Madonna and Child

Provenzale Marcello

(Cento 1575 - Rome 1639)

Executed in 1600, this mosaic was donated by Marcello Provenzale to the powerful and cultured Cardinal Scipione Borghese, who in subsequent years commissioned several works to the artist, including the well-known, refined Orpheus (inv. no. 492).

Dated and signed in the lower left hand corner –‘Opus Marcelli Provenzalis de Cento A.D. 1600’ – the work depicts the Virgin seated frontally on a throne of clouds as the Queen of Heaven. She is dressed in red and light blue and holds up the little Jesus on the right, who is portrayed here in profile.

Object details

Commentary

This mosaic, signed and dated in the lower left hand corner, was first mentioned in connection with the Borghese Collection in 1693, when that year’s inventory of the belongings at the Palazzo di Ripetta listed it as ‘a work in mosaic of roughly three and a half palms with the Madonna and Child on the clouds, with a black frame, no. 144, by Marcello Provenzale’. Executed by the mosaicist from Cento in 1600, the work entered the collection of Scipione Borghese shortly thereafter. Sources cited it as a gift to the powerful prelate (Cittadella 1783; Baruffaldi 1846).

As the date of its composition tells us, this mosaic is a product of Provenzale’s early career, realised while the artist was active on the project to embellish St Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Cardinal Scipione immediately noticed his exceptional talent and took him under his wing, commissioning a series of works to him, including this refined Madonna (see Della Pergola 1955; Staccioli 1971).

The composition depicts the Virgin seated frontally on a throne of clouds as the Queen of Heaven. She is dressed in red and light blue and holds up the little Jesus on the right, who is portrayed here in profile. According to Camilla Fiore (2010), the figure of Mary reveals several typical stylistic characteristics of Federico Barocci and Ludovico Carracci, whose plastic rendering of figures recalls the marble group of the Madonna of the Girdle in the church of Sant'Agostino in Cento, with which Marcello was certainly familiar. As Fiore noted, the tiles of this composition are larger than those which Provenzale used during the 1610s and are arranged in a ‘disordered’ manner to create the plays of light typical of his best works. The stones are indeed placed at different inclinations such that the light strikes them in a variety of ways, giving rise to a delicate effect of brilliance and sparkle.

Antonio Iommelli