TREASURES FROM MEDIEVAL TO BAROQUE ART
Lote 410:
Illumination on vellum in tempera and gold on vellum, measurements: 25 x 18 cm. Giovanni Battista Castello was born in Genoa into a family of artists. Older brother of the painter Bernardo Castello (1557-1629), he was nicknamed “El Genovés” to distinguish him from Giovanni Battista Castello “El Bergamesco” (ca.1509-1569). He trained in the studio of Luca Cambiaso (1527-1585), considered the most prolific Genoese artist of the time. Giovanni Battista Castello distanced himself from the other apprentices. and soon rose to prominence as a freelance artist with a reputation as one of the city’s leading illustrators. Castello specialized in miniatures and illuminations in tempera on parchment, a field in which he fully showed his technical mastery, as is evident in this beautiful work. So great was the artist’s fame that he caught the attention of Philip II of Spain who hired Castello in 1584 as an illuminator for the royal choir books at El Escorial. Documentary evidence reveals that Castello had returned to his hometown in 1590 and it was there that in 1599 he received a commission from Margaret of Austria, wife of Philip III, to copy an icon for the church of San Bartolomeo degli Armeni. The years around the turn of the century mark the most prolific period in Castello’s career, a time when he had already acquired enormous prestige, as is clear from Raffaello Soprani’s description of him in his Vite dei Pittori, Scultori et Architetti Genovesi (1674), praising Castello’s “colorita with meravigliosa exquisiteness”. Soprani describes him as one of the best miniaturists of his time and comparable to Giulio Clovio (1498-1578), who according to his biographer Vasari was considered the “piccolo e nuovo Michelangelo”. Regarding the present work, the expert Elena De Laurentiis has written: “This unpublished miniature is one of the earliest known works by the artist and is characterized by meticulous and exquisite attention to detail. The model derives from a free interpretation of Giulio Romano’s painting of the same theme found in the church of Santo Stefano in Genoa”. Castello’s brilliant and refined use of color is evident in this work, which can be compared to The Adoration of the Magi, signed and dated 1588, in the Städel Museum in Frankfurt. Literature: De Laurentiis, Elena. Il pio Genovese. Giovanni Battista Castello” in Alumina, page miniate, no. 37, April-June 2012, p. 26-35, rep. p. 26.
