Lot Description
By Pietro Novelli, known as ‘Il Monrealese’
(Monreale, 1603 – Palermo, 1647)
Portrait of an Old
Woman Oil on canvas, 37.5 x 26.5
cm Unsigned In good
condition, with slight signs of ageing.This fine painting is a reproduction of an original sketch by Pietro Novelli (Monreale, 1603 – Palermo, 1647), exhibited in Salemi in 2015 at the Norman-Swabian Castle (Myths and the Territory in Sicily: A Land of a Thousand Cultures. The Influence of Caravaggio and the Flemish on Southern Italian Painting, curated by the historian Franco Paliaga).
However, in the light of current technical and stylistic analyses, it is not possible to establish with absolute certainty either the attribution or the dating of the work presented here; these will require a comprehensive reassessment supported by appropriate diagnostic investigations — such as pigment analysis, IR reflectography and examination of the support.
Whilst acknowledging the high standard of execution of the work, it cannot be ruled out that it was produced in the 19th century by one of the talented copyists active in Sicily, including Giuseppe Velasco, Giuseppe Patania or, above all, Salvatore Lo Forte. Our attention is drawn in particular to the latter, as he was entrusted with numerous copies of half-length portraits based on works by Novelli.
Lo Forte, deeply fascinated by the painterly style of the artist from Monreale, assimilated its realistic and luministic elements, as evidenced by works such as *The Hermit Saints* and *Saint Philip of Agira Exorcising a Possessed Man*, derived from Novelli’s originals now preserved at the Church of the Gesù Casa Professa of the Jesuit Fathers in Palermo. It seems plausible to situate the painting under consideration within this same cultural and chronological context.
Novelli’s artistic qualities aroused such profound admiration in the young painter that, in 1823, Lo Forte was chosen, together with Vincenzo Riolo, to carry out some restoration work on Novelli’s frescoes in the Chapel of the Holy Cross within the Church of San Filippo Neri (see Rosella Sinagra, Salvatore Lo Forte in 19th-Century Sicily. Catalogue of Paintings and Drawings, Naples, 1998, pp. 37–38).
