Adoration of the Magi

Follower of Tisi Benvenuto called Garofalo

(Garofalo or Ferrara 1476 - Ferrara 1559)

This painting of the Adoration of the Magi is attributable to a follower of the Ferrara painter Benvenuto Tisi, known as Garofalo. Although theories have been advanced about the painting’s original location, the earliest documentary evidence of the work is found in the Borghese inventory of 1693. The simplicity of the rendering of a style influenced by the work of Giorgio Vasari, a friend of Garofalo, suggests that the painting was made by a member of the latter’s workshop, who in any case dated the work 1543 in Roman numerals on the parapet on the left.

Object details

Commentary

In her catalogue for the Galleria Borghese (1955), Paola Della Pergola identified the provenance of this work in the church of San Bartolo in Ferrara based on a letter of unknown origin copied by Piancastelli and dated 9 August 1608, sent by Cardinal Pio from the just reconquered Ferrara to Scipione Borghese: ‘I went to S. Bartolo and with me was Lord Prince Savello […] I saw […] in a chapel a painting by a good hand, […] we looked at it more closely and clearly saw that it was by Garofolo and very good […] and in my judgement it is not one of the worst things that he did […] I will take care to have it sent to Rome to save it’. However, the work does not appear in the inventories before 1693, when it was attributed to Garofalo. In the Fidecommesso of 1833 it is attributed to his school. And the painting of the same subject in the above-mentioned Ferrara church, dated 1549, is in the Pinacoteca Nazionale (inv. PNFe 156; Brisighella 1700-1735, ed. 1991, pp. 572–573, note 1). And so, it is impossible to pin the Borghese painting to this provenance, even though the letter documented by Piancastelli reports a plan, probably never brought to completion, to send the painting now in the Gallerie Estensi in Ferrara to Rome.

The simplicity of the rendering and the carefully weighed tone revealing the assimilation of Vasari’s ‘Maniera’ (Pattanaro 1995), suggest that the work was painted by a member of Garofalo’s workshop, who dated it 1543 in Roman numerals on the parapet to the left.

Almost certainly commissioned for a church or private chapel given its large size, the Borghese painting seems to represent an intermediate stage between the two paintings of the Adoration of the Magi for the church San Giorgio, now also in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Ferrara (inv. PNFe 154) and dated 1537, and the church of San Bartolo, which is also known through a copy of lesser quality in the Pinacoteca Capitolina (inv. PC 9).

Lara Scanu