Museum of Art
Artist: Bernardo Castello (Attributed to) (Italian, 1557-1629)
Medium: pen and brown ink, brown wash over black chalk on paper
Dimensions: 7 3/8 in. x 5 3/8 in. (18.7 cm. x 13.7 cm.)
Credit Line: Bequest of the Honorable James Bowdoin III
Accession Number: 1811.11
- "Luca di Genua"
Type: inscription
Location: bottom
Materials: pen and brown ink - "L. Cangiagio 8.1"
Type: inscription
Location: verso
Materials: - "Di Luca Cangiagio"
Type: inscription
Location: verso of old mount (lost)
Materials: pen and ink - three mounts within circle
Type: watermark
Location:
Materials:
- James Bowdoin III( Collector, Boston) - 1811.
- Bowdoin College Museum of Art( Museum, Brunswick, Maine) 1811- . Bequest
- Old Master Drawings at Bowdoin College
- Bowdoin College Museum of Art. ( 5/17/1985 - 7/7/1985)
- Clark Art Institute. ( 9/14/1985 - 10/27/1985)
- University of Kansas. ( 1/19/1986 - 3/2/1986)
- Art Gallery of Ontario. ( 5/17/1986 - 6/29/1986)
- The Bible and Its Interpreters
- Bowdoin College Museum of Art. ( 11/8/2004 - 12/23/2004)
Long associated with the Genoese artist Luca Cambiaso (1527-1585) based on inscriptions on the drawing, Jonathan Bober recently recognized it as the early work of Bernardo Castello. Scholars, including Konrad Oberhuber and David P. Becker, had agreed on the association with the famous Genoese draftsman, but Bober identified the proportion of the figures and the handling, working in the style of Cambiaso, as by Castello. The drawing resembles the distinctive graphic language of Cambiaso with curving, fluid contour lines and quickly applied wash for shading. Castello’s interest in perspective and regular proportions is evident in the Bowdoin sheet (Newcome 137). No painting of the flagellation has been identified from early in Castello’s career, but much of his oeuvre has been lost. A version of the subject from around 1628/29 is currently in a private collection in Genoa (Erbentraut 267).
Sarah Cantor
References:
Erbentraut, Regina. Der Genueser Maler Bernardo Castello 1557?-1629: Leben und Ölgemälde. Freren: Luca Verlag, 1989.
Newcome, Mary. “Drawings by Bernardo Castello in German Collections” Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen 21 (1979): 137-151.
Commentary credited to David P. Becker (or not otherwise captioned) appeared in his catalogue Old Master Drawings at Bowdoin College (Brunswick: Bowdoin College Museum of Art, 1985).