A New Painting--and a New Paint Job--at Art Museum

The opening today of four newly painted and reinstalled galleries at the County Museum of Art makes all the artworks look like brand-new acquisitions, but one painting is the real thing. “St. Ignatius Loyola’s Vision of Christ and God the Father at La Storta,” an Italian Baroque altarpiece by Domenichino, is a recent gift of the Ahmanson Foundation. The glowing devotional painting, depicting a saint at a spellbound moment, goes on view today in the museum’s 17th-Century gallery.

As a matter of policy, the museum does not disclose prices of new acquisitions, but the Domenichino is a rare and beautiful work that many institutions would like to have, according to Philip Conisbee, curator of European paintings and sculpture.

“There has been a great deal of eyebrow raising in the museum world” over LACMA’s good fortune in landing the picture, museum director Earl A. Powell said.

Though not well known and not in fashion, Domenichino’s stock is rising. “He has been rediscovered in the last 20 years as part of a scholarly re-examination of Italian Baroque painting,” Conisbee said. This particular canvas, which has been in private European collections and was purchased with Ahmanson funds from a London dealer, came to light in the early ‘80s--just in time to be included in the appendix of Richard Spear’s monograph on the artist.

The richly colored altarpiece was commissioned for the Church of Gesu in Rome by Cardinal Odoardo Farnese in about 1622, the year St. Ignatius Loyola was canonized. The painting hung in the church for awhile but was removed during Domenichino’s lifetime and replaced with a copy made in his studio. Scholars believe that the original was privately sold, but records are incomplete.

“St. Ignatius Loyola’s Vision of Christ and God the Father at La Storta” portrays a priest on a journey in 1537 to Rome where he planned to seek papal approval of the new religious order of Jesuits. At La Storta, 10 miles northwest of Rome, the priest had a vision of the holy father and son in which Christ declared, “I shall be merciful to thee in Rome.”

Domenichino has portrayed this episode in the priest’s life as a moment of divine inspiration. The rapt priest, on his knees, looks up to the heavens where he sees God in human form, Christ holding and pointing to a cross (the symbol of the Jesuits) and angels. The congregation appears to float in a profusion of golden clouds that are composed of cherubic faces.

Domenichino (1581-1641) was born Domenico Zampieri in Bologna. He was the favorite pupil of Annibale Carracci and a friend and rival of painter Guido Reni, two of whose works are owned by LACMA. They are currently in a traveling exhibition, but, upon their return, the museum will display them with the Domenichino and two earlier Ahmanson gifts, Georges de La Tour’s “Magdalen With the Smoking Flame” and Philippe de Champaigne’s “St. Augustine.”

Domenichino, who painted in a more classical style than Reni, is primarily known for frescoes on buildings in Rome and Naples. He did relatively few easel paintings. “There are maybe a dozen in the world,” Conisbee said. “St. Ignatius” is a fine example because of its “classical perfection of form” and pristine condition. “Every brush mark is from Domenichino’s hand,” the curator said, noting that the painting had been properly cared for and not repainted by restorers.

Three other refurbished galleries opening today display the museum’s collections of 18th-Century art (including the recently acquired “Portrait of the Devin Family” by Louis-Michel van Loo), 19th-Century paintings and sculpture and works by the French Romantics.