Agostino Masucci
Italian, 1692 - 1758
Italian painter and draughtsman. He was apprenticed in Rome, first to Andrea Procaccini and later to Maratti. His work is characterized by a classicism derived from Guido Reni and ultimately from Raphael. According to Pio, he was ‘nourished first by the perfect milk of Maratti, and then saturated with the divine nectar of Raphael’. One of the last artists of Maratti’s school, he was also a precursor of the movement known as Proto-Neo-classicism, which flourished in the Roman art world during the 1720s and 1730s, and the inventor of the new code of portraiture that evolved from the Maratti school.
Masucci entered the competitions held by the Accademia di S Luca, Rome, and won prizes in 1706, 1707 and 1708 with the Killing of Tarpeia, the Battle between the Horatii and the Curiatii, Ancus Marcius and Accius Nevius; on becoming an academician in 1724, he painted the Martyrdom of St Barbara as his morceau de réception (all Rome, Gal. Accad. N. S Luca). Among Masucci’s prestigious clients was Monsignor Niccolò del Giudice (1660–1743), the papal Major-domo and Prefect of the Sacred Palaces. Masucci also had a long relationship with the Rospigliosi family. An Adoration of the Magi, donated by Prince Giuseppe Rospigliosi in 1807 to S Lorenzo at Zagarolo, near Rome, dates from c. 1710 or shortly afterwards (Negro, 1989). Masucci’s first public works were the altarpieces depicting St Venantius Freed by the Angel and St Venantius Bringing forth the Water for the main chapel of the church of SS Venanzio ed Ansuino del Camerinesi (destr.) in Rome, where the high altarpiece was by Luigi Garzi. These paintings, commissioned by the Marchesa Girolama Bichi Ruspoli and documented by a payment dated 31 December 1717, are now in the modern church of SS Fabiano e Venanzio in the Tuscolano quarter of Rome. In them Masucci’s style is clearly based on that of Maratti, but it also shows a perfect assimilation of the teaching of Garzi. For the church of S Maria in Via Lata, Rome, Masucci produced a series of ovals, notable among which are the Annunciation and the Adoration of the Magi. These works, mentioned by Pio and hence painted before 1724, show impeccable draughtsmanship and an interest in Rococo subtleties.
In 1728–9 Masucci is documented as working on the decoration of Domenico Clemente Rospigliosi’s audience chamber on the third floor of the Palazzo Rospigliosi–Pallavicini, Rome. There he painted the large canvas of Hercules Received on Olympus, in which the solemn and monumental rendering of the figures is accompanied by perfect draughtsmanship and a crystalline clarity of tones. A drawing of Jupiter Enthroned with a Female Figure (Berlin, Kupferstichkab.) may be connected with this ceiling. A small canvas of the Christ Child and St John the Baptist (Rome, Gal. Pallavicini) can be dated to the same period, as can the famous portrait of Cardinal Banchieri (1728; ex-Rospigliosi priv. col.), which belongs to the courtly tradition of portraiture derived from Maratti. Other documented portraits were commissioned by the family: one of the young Camillo Rospigliosi (1737; untraced) and another of Giuseppe Rospigliosi (sold Rome, Tavazzi, 12–24 Dec 1932, lot 472).
In the 1730s Masucci was the most important painter of the classicist tradition: he became the official heir of the Maratti school after the death of Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari (1727) and held the important official posts of regent of the Congregazione dei Virtuosi al Pantheon (1735) and principe of the Accademia di S Luca (1737–8). An excellent example of Masucci’s mature work from this period is the Judgement of Solomon (signed and dated 1738; Turin, Mus. Civ. A. Ant.), which is characterized by lucid clarity of composition and terse use of colour. He enjoyed prestigious commissions from the courts of Turin, Spain and Portugal, becoming a favourite painter of King John V of Portugal. For the basilica at Mafra he produced a Coronation of the Virgin (untraced) and a Holy Family (1730; Mafra, Pal. N.), as well as three paintings for the famous chapel of St John the Baptist in S Roch, Lisbon (commissioned in 1742; installed in 1747). One of these was an Annunciation, the probable modello for which survives (Minneapolis, MN, Inst. A.).
In Rome, together with Panini and Batoni, Masucci was commissioned by Pope Benedict XIV to decorate the ceiling of the Coffee House in the grounds of the Palazzo del Quirinale with canvases of the Four Prophets and Christ Entrusting his Flock to Peter (both 1742–3).
Besides the Rospigliosi portraits already mentioned, Masucci painted the Portrait of a Boy in Oriental Costume and the Portrait of a Woman (both Baltimore, MD, Walters A.G.), the portrait of Duca Camillo Rospigliosi on Horseback (Rome, Pal. Braschi) and that of James Ogilvie, Lord Deskford (1740; priv. col.; see Clark, 1967, fig.), which shows great mastery. He also produced a large group of portrait drawings intended to illustrate Pio’s Vite (Stockholm, Nmus.; see Clark, 1967) and remained an accomplished draughtsman throughout his career. Unfortunately, the fame Masucci gained in the field of portraiture declined after the cold reception of his portrait of Pope Benedict XIV (1743; Rome, Gal. Accad. N. S Luca), painted for a competition won by Pierre Subleyras.
During the 1740s Masucci was overtaken by such painters as Batoni, or to a lesser extent by Placido Costanzi, and gradually excluded from the most important commissions. He continued to have success with his devotional pictures, for example the oval of St Anthony Adoring the Virgin and Child (1751; Forano, nr Rieti, S Sebastiano). This picture repeats, at least a quarter of a century later, the compositional plan of the Adoration of the Magi in S Maria in Via Lata, Rome. Masucci was buried in S Salvatore ai Monti, Rome. His two most important pupils were Batoni and Gavin Hamilton. His son, Lorenzo Masucci (d Rome, 3 July 1785), became a minor painter.
Ana Maria Rybko. "Masucci, Agostino." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T055896 (accessed April 11, 2012).
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