Castello

Son of a tailor, Giovanni Battista Castello set up as a goldsmith in 1570 and worked in this field for at least five years, trading successfully with Spain before turning to miniature painting of religious scenes, refined works intended for private devotion. A close friend of Luca Cambiaso, he benefited from his advice, which is evident in his graphic style. Celebrated during his lifetime and throughout the 17^th century by important poets and men of letters as the finest miniaturist of his time, the “diligentissimo” Castello’s fame spread as far as Spain: Philip II invited him, like Luca Cambiaso, to work at El Escorial, where he probably stayed between 1583 and 1585.

Although Castello’s miniatures are numerous, his drawings are rarer. Despite the inscription referring to the artist’s brother, Bernardo Castello, this drawing is typical of the miniaturist’s graphic style. The sheet belongs to a series devoted to the life of the Virgin and produced in 1586. At least four other drawings of this series are known, all of similar size and dated to the same year. Three of them were at auction: The Marriage of the Virgin¹ and, together in the same lot, The Annunciation and The Dormition (not illustrated).² A Visitation was published by Mary Newcome³ and Elena de Laurentiis⁴. According to the latter, they are highly finished drawings that served as prototypes for miniatures on parchment, the compositions of which Castello replicated throughout his career. The composition of The Marriage of the Virgin appears for example in at least two miniatures, one in 1589⁵ and in another, executed much later for his eldest son Giovanni Gregorio.⁶ It was by another of the artist’s sons, Geronimo Castello that our composition was translated into miniature, as Elena de Laurentiis kindly informed us.

Created in the year of the birth of Giovanni Gregorio,⁷ the artist’s first son, this drawing illustrates the Birth of the Virgin with a certain realism. Omitting all divine elements, the artist depicts Saint Anne in a touching way: lying in bed, she is more reminiscent of an exhausted woman after childbirth than of a saint. Little Mary is entrusted to the nurses, while behind her, two other newborns are being suckled – a rare detail in a Birth of the Virgin. The group motif of the nurse seen from the front, a newborn in her arms and a child leaning to her right, is a direct quotation from a drawing by his master and friend Luca Cambiaso, as Piero Boccardo kindly pointed out. Nevertheless, Castello’s style is personal and recognizable: interlocking spaces, a demonstrative perspective drawn with a profusion of straight lines, a love of prosaic and picturesque details (stool, sewing basket, brazier, window well with bars, paving, etc).