Uncovered in Austria an unpublished masterpiece by Luca Cambiaso. It will go to auction

A lost masterpiece by Luca Cambiaso (Moneglia, 1527 - El Escorial, 1585) resurfaces after centuries of oblivion and goes up for auction in Vienna at Dorotheum. It is a canvas depicting Diana and Callisto, and will be offered for sale on April 29, estimated at between 600,000 and 800,000 euros. Independently confirming the attribution to the great Genoese master of the 16th century come the favorable opinions of Anna Orlando and Maurizio Romanengo, specialists in Genoese art of the 16th-17th centuries. The painting, the auction house explains, represents an important rediscovery and a significant addition to Luca Cambiaso’s catalog. The work is unpublished and is thought to have a high-sounding provenance: the hypothesis, in fact, is that it was part of the collection of Rudolph II of Habsburg, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. In any case, there is no more news of the painting until 1903, when it appears in the collection of an Austrian collector, Adolf Lorenz: from that date it remained the property of his heirs until it reached its current owner.

Cambiaso, born in Moneglia on the Ligurian Riviera di Levante, is considered the founder of the modern Genoese school of painting. The pictorial quality of the painting, which would not have revealed evidence of intervention by helpers or workshop collaborators, is remarkable. Its large-scale composition with several figures, as well as the fact that it was made during the artist’s mature period, strongly suggest that this work was commissioned for an important and significant patron.

The story of Diana and Callisto

Callisto was one of the nymphs of Diana, the goddess of the hunt, and was considered one of the most beautiful and faithful followers of the deity. She was a skilled hunter and, like all the other nymphs in Diana’s service, she was sworn to remain chaste and to have no relations with men. Callisto, therefore, lived under an oath of chastity and loyalty to her queen, Diana. However, Zeus, the king of the gods, noticed Callisto’s beauty and decided to seduce her. Masquerading as Diana, Zeus managed to trick the nymph into giving in to his advances. Callisto, unaware of the trick, joined Zeus and became pregnant.

One day, Diana’s nymphs, noticing that Callisto had no intention of undressing to bathe with them (in fact, up to that point she had managed to conceal her pregnancy), forcibly removed her robes and discovered that she was pregnant: Cambiaso’s painting depicts the very moment when Callisto’s companions slip off her robes. Infuriated by the violation of her oath of chastity, Diana drove Callisto from her retinue.

When Callisto gave birth to her son Arcadio, Juno, the jealous wife of Zeus, enraged by the adultery, decided to take revenge by turning Callisto into a bear. Many years later, Arcadius, having become a hunter himself, accidentally found himself hunting the bear without recognizing that it was his transformed mother. But the gods, moved by the tragic event, intervened: they transformed Callisto and her son Arcadio into constellations to keep them together in the sky. Thus, Callisto became the constellationUrsa Major, while Arcadio becameUrsa Minor.

The work’s origin and probable provenance from the emperor’s collections.

A 1621 inventory of the collection of Rudolph II records a painting described as “Ein Baad mit Callisto vom Luca de Genua (”A Bath Scene with Callisto by Luca of Genoa"), listed under No. 1196 in the Prague Castle in the Spanische Saal (now the Rudolfina Gallery). To better understand the context in which the work in question was probably exhibited, it is necessary to consider that the Spanische Saal housed an impressive collection, almost all of it mythological in theme and imbued with the subtle eroticism that reflected the emperor’s taste. A number of works by Italian masters are recorded in the same section of the room, including paintings by Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto. Rudolph II is considered one of the finest and most enlightened patrons in art history, and his collection, now dispersed, was of immense importance.

At least two other paintings of the subject of Diana and Callisto by Luca Cambiaso are known, including a version in Kassel (Museumslandschaft Hessen, inv. no. GK 948) and another version in the Galleria Sabauda in Turin (inv. no. 365). The provenance of the Turin version is known, as it was originally in the Spinola Collection in Genoa. Until the discovery of the painting going up for auction at Dorotheum, the Kassel version, acquired around 1749, was considered to be the work from Rudolph’s famous collection. However, Anna Orlando argues that the version that has just re-emerged on the market is the most beautiful and important of the three versions. She also suggests that there is significant evidence to support the hypothesis that the current painting is the one recorded in the 1621 Rodolfo inventory. Orlando also stressed the importance of Luca Cambiaso’s work on one of the leading painters of the court of Rudolph II, Bartholomaeus Spranger (Antwerp, 1546 - Prague, 1611). A generation younger than Cambiaso, Spranger got to know Cambiaso’s work in Prague and no doubt considered him a “master.” Significantly, there were five paintings by Bartholomaeus Spranger displayed alongside Cambiaso’s Diana and Callisto in the Spanische Saal, all depicting mythological subjects. None of these works have been definitively identified, leaving open the possibility that they were also of large format.

