The three half-length figures are hastily sketched on a thin walnut panel. The clearly defined faces contrast with the bodies and the drapery which display more cursory execution. The crowded composition consists of three planes, arranged close to each other, that recede towards the background. 

The protagonist is a female figure depicted in a prominent position on the left; it is worth noting the radiant, perfectly oval face caressed by an oblique light and enlivened by bright crimson red on the cheeks and the lips, as well as the briskmovement of the arm that leads her hand to calm the hem of her dress in a pose of restrained modesty.  Beside her, a boy with thick wavy locks occupies the centre of the scene, pushing his peer, only the head of whom is visible, into the shadows.

Lacking historical references, the painting is a significant example of the mature phase of Procaccini, an artist from Bologna who was then based in Milan. Parallels with works known to date to the 1616-1620 suggest it was painted during this period and remove all shadow of doubt surrounding the painter’s identity. The bright, glowing faces of the three characters, almost a direct response to the contemporary popularity of Rubens in northern Italy, display similarities with the faces in works of the period such as Mystic Marriage of St Catherine in the Pinacoteca di Brera, the Holy Family with St Anne and a young St John the Baptist  in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich or the Annunciation in the Louvre (coloured versions can be seen in H. Brigstocke, O. D’Albo, Giulio Cesare Procaccini. Life and work. Turin 2020, pp. 133, 134, 144: for historical and art-historical information, ibid. pp. 348-350, nos. 94-95, pp. 365-366, no. 123). 

Given what is known about the artist’s oeuvre, it is unsurprising to find the contrast between the exquisitely finished parts, bordering on the technical perfection worthy of academies, such as the face of the young woman, the hastily painted drapery and the slender hand with its neo-Parmigianesque elegance. There are numerous works painted with this procedure during the artist’s long career, from the youthful phase to late maturity, employing the creative use of perspective which attracted the attention of scholars, beginning with Roberto Longhi who regarded Procaccini, the ideal successor of Parmigianino, as a great specialist in the art of “free sketching” or “abbozzo autonomo” (R. Longhi, L’inizio dell’abbozzo autonomo (1996) now in Ibid., Studi e ricerche sul Sei e Settecento, 1929-1970 [Opere complete di Roberto Longhi, XII], Florence, 1991, pp. 29-32). 

Paintings by Giulio Cesare Procaccini defined loosely as “sketches” or “bozzette”,  “macchie”, and in some variants as ”macchiette” and “maccie”, or described using expressions such as “done in three days” (“fatti in tre giorni”),  crop up regularly in the inventories of the collection of Giovan Carlo Doria, the Genoese patron of the arts who ensured  that Procaccini received numerous public and private commissions in Genoa (V. Farina, Giovan Carlo Doria promotore delle arti a Genova nel primo Seicento, Florence, 2002, pp. 192-219). The evidence shows the artist’s consummate skill at painting on the spur of the moment, almost as if he were drawing, to express his talent as a highly inventive, virtuoso painter with few equals in northern Italy during the early seventeenth century. In the light of the new tendencies of northern Italian baroque of which he was an early exponent,  Procaccini was able to keep in mind and enliven the older inventions of the great “pittori di tocco” from Parmigianino to Tintoretto, becoming extremely popular in Milan and Genoa (A. Morandotti, Abbozzi e pittura di tocco: Procaccini, Strozzi e Valerio Castello in L'ultimo Caravaggio. Eredi e nuovi maestri. Napoli, Genova e Milano a confronto 1610-1640, catalogue of the exhibition held at the Gallerie d'Italia in Milan - 30 November 2017/8-April 2018, Milan 2017, p. 175). 

Precisely due to the inventive nature of the work of Procaccini, a painter renowned for his draughtsmanship, it is no coincidence that the arrangement of these three heads displays extremely close parallels with several famous drawings made with two pencils, or more rarely with a pen, destined to form a large repertoire of character studies of heads that were available in the painter’s workshop, beginning with several famous folios in the Gallerie dell’Accademia di Venezia (see the comprehensive overview in N. Ward Neilson, Giulio Cesare Procaccini disegnatore, Busto Arsizio 2004). 

Going into greater detail, there is a particularly convincing parallel with a painting I happened to study for Rob Smeets in 2012 (oil on wood, 26.4x35 cm), depicting Three heads of children, one in the guise of the young St. John the Baptist, which should be considered actual portraits (for a summary, see Brigstocke, D’Albo 2020 op. cit., p. 364, no. 121).  The painting that was in the Rob Smeets Gallery seemed to me to be linked to a work mentioned in the inventory of the collection of Amedeo Dal Pozzo compiled in 1634 (“Tre testine di Giulio Cesare Procaccini sopra l’asso  grande meso palmo”), even though a similar painting is recorded in the collection of Giovan Carlo Doria (“Tre teste di puttini quadretto piccolo del Procasino”, inv. c.1617-1621; previously, in c.1617, recorded as “Tre teste di Precacchini”: 

Brigstocke, D’Albo 2020 op. cit., p. 364, no. 121). Besides possible attributions, it is clear that works by the artist that bear similarities with the one under discussion here enjoyed considerable popularity among collectors in northern Italy, becoming a speciality of Procaccini, one of the most talented successors of Correggio and Parmigianino in seventeenth-century Italy. 

Alessandro Morandotti