Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist
Perhaps already forming part of the Borghese Collection by 1693, this painting was traditionally attributed to Perin del Vaga. Critics, however, rejected this idea because of the clear influence of the Lombard school combined with typically Roman stylistic traits, elements which render an attribution to a follower of Raphael problematic.
The work depicts the Virgin Mary as she hands the Christ Child to John the Baptist, whose figure emerges from the dark background of the composition thanks to the careful use of light.
Object details
Inventory
Location
Date
Classification
Period
Medium
Dimensions
Frame
Salvator Rosa, 80.5 x 66 x 6.5 cm
Provenance
Rome, Borghese Collection, 1693 (Inv. 1693, room III, no. 50; Della Pergola 1959); Inventario Fidecommissario 1833, p. 18; purchased by Italian state, 1902.
Commentary
The provenance of this painting is still unknown. It was first documented in connection with the Borghese Connection in 1693, as it perhaps corresponds to the entry in that year’s inventory describing a work ‘of roughly three spans with the Virgin, Child and the young John the Baptist, with a gilded frame, at no. 21’, ascribed by the compiler of the inventory to ‘Pierin del Vago’ (Inv. 1693; Della Pergola 1959). The attribution was maintained in the Inventario Fidecommissario (1833) and in Giovanni Piancastelli’s Note manoscritte (1891) but rejected by Adolfo Venturi (1893), who wrote of an anonymous painter of the Florentine school, and by Roberto Longhi (1928), who invoked ‘the Lombard school, in the orbit of Cesare Magni’, adding that the figure of John was added roughly a century after the execution of the panel. This idea was forcefully rebuffed by Paola della Pergola (1959), who in 1959 published the painting as by a Roman master influenced by the style of the Lombard school, a theory that has not received the attention of later critics (see Herrmann Fiore 2006).
In spite of the fact that its poor conservational state demands caution in formulating any judgement, the present writer believes that Longhi’s opinion deserves attention. A certain air reminiscent of Leonardo seems to point in the direction of a mid-16th-century Lombard artist familiar with the post-Raphaelite culture brought to Milan by Magni and Cesare da Sesto.
Antonio Iommelli
Bibliography
- G. Piancastelli, Catalogo dei quadri della Galleria Borghese, in Archivio Galleria Borghese, 1891, p. 326;
- A. Venturi, Il Museo e la Galleria Borghese, Roma 1893, p. 176;
- J. A. Rusconi, La Villa, il Museo e la Galleria Borghese, Bergamo 1906, p. 90;
- R. Longhi, Precisioni nelle Gallerie Italiane, I, La R. Galleria Borghese, Roma 1928, p. 213;
- P. della Pergola, La Galleria Borghese. I Dipinti, II, Roma 1959, p. 105, n. 153;
- K. Herrmann Fiore, Galleria Borghese Roma scopre un tesoro. Dalla pinacoteca ai depositi un museo che non ha più segreti, San Giuliano Milanese 2006, p. 121.
