Catalogue Roberti Fine Art, TEFAF Maastricht 2026 (1) compressed - Flipbook - Page 45
Two further closely comparable altars are known: a reliquary with an Adoration of the Magi on
amethyst in the centre, in the Galleria Pallavicini in Rome (fig. 2; 62 x 35 cm), and another work
with an Ascension of the Virgin, also on lapis but by an artist in the close ambit of Stella (fig. 3; 53 x
34 cm), is in the collection of the late Italian publisher and magazine editor, Franco Maria Ricci
(1937-2020).
Fig. 2. Roman Workshop, 17th century, Aedicule with
the Adoration of the Magi. oil on amethyst, ebony,
pietre dure, 62 x 35 cm. Galleria Pallavicini, Rome.
Fig. 3. Jacques Stella, Aedicule with the Assumption of the
Virgin. oil on lapis lazuli, ebony, semi-precious stones,
gilded metal, and rock crystal, 53 x 34 cm. Private
collection, Italy. © Fondazione Franco Maria Ricci
A similar heart-shaped lapis of comparable dimensions, also set into a slate (but in the opposite
sense to the present support) can be found in Stella’s Flight into Egypt, in a private collection, as
Patrizia Cavazzini notes (see Literature). The scholar points out that two further lapis supports,
conceivably carved from the same block, were surely prepared in the same workshop but arguably
by an assistant, possibly Stella’s younger brother, who was with him in Rome from 1624-27. The
Virgin’s blue mantle is painted with economy, mostly limited to the highlights, in much the same
way as in the artist’s Annunciation in the Museo Civico in Pavia, which is also on lapis (13 x 11.5 cm).
In the present design the artist has loosely reworked in reverse his large signed and dated
Annunciation of 1628 in the Cathedral of Amelia (fig. 4).
45
