This panel painting was in all probability purchased directly by Cardinal Scipione Borghese. It dates to the first decade of the sixteenth century and stylistically belongs to the group of works by Mazzolino in which his early influence by Giorgione is clear.
Inventory circa 1630, no. 238; Inventory 1693, room IV, no. 208; Inventario Fidecommissario 1833, p. 27 no. 31
Exhibitions
1933, Ferrara, Palazzo dei Diamanti
Conservation and Diagnostic
1903-1904, Luigi Bartolucci
1947, Carlo Matteucci
1992, Istituto Centrale del Restauro
2019, Fabiola Jatta
2020, Measure3D (diagnostics)
2020, Erredicci (diagnostics)
2021, ArsMensurae (diagnostics)
2021, IFAC (Istituto di Fisica Applicata del CNR di Firenze) (diagnostics)
Commentary
In a typical Veneto landscape, clearly influenced by Giorgione, we find, starting from the left, St Joseph, standing behind the kneeling Virgin, the baby Jesus, portrayed as a newborn but already sitting and able to communicate with adult gestures, and a shepherd, who is also kneeling and is accompanied by a dog, in front of which there are two bags.
The painting first appears in the Borghese Collection in the inventory drawn up in the 1630s, in which it is listed as ‘un quadro la Madonna che adora il figliolo, S. Gioseppe et un pellegrino cornice d’ebano, alto 1 2/3 largo 2. Girolamo da Carpi’ (‘a painting the Madonna adoring the child, St Joseph and a pilgrim ebony frame, 1 2/3 high 2 wide. Girolamo da Carpi’). This mistaken attribution changed in the 1693 inventory to ‘unknown artist’ and, then, in 1833, to the more generic ‘Venetian school’. On Morelli’s suggestion, Piancastelli (1891) corrected the attribution of the painting.
The strong naturalism and spatial organisation, which is very close to Giorgione’s Allendale Nativity (circa 1505, Washington, National Gallery of Art, inv. 1939.1.289), of this painting express all the developments in the work of artists like Lotto and Boccaccino (Ballarin 1991), with a special predilection for inserting highly meaningful elements. One example of the latter is the dog on the right, which seems to be a citation of the animal next to Duke Borso in the lower register of Francesco del Cossa’s April in the Hall of the Months in Palazzo Schifanoia, Ferrara.
The identifiable influences and the artist’s trip to Venice by the first decade of the century (Zamboni 1968) allow us to date the work to around the first decade of the sixteenth century.
R. H. Benson, Exhibition of Pictures, Drawings and Photographs of Works of the School of Ferrara-Bologna, 1440-1550, also of Members of the Houses of Este and Bentivoglio, catalogo della mostra a cura di R. H. Benson, London 1894, n. 42
R. Longhi, Precisioni nelle gallerie italiane. Galleria Borghese, Roma 1928, n. 247
N. Barbantini, Esposizione della pittura ferrarese del Rinascimento, catalogo della mostra (Ferrara, Palazzo dei Diamanti, maggio-ottobre 1933), Venezia1933, n. 162
F. Bologna, Un presepe giovanile del Garofalo, «Paragone», VI, 63, 1955, pp. 27-31
P. Della Pergola, La Galleria Borghese. I Dipinti, I, Roma 1955, pp. 55-56, n. 92
R. Longhi, Nuovi ampliamenti (1940-1955), in Opere complete di Roberto Longhi, V, Firenze1956, p. 118
S. Zamboni, Ludovico Mazzolino, Ferrara 1968, n. 54 p. 13
E. Waterhouse, Mazzolino & Co., in Da Borso a Cesare d’Este. La scuola di Ferrara 1450-1628, catalogo della mostra, Londra 1984, Ferrara 1985, pp. 159-164
F. Moro, Giovanni Agostino da Lodi ovvero l’Agostino di Bramantino: appunti per un unico percorso, «Paragone», XI, 473, 1989, pp. 56-57 n. 70
A. Coliva, Galleria Borghese, Roma 1994, p. 124 n. 62
A. Ballarin, Attorno a Giorgione l’anno 1500: Boccaccio Boccaccino, in Dosso Dossi. La pittura a Ferrara negli anni del Ducato di Alfonso I, Cittadella (PD) 1994-1995, I, pp. 3-21
V. Romani, in A. Ballarin, Dosso Dossi. La pittura a Ferrara negli anni del Ducato di Alfonso I, Cittadella (PD) 1994-1995, I, scheda 126
C. Stefani, in Galleria Borghese, a cura di P. Moreno e C. Stefani, Milano 2000, p. 263
S. Tarissi de Jacobis, in Il museo senza confini. Dipinti ferraresi del Rinascimento nelle raccolte romane, a cura di J. Bentini e S. Guarino, Milano2002, pp. 190-191, scheda 36
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