Spranger’s relationship with Cambiaso’s work is fully supported by stylistic comparisons between the two artists’ works, including drawings and etchings. Orlando argues that the Dorotheum painting must have been in Prague since it appears to be the source of inspiration for Spranger’s compositions produced in Prague in the early 1580s, including a drawing of Diana and Actaeon now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (inv. no. 1997.93) and a drawing depicting Diana held at the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich (inv. no. 1978:38), as well as an engraving from a lost work by Spranger, also at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. no. 49.95.2283).

It should also be noted that Cambiaso’s and Spranger’s works hung side by side among the galleries of Prague Castle, as documented in the aforementioned 1621 inventory. A painting by Luca Cambiaso, depicting the Judgment of Paris, is listed under No. 1009. No. 1010 records a Perseus with the head of Medusa by Spranger. Orlando argues that Spranger’s work may have been painted as a complementary piece to Cambiaso’s existing work. Whether this is the case or not, the influence of the Genoese master on the young artist is already recognized by art historians and sometimes their works have even been confused.

Rudolph’s visit to Genoa in 1571

Rodolfo would have come across Cambiaso’s work during his visit to Genoa in the summer of 1571, when he was a guest of Giovanni Andrea Doria (1540-1606) at the Villa Doria in Fassolo. Rodolfo was traveling from Spain to Vienna, together with his brother Ernst (1553-1595) and his cousin, the half-brother of Philip II of Spain, Don Juan de Austria (1547-1578). Rodolfo was 19 years old and must have been enchanted by the beauty he saw in Genoa. The Dorias were patrons of Cambiaso and even sent King Philip II of Spain, Rodolfo’s cousin, a work by the artist in 1578, shortly before Cambiaso was called to Spain as court painter at the Escorial in 1583.

It is documented that Rodolfo acquired at least one painting that he must have seen during this visit to Genoa (Jan Massys’ Venus Cytherea with a view of Genoa in the background, now in the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, inv. no. NM 507). At the time of Rodolfo’s visit to Genoa, that painting was in the villa of Ambrogio Di Negro (1519-1601). The Villa Di Negro was close to the Villa Doria in Fassolo. Ambrogio Di Negro was one of the main financiers of Rudolph’s father, Maximilian II, and it is therefore highly likely that the young prince visited his residence and saw his art collection. Ambrogio Di Negro’s villa housed an impressive collection of paintings and may have provided a source of inspiration for the young Rudolph, who would soon become one of Europe’s finest and most sophisticated patrons. The Genoese financier’s inventory of 1618 documents a number of works by Luca Cambiaso and several canvases by other artists of sensual imagery, including a nude Venus, a Lucretia, a Susanna, and an important series of sculptures of mythological subjects.

Since Ambrogio Di Negro had a close financial relationship with the Habsburgs and was a direct patron of Luca Cambiaso, it is highly likely that he was the intermediary between Rudolph II and Cambiaso for the commission or purchase of the two Cambiaso canvases later documented in Rudolph’s collection under numbers 1196 and 1009. Perhaps it is no coincidence that Ambrogio Di Negro’s collection also included a work by “Bartolomeo Splanges,” a painter who is rarely recorded in the inventories of seventeenth-century Genoese collectors.

Although there is no specific documentary evidence for the purchase of the two Cambiaso works in Rudolph II’s collection, there is a letter written by Albrecht Fugger dated 1601, in which he offered Rodolfo a Venus and Mars with Cupid ’von dem künstlichen mahler Luca Cambiaso Genovese,’ priced at 500 florins and painted on a large canvas. Fugger advised Rodolfo not to delay, because many painters felt that the Cupid could not be painted any better.

Uncovered in Austria an unpublished masterpiece by Luca Cambiaso. It will go to auction

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