Francesco Trevisani, attributed to

Karin Wolfe confirming the attribution to Francesco Trevisani on the basis of photograph.
The picture is related to a commission the painter had received from the Oratorians in Turin for their local church dedicated to San Filippo Neri, on the express recommendation of Trevisani’s friend and former fellow courtier at Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni’s court, the architect, Filippo Juvarra, for an altarpiece dedicated to St. Lawrence.
Juvarra left the Ottoboni court in Rome in 1714 to become royal architect to Vittorio Amedeo II di Savoia. Although not a royal commission, by 1715 Trevisani had been contacted for the project for the altarpiece for the Oratorians as Juvarra was also involved with the reconstruction of the Order’s church. As the decorative project for the altarpieces did not proceed smoothly however, Trevisani’s picture only finally arrived in Turin in 1728.

Based on the other examples of working sketches and models related to the St. Lawrence altarpiece which have come to light, including the first design for a St. Lawrence reclining to the left (cfr. Di Federico, cat. 88, oil on canvas, 48,2 x 31,7), the Bukowski picture represents an intermediary phase of the commission, when the direction of the figures and some of their poses had been set, but before the final figures of Christ and the Virgin were added in the tympanum, the overall verticality of the composition was emphasized and the decorative foreground figures were shored up as framing elements. Another small-scale sketch, very similar to the Bukowski version, but less finished, is known from old photographs and was formerly in the Musee du Seminaire in Quebec, Canada

Bukowskis are grateful to Dr Karin Wolfe for proposing the attribution to Francesco Trevisani on the basis on photographs and for the information about this lot.