Angelica Kauffmann

(Coira, 1741 - Roma, 1807)

Judgment of Paris. Oil on canvas, 100x130 cm. Within ancient carved and gilded wooden frame. On the back inscriptions in white chalk "april 28 [19] 61 / 742MD / 108". Provenance: London, Christie's, 28 April 1961, Lot.50 (as Angelica Kauffmann); prob.London Christie's January 27, 1809, Lot.70. The work has been recognized here as the painter's autograph work and its Christie's origin is rebuilt thanks to the references in white chalk still present on the back of the frame. The painting is almost unknown to the recent art criticism since sales catalog had no picture, morever the art work has remained hidden for decades in a noble private property. The painting thus constitutes an important pictorial proof of the greatest exponent of Italian and European neoclassical artistic movement, a polyglot and cultured artist able to get in touch with the most prominent figures of the artistic environment of his time (Winckelmann, Mengs, Hamilton , Goethe, Canova). The artist had the opportunity to face the same theme of Paride in the oval preserved at the Museo de Arte in Ponce (canvas, cm 80x101), executed just after his return to Rome from England (1781), when he approached more to the neoclassical 'archaeological' style that had its own models in David and Flaxman. The example presented here could be recognized in the one that was at auction in London at Christie's on January 27, 1809, as lot.70 (The Judgment of Paris and his companioins) and presented also in European Museum auction sale, between April 1809 and July 1810 (see Getty Provenance Index).

cm 100x130