c.1651) and subsequently at the Accademia Ambrosiana in Milan, where he was a pupil of Giovanni Battista Crespi, called Il Cerano (1573-1632), and where he came into contact with Daniele Crespi (1598-1630) and Giulio Cesare Procaccini (1574-1625). He was also a gifted portraitist, as demonstrated in his family portrait, today preserved at the Pinacoteca Brera, Milan, in which Nuvolone portrayed himself at an easel, surrounded by his family, including his father Panfilo and brother Giuseppe, also a painter. Carlo Francesco Nuvolone, The Artist and his Family, Photo: Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan 2 .