| | | | | | | | Document | Sale Catalog Br-1002 | |
| Auction House | Squibb (George) -- from catalog: Mr. Squibb | | Sale Location | Saville Place, Saville Row, London, England, UK | | Seller(s) | from catalog: The Estate of Caldas and De Capiet, Bankrupts | | Lugt Number | 8197 | | No. of Painting Lots | 4 | | Notes | This sale was devoted to three paintings by Rubens originally intended for the church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome, and a Marriage of St. Catherine by Parmigianino. According to the catalogue, the latter was consigned from the estate of "Caldas and De Capiet, Bankrupts." In contemporary London directories, Caldas and De Capiet are listed as wine and brandy merchants in Clifford St., and it is not known how they happened to come into the possession of the picture by Parmigianino. The consigner of the three pictures by Rubens is unidentified; he must have imported the paintings shortly before the sale, but so far no information has been found indicating precisely how this occurred. The paintings had been commissioned in 1601 by archduke Albert for the chapel of St. Helen in the archduke's titular church in Rome, but sometime during the middle of the eighteenth century they were relocated to the adjoining monastery where they apparently remained until this time. It is known that they had been damaged by damp within a few years of their installation, and one of them, The Elevation of the Cross, was apparently replaced by a copy at a very early date. This may account for Geo. Watson's annotation in the OGA copy of the catalogue calling the three "Bad Pictures." In any case, all three were bought in, and the Elevation of the Cross was knocked down for the smallest amount, £294. The other two, depicting St. Helen and the Crowning of Thorns were bought in at £399 and £798, implying that the reserves had been placed very high. (Their immediate subsequent history is unknown, but at a later date they were purchased by a Frenchman named "Perolle" who bequeathed them in 1827 to the hospital in Grasse, France, where they are still located.) The painting by Parmigianino was sold for £36.15 to an unknown buyer. (B. Fredericksen) | | Catalog Location(s) | OGA [annotations used in Sales Contents; photocopy in Provenance Index Sales Files] Annot. with all prices, indicating which lots were sold and which bought in, as well as a note about the quality of the pictures. The annotator was Geo. Watson who was working from a marked set of catalogues deposited by the auctioneers in the Excise Office.
CIL [photocopy in Provenance Index Sales Files] Annot. in pencil by J. Galpine with notes giving the approximate dimensions of all lots. | | Photocopies | NGL, RKDH and BIB (all of CIL) | | See Also | Sale Contents | | | Art Sales Catalogues Online | | | |
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