Attributed to VALERIO CASTELLO
(Genoa 1624 - 1659)

The Adoration of the Shepherds

Feather and still brown, brown wash heightened with white, squared for a red chalk transfer 22 x 32,5cm

Provenance:
Slatkin Galleries, New York (as School of Veronese);
Anonymous sale, Portsmouth, NH, Northeast Auctions, May 18, 2003, lot 1053 (as School of Veronese);
Sotheby's 27 January 2022, Nelson collection, lot 134 (as Genoese school of the 17th century); Private collection.


While Castello's early works are still steeped in the Cinquecento Mannerist tradition, it was during his maturity that his style evolved towards a more theatrical Baroque aesthetic. The confident handling of the pen is particularly evident here in Castello's bold treatment of drapery. The same is true of other painted Adoration scenes dating from the 1650s, such as that in a private Bolognese collection (Manzitti, op.cit., cat. no. 164), which also uses a figure-saturated composition on a background of architecture punctuated by columns like ours. The Adoration of the Shepherds refers to the Gospel of Luke II, 15-20 (Jerusalem Bible, p. 1763).

In our sheet, Valerio Castello demonstrates mastery in the complex poses and the strong foreshortenings that his figures adopt as if to bend to the composition, in particular the three figures leaning against the column or at its foot. A comparison with the Sacking of a Church, black chalk, pen and brown ink, wash on paper, 20,9 x 15,9 cm (provenance: Collection Jack Katalan, Sotheby's London July 10, 2002, lot 52) confirms the attribution to Valerio.

Despite Castello's early training in the studios of the somewhat more traditional Genoese artists Domenico Fiasella and Giovanni Andrea de'Ferrari, it was the frescoes by Perino del Vaga and Domenico Beccafumi in Fassolo's Palazza Doria (now lost) that were to have the greatest impact on the work of the young artist. These frescoes were arguably some of the most admired works of art available to Genoese artists during the first half of the 17th century, and Castello was no exception in copying and studying them.

Valerio Castello is the youngest son of Bernardo Castello, of the Genoese Castello family of painters, who died when he was 6 years old. Valerio and his brothers were attached to the noble family of Torquato. While it had been the original intention for him to study a literate profession, he showed an affinity to drawing. He was especially influenced by van Dyck and Rubens, and their Genoese emulator Bernardo Strozzi. He traveled to Milan and Parma around 1640-1645, with Agostino Merano, the son of Giovanni Battista Merano, there he was able to admire the works of Camillo Procaccini and Parmigianino which became constant references in his style.

Back in Genoa, he excelled in battle scenes and religious subjects such as the Adoration of the Magi and that of the Shepherds. He proved to be very prolific during the rest of his short life. Moreover, the scene of the Adoration of the Shepherds by Valerio Castello, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, circa 1655, oil on canvas, 66.4 x 102.9 cm, echoes our composition. Castello influenced the work of young Domenico Piola.

Everything that is characteristic of Valerio for his painting - the liveliness, the abundance of detail, the energy and the prolixity - applies to his drawing. He favored the technique of pen and brown ink, brown wash heightened with white on the others. The skillfully washed pen heightened with white to build the luminous shades, like the fluid line, are technical elements of their own. The Baroque movement testifies to the visual culture of the Genoese artist. It breathes a baroque

dynamic through the arrangement and entanglement of the bodies of the protagonists. The importance of the drapery is felt and fully reveals the Baroque influence. Movement and energy are at the service of the composition; and despite the bubbling lines, the relationship of the Virgin and Child is perceptible.

This dynamic drawing with its powerful effects of light and shade perfectly expresses the exuberance and vitality of Valerio's Baroque inspired by his Genoese roots. This beautiful sheet of ambitious size and subject fascinates by its research for naturalness in the expression of movement and of liveliness. Brown wash is very present; applied by large brushstrokes, it allows Castello to evoke the play of light and shade as well as the environment of the scene. In his works Valerio is regarded by his admirers as combining the fire of Tintoretto with the general style of Paolo Veronese.