price: U.S. $11,000

MATTEO BONECCHI

circa 1672 — Florence — after 1754?

Venus in her Chariot surrounded by Putti and the Three Graces

traces of black chalk underdrawing, pen & brown ink, brush & grey wash & white gouache. 205 x 365mm (8 x 14 3/8"). laid down to an old ruled mount which is inscribed: francois albano.

provenance:
late 18th or early 19th c. French collector;
Daniel Gonzaga, South America

The attribution to Bonechi is due to Marco Chiarini who so advised the previous owner. Bonechi's works, like a number of his fellow Florentine baroque artists, are not well known, not even to scholars. Many of his frescoes remain secreted away on the ceilings and walls of private palazzi. And while the Florentine artsists of the Seicento are fairly well studied and published, that is not the case for the artists of the Settecento.

Not much is known of Bonechi's early years though he was to become prolific and most successful as a fresco painter. Documented frescoes are the dome of S. Verdiana at Castelfiorentino, the domes of S. Jacopo >>Sopr'Arno and the Conservatorio di S. Agnese, both in Florence, the trompe l'oeil ceiling in the shape of a sail for the Compagnia di S. Agostino at Legnaia and the mural decoration of S. Maria del Suffragio al Pellegrino near Florence.

The Three Graces personify grace and beauty and are the handmaidens of Venus. They a re Aglaia, Euphrosyne and Thalia and they are generally depicted two facing forward flanking the third who is seen from behind. This is the way they were depicted in Antiquity and copied in the Renaissance. But Bonechi takes some liberty; there hey are no longer static but instead enjoy considerable freedom of movement, as befits an artist of the late baroque.