After Leonello Spada (Bologna, 1576 – Parma, 1622), 1662–168 - Lot 72

After Leonello Spada (Bologna, 1576 – Parma, 1622), 1662–1682 The Concert Oil on canvas, 130 cm x 151.5 cm On its original canvas, stretcher, and frame (some damage, a few old restorations) Provenance: - In a Burgundian family for at least fifty years. Leonello Spada is one of the most faithful representatives of Caravaggism in Northern Italy. Trained in Bologna in the circle of the Carracci, he converted to Caravaggio’s style after meeting him directly in Malta around 1608, to the point of being nicknamed by his contemporaries la scimmia del Caravaggio (“Caravaggio’s monkey”). Upon his return to Emilia, he applied his personal interpretation of chiaroscuro to major religious commissions for the churches of Bologna, Modena, and Parma, where he settled permanently under the patronage of the Farnese family and died at the age of forty-six. A musician himself, he had a natural interest in musical subjects, of which *The Concert*, held in the Louvre Museum, is the most famous example (inv. 681; MR 490, fig.). This painting is said to have been painted by Spada around 1615 for Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi, nephew of Pope Gregory XV, drawing inspiration from Caravaggio’s The Musicians (c. 1595, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. 52.81). It was subsequently acquired after 1633 from Prince Ludovisi, the cardinal’s nephew, by the Sieur de Nogent, who brought it to France. He then sold it to Everhard Jabach, a banker, director of the East India Company, and a major collector, who in turn gave it to Louis XIV in 1662. We know that the work adorned the King’s bedroom at Versailles in 1695, then his grand apartment in 1709–1710, before becoming one of the first works exhibited at the Muséum central des Arts as early as 1793. The Concert du Louvre has been the subject of several copies, the oldest of which date back to the 17th century. Several have appeared on the art market, including two about forty years ago: one at Sotheby’s in Monte Carlo on November 29, 1986, lot 410, attributed to Spada’s circle, and another at Christie’s in Rome on March 22, 1988, lot 216, signed Dominique Plessard and dated 1693. Another version, perhaps erroneously attributed to Spada himself, is housed at the Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania in Vilnius (inv. VR-32), with a flutist added later on the right side. However, none of these copies represent the original work as it appeared when it entered the king’s collections in 1662. Spada’s painting had in fact been enlarged to be displayed in 1682 in the Salon de Mercure at Versailles. Strips of canvas were thus added to all four sides (14.5 cm at the top, 14 cm at the bottom, 10.5 cm on the sides), requiring several pictorial adjustments: completion of the background and lower section with the tablecloth, the sleeve of the musician on the left, and the hand of the one on the right playing the lira da braccio, an ancestor of the violin, as well as the chitarra battente, a type of guitar, which rests in the foreground on the musicians’ table. This intervention can be explained by the classicizing taste of the late 17th century, which favored airy compositions and full-length figures. There is indeed a copy at the André Malraux Museum of Modern Art in Le Havre, on loan from the Louvre (inv. 682 and 233), whose dimensions of 130 cm x 178 cm are similar to those of the previously unpublished canvas presented here. Its catalog entry dates its creation to before 1683, placing this painting prior to the enlargement of the Louis XIV portrait, although the right-hand violinist’s hand is complete, as is the guitar in the foreground. This copy, with a more compact composition —which has remained in the same family for several generations and possesses the rare qualities of having retained its original canvas, stretcher, and frame—thus appears to be one of the oldest known versions and constitutes a precious testimony to this scene of musicians as envisioned by Spada. Works consulted: - A. Félibien, Tableaux du Cabinet du roy. Statues et bustes antiques des maisons royales, Vol. I, Paris, 1677, p. 9. - A. Félibien, Discussions on the Lives and Works of the Most Excellent Ancient and Modern Painters, Part 4, Paris, 1685, p. 186. - L. Serra, Domenico Zampieri: known as Domenichino, Rome, 1909, p. 63 - A. Brejon de Lavergnée, The Le Brun Inventory of 1683: Louis XIV’s Collection of Paintings, Paris, 1987, pp. 129–130. - S. Castelluccio, “Aesthetics and Politics: The Display of Paintings from the Royal Collections in the Grand Apartment at Versailles from Louis XIV to the Revolution,” in Versalia, no. 21, 2018, pp. 44–45. - Exhibition catalog, Seicento: The Century of Caravaggio in French Collections, Paris, National Galleries of the Grand Palais, October 11, 1988 – January 2, 1989; Milan