CARLO SELLITTO (Naples, 1581 - 1614) Portrait of Adriana Basile as Saint Cecilia Oil on canvas, 108X92 cm Provenance: Milan, private collection Milan, Finarte-Semenzato, 5 April 2003, lot 87 Naples, Galleria Napoli Nobilissima Naples, private collection Exhibitions: Naples, Castel Sant'Elmo, Battistello Caracciolo and Early Naturalism in Naples, 9 November 1991 ; 26 January 1992, cat. p. 266, no. 2.10 Naples, Return to the Baroque. From Caravaggio to Vanvitelli, 12 December 2009 ; 11 April 2010, cat. pp. 72-73 Bibliography: F. Bologna, in Battistello Caracciolo e il primo naturalismo a Napoli, exhibition catalogue edited by F. Bologna, Naples 1991, p. 266, no. 2.10 M. di Mauro, G. Assante di Panzillo, La fortuna critica, in Giovanni Francesco de Rosa detto Pacecco, 1607-1656, Naples 2008, p. 127, fig. 134 G. Porzio, in Return to the Baroque. Da Caravaggio a Vanvitelli, exhibition catalogue edited by N. Spinosa, Naples 2009, pp. 72-73 A. E. Denunzio, Accoglienze illustri e doni diplomatici alla corte vicereale di Napoli (1586; 1616), in Fiesta y ceremonia en la corte virreinal de Nápoles (siglos XVI y XVII), eds. G. Galasso, J. V. Quirante, and J. L. Colomer, Madrid 2013, p. 206, fig. 3 G. Porzio, History, Devotion and Myth. A selection of Old Master Paintings, Naples 2017, p. 4 n. 1 https://artcure.wordpress.com/category/palazzo-corsini/ G. Porzio, Carlo Sellitto 1580-1614, Naples 2019, p. 127-129, nos. 107-109, p. 202, no. A9 (with previous bibliography) Attributed in antiquity to Parmigianino, the painting was traced back to Carlo Sellitto's catalogue in 1991 by Ferdinando Bologna, who suggested a date of execution in the early years of the second decade, classifying it as a 'portrait of a lady in the dress of St. Cecilia'. Nevertheless, the iconographic aspect becomes preponderant considering that in those years the only female personality distinguished for musical talent was Adriana Basile, known as 'la divina Andreana', born in 1586 and sister of the man of letters Giovanni Battista. Thus, recognising the effigy of the renowned singer and musician suggests an execution that preceded her departure for the court of Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga of Mantua on 24 May 1610, allowing us to link the commission to 1609, when Sellitto received payment from the duke, through his agents in Naples, for some portraits of Neapolitan ladies for his 'gallery of beauties'. The opinion of Domenico Antonio D'Alessandro, a musicologist and scholar of the Basile family, offers adequate concreteness to these logical suppositions. Reinforcing this fascinating solution, in spite of documentary absences, are the fine portrait drawn by Ottavio Leoni in 1616 (Genoa, Museo di Palazzo Rosso) and even more so the one engraved by Nicolas Perrey in the second edition of the Teatro delle glorie, as well as the contralto key on the score in the singer's left hand. Having said this, this work stands out as an extremely rare testimony that has come down to us of Sellitto's portrait activity, in which the master displays an extraordinary Caravaggio-like naturalism without losing the link with the late 16th century tradition and achieving a result of extraordinary quality and expressive force. Reference bibliography: Y. Primarosa, The Faces of Music. Cantatrici, Musici e buffoni alla corte di Roma nei ritratti di Ottavio Leoni, in Storia dell'Arte 141, 4, (2015), p. 68