Tátrai Vilmos szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 95. (Budapest, 2001)
DOBOS, ZSUZSANNA: Two hitherto unknown paintings by Flaminio Torri
TWO HITHERTO UNKNOWN PAINTINGS BY FLAMINIO TORRI It may only be an accident of history and not the fault of collecting in Hungary that unlike the assortment of Emilian Baroque drawings, the collection of 17 th century Bolognese paintings hasn't evolved into a really significant unit, into one of the foci of the Old Masters' Gallery, although the aura, nearly mythical esteem the works of the Carraccis, Reni, Albani, Domenichino and Guercino enjoyed from their creation to the mid-19 th century, would have far too reasoned it. 1 Although there are some really outstanding, internationally well-known masterpieces in the material numbering about fifty pieces, still, several leading masters and trends are missing from it. The Guido Reni School 2 was represented by only a handful of pictures until lately, the David and Abigail (inv. 490) executed probably in the master's workshop, the David with the Head of Goliath by Michèle Desubleo who was born in Flanders but active in Bologna (inv. 499), Giovanni Andrea Sirani's Esther before Ahasuerus (inv. 83.7) and The Virgin and Child with the Infant St John the Baptist and Music-Playing Angels tentatively attributed to Giovan Giacomo Sementi (inv. 3937). Recently, however, I have succeeded in identifying two paintings by a somewhat obscure disciple of the "Divine Guido" 3 , Flaminio Torri (Torre), who was born in Bologna in 1621 and died in Modena in 1661 and was also nicknamed "Flaminio degli Ancinelli" after the goldsmith's art of his father. If we wanted to define Torri's part on the stage of Baroque Bolognese painting, we could say that he was a supporting character, who, with the fading of the protagonists' radiance, in the critical moment, helped the performance to success. His brief career, spanning only twenty years, coincides with the crisis of the Bolognese School, with the period of seeking new ways after the deaths of the role models. In his art he mingled and conserved the noblest traditions of Bolognese painting and passed these traditions The research for the present article was made possible by an OTKA scholarship (number of registration: F 090252). ' In the 1820 list of the Esterházy collection 42 paintings figured by the foremost painters of Bolognese Baroque. Approximately half of them entered the Old Masters' Gallery, today most of them are under other names or assigned to the followers of Reni, the Carraccis and Domenichino, or as copies after their works. 2 On Reni's disciples see: Negro, E., - Pirondini, M., La scuola di Guido Reni, Modena 1992. 3 It was F. M. Praeda who first applied the epithet "divine" to Reni in 1632 (Lodi al Signor Guido Reni). Following him, it disseminated as an epitheton ornans in the writings on the master. On the theme see: Spear, R. E., The 'Divine' Guido. Religion, Sex, Money and Art in the World of Guido Reni, New Haven and London 1997.
