Our Lady of Sorrows

Follower of da Ponte Jacopo called Jacopo Bassano

(Bassano del Grappa 1510 - 1592)

This canvas was first documented as forming part of the Borghese Collection in 1610. The work is a perfect copy of a painting by Titian with the same subject held today in a private collection in Seattle. It depicts Our Lady of Sorrows: the Virgin holds her hands together while silently expressing her pain for the death of Jesus. A similar composition, executed in mosaic by the Venetian Alvise Gaetani in 1607, is also held by the Galleria.

Object details

Commentary

The provenance of this small canvas is still unknown. It was first mentioned in connection with the Borghese Collection in 1610, when it was listed as ‘a Madonna with a black mantle and white veil, her hands joined palm to palm’ (AAV, AB, 7502, unnumbered charta .). It was described in detail among the possessions of Francesco Borghese, who following an agreement made with Scipione Borghese in 1615 gave the cardinal this work together with other important masterpieces, including Raphael’s Madonna of the Candelabra (AAV, FB, IV.73; see Della Pergola 1955).

While Iacomo Manilli (1650) attributed it to Titian, this canvas was later ascribed to the mosaicist Marcello Provenzale of Cento (Inv. 1790; Inv. 1833), an error resulting from the fact that the compositions of this artist were confused with Our Lady of Sorrows by Alvise Gaetani (inv. no. 502): that mosaic was mistakenly attributed to Marcello, in spite of the signature on the back of the work.

In 1893 Adolfo Venturi, who was still under the impression that the work was by Provenzale, proposed that this canvas was a preliminary study for the above-mentioned mosaic. Yet his theory was rightly rejected by Paola della Pergola (1955), who pointed to similarities with the Crucifixion executed by Jacopo Bassano for the church of San Teonisto in Treviso, attributing the work in question to an anonymous follower of this artist. Subsequent critics, however, were not persuaded: while Arslan (1960) claimed the work clearly reflected the style of the Bassano circle, Kristina Herrmann Fiore (2006) published it under the name of the painter Giovanni Battista Salvi da Sassoferrato.

The question of attribution, then, is still open. What is beyond doubt is that the subject derives from Titian’s Mater Dolorosa held in Seattle (private collection; formerly in the collection of P. Jackson Higgs), which was in turn inspired by his Madonna in Sorrow, executed in 1554 upon a commission by Charles V (Madrid, Museo del Prado. inv. no. P449). One theory – which unfortunately cannot be easily demonstrated (see Della Pergola 1955, which includes a bibliography on the topic) – proposes that the painting in Seattle once formed part of the Borghese Collection but then disappeared in the late 17th century and was replaced by the canvas in question. If this is the case, then the former work was the one ceded in 1783 by Filippo III Colonna to Robert Sloane, who in turn sold it on the antiques market; from here it later reached Seattle (see, most recently, Dal Pozzolo 2007).

Antonio Iommelli