Francesco da Castello (active c.1541-1621) - photo 1
Francesco da Castello (active c.1541-1621) - photo 2

Francesco da Castello (active c.1541-1621)

Lot 34
14.12.2022 10:30UTC +00:00
Classic
Starting price
£ 3 000
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 870692
Lot 34 | Francesco da Castello (active c.1541-1621)
Estimate value
£ 3 000 – 5 000
Francesco da Castello (active c.1541-1621)

Salvator Mundi, illuminated manuscript miniature on vellum [Rome, c.1590]

An engaging devotional image of Christ as Saviour of the World by one of the most interesting and accomplished miniaturists of the turn of the 17th century, Francesco da Castello.



207 x 160mm. Christ as Salvator Mundi, with an orb, sitting in front of a landscape with Golgata and Jerusalem and a dramatic sky, within a full border incorporating the Arma Christi and the personifications of Justice and Charity (some rubbing and smudges to borders). In a later Flemish Renaissance-style frame.



Provenance:

Arenberg Auctions, Brussels, 17 December 2021, lot 252.



Illumination:

The artist has been identified as Francesco da Castello, a Flemish-Italian painter and manuscript illuminator, active in Rome, also known under his Flemish name as Frans Van de Casteele or Kasteele (on the artist, see E. De Laurentiis, 'Un fiammingo a Roma. Frans van de Casteele detto Francesco da Castello', Alumina, 42, 2013, pp.14-25 and, most recently, 'Il contributo di Claudio Massarelli da Caravaggio al Lezionario Farnese (Towneley Lectionary) e la miniatura dopo Giulio Clovio', Rivista di Storia della miniatura, 25, 2021, pp.174-190.). The details of his life are documented by the contemporary artist-biographer Giovanni Baglione in Le vite de pittori, scultori, architetti, ed intagliatori [...], 1642.



His activity as a painter is recorded in the final decade of the 16th century (for example the altarpiece in San Lorenzo in Spello, signed and dated 1599, and the painting at the Museo Diocesano of Velletri of The Pardon of Assisi, signed and dated 1595), but he was active primarily as a miniaturist of small, stand-alone devotional images on vellum and copper. The present miniature is stylistic associable to a number of other miniatures by the same artist in private and institutional collections, many of which described by De Laurentiis in her Alumina article on Castello and in 'Miniature devozionali tra Italia e Spagna nel tardo Cinquecento: da Giulio Clovio a Francesco da Castello', Cesare Franchi detto il Pollino, Miniatore, 2020, pp. 153-193. Among these we find a miniature with Christ resting on a globe at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art 26.13, after Bartholomeus Spranger's painting (Montauban, Musée Ingres-Bourdelle), that displays a very similar face and technique; an Agnus Dei with Salvator Mundi in Madrid, Nicolás Cortés Gallery (see De Laurentiis, 2020, fig.2a); a Mystic Marriage of St Catherine, in a private collection (De Laurentiis, 2020, fig.14); and a Madonna and Child sold at Sotheby's on 3 July 2018, lot 6, among others.





Special notice


This lot has been imported from outside of the UK for sale and placed under the Temporary Admission regime. Import VAT is payable at 5% on the hammer price. VAT at 20% will be added to the buyer’s premium but will not be shown separately on our invoice.
Place of origin:Italy, Europe
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
Preview
10.12.2022 – 13.12.2022
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