Our Lady of Sorrows
(Venice before 1595 - 1631)
(Pieve di Cadore 1488-90 - Venice 1576)
This mosaic entered the Borghese Collection no later than 1693. According to a traditional theory, it was purchased by Scipione Borghese – who greatly admired such works – directly from its artist, the Venetian mosaicist Alvise Gaetani. It depicts the Virgin Mary, dressed here in a black cape and white veil, as she holds her hands in a gesture of pain. Taken from a painting from Titian, the scene has led critics to propose that the work was made from a derivation of Titian’s canvas still held today in the Galleria.
Object details
Inventory
Location
Date
Classification
Period
Medium
Dimensions
Frame
Salvator Rosa, 76,5 x 62.5 x 7 cm
Provenance
Rome, Borghese Collection, 1693 (Inv. 1693, room XI, no. 91; room VIII, no. 242); Inv. 1790, room VII, no. 122; Inventario Fidecommissario 1833, p. 32; purchased by Italian state, 1902.
Inscriptions
Sul retro 'OPUS ALOYSII GAIETANI VENETI 1607'
Exhibitions
- 1972 Roma, Galleria Borghese
- 1999-2000 Rimini, Palazzo del Podestà
Commentary
The provenance of this mosaic is still uncertain. While the theory that Scipione Borghese purchased it directly from Gaetani (Della Pergola 1955; Staccioli 1971; Valeriani 1999; Herrmann Fiore 2006) lacks evidence, the presence of similar works in the collection of the Casino di Porta Pinciana acquired by the cultivated cardinal without an intermediary warns us against definitively rejecting this hypothesis but rather induces us to treat it with caution.
As a legible inscription on the back of the work shows, the composition was executed in 1607 by the Venetian Alvise Gaetani, details which were completely ignored by the compiler of the 1693 inventory. This is the document which first attests the mosaic’s presence in the Borghese Collection, which it describes in these words: ‘a work of two and a half palms in mosaic with the Madonna with folded hands, based on a drawing by Titian, no. 645, black frame’. While the inventory of 1700 ascribed the work to Marcello Provenzale, the correct attribution to Alvise was first made in that of 1790 and repeated in the Inventario Fidecommissario.
The image of Our Lady of Sorrows undoubtedly derives from one of the many replicas of Titian’s famous painting held in Madrid (Museo del Prado, inv. no. P449). In 1893, Adolfo Venturi proposed that the exact prototype was the canvas by a follower of Bassano, which has formed part of the Borghese Collection since at least 1650 (inv. no. 63). Yet no documentary evidence backs this contention (Capitelli 1998): to support it, we would have to imagine that Alvise saw that canvas somewhere else, perhaps in Venice, before it entered the Borghese Collection. At the same time, the existence of two similar works – one on canvas, the other in mosaic – in the same collection suggests their common provenance.
Antonio Iommelli
Bibliography
- A. Venturi, Il Museo e la Galleria Borghese, Roma 1893, p. 219;
- R. Longhi, Precisioni nelle Gallerie Italiane, I, La R. Galleria Borghese, Roma 1928, p. 223;
- P. della Pergola, La Galleria Borghese. I Dipinti, I, Roma 1955, p. 111, n. 200;
- S. Staccioli, in Opere in mosaico, intarsi e pietra paesina, catalogo della mostra (Roma, Galleria Borghese, 1971), a cura di S. Staccioli, Roma 1971, p. 14, n. 4;
- G. Capitelli, Gaetano, Alvise, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, LI, 1998, ad vocem;
- R. Valeriani, in La forma del colore. Arte del mosaico dall'antichità al XX secolo, catalogo della mostra (Rimini, Palazzo del Podestà, 1999-2000), a cura di A. Donati, Milano 1999, pp. 124, 179, n. 59
- 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. 162.
