The Crucifixion with the Virgin and Saint John the Evangelist

Manner of Venusti Marcello

(Como c. 1515 - Rome 1579)

This painting is first documented in connection with the Borghese Collection in the Inventario Fidecommissario of 1833. In the past it was mistaken for a panel with a similar subject that once belonged to the Duchess Lucrezia d’Este, which came into the Borghese possession through the estate of the elder Olimpia Aldobrandini.

At first ascribed to the manner of Marcello Venusti, the work was recently attributed to an anonymous Spanish artist. In all likelihood it was executed at the end of the 16th century. It depicts Christ on the Cross between Mary and John the Evangelist; the arrangement of the composition certainly derives from a lost work by Michelangelo Buonarroti.

Object details

Commentary

For decades critics confused this painting with a work on panel that once formed part of the Borghese Collection and which ended up in the collection of Luciano Bonaparte in the 19th century (Della Pergola 1959; Herrmann Fiore 1995). According to the traditional account – which is no longer tenable – the canvas came from the rich estate of Lucrezia d’Este and was then transferred from Urbino to Rome, where it entered into the possession of the elder Olimpia Aldobrandini (Della Pergola 1959). The inventory of her collection mentioned ‘a work on panel [sic!] with Our Lord on the Cross with the Madonna and St John, roughly two palms high, by Marcello Venusti, as reported in the said Inventory on page 235, no. 392, and in that of the Cardinal on page 196’ (Inv. 1682). In the view of  Paola della Pergola (1959), the work described here certainly corresponded to the painting in question; the compiler mistakenly labelled it as ‘on panel’, an error which in her opinion was repeated in the 1693 Borghese inventory as well: ‘a work on panel [sic!] roughly two spans high with Christ on the Cross with the Virgin and St John, at nos 179 and 484, gilded frame, by Michelangelo Buonarota’ (Inv. 1693).

Yet as Wiecker (1977) demonstrated, the phrase ‘on panel’ was not a mistake but the correct description of another work with the same subject, which came into the Bonaparte collection and was then stolen. In 1977, Wiecker in fact published a 19th-century engraving depicting the Aldobrandini painting, which incidentally corresponds exactly to the account given in 1783 by Wilhelm Heinse, who saw the panel when it was still in Rome. Both his description and the engraving undoubtedly refer to the same work, which shows Christ still alive on the cross, John the Evangelist with his arms crossed over his chest, and angels who are crying – details which in fact differ from those in the canvas in question.

We must therefore reject Della Pergola’s hypothesis and instead aim to clarify the context in which the canvas was executed and how it came to form part of the collection at the Casino di Porta Pinciana. Here it was first documented in 1833, when it was initially ascribed to an unknown painter (Inventario Fidecommissario 1833; Piancastelli 1891). Later critics proposed a variety of more specific attributions, from Girolamo Muziano (Venturi 1893) to Michelangelo Carducci of Norcia (Longhi 1928) and to an anonymous follower of Marcello Venusti (Della Pergola 1959). According to Wiecker, the canvas was executed at the same time that the lost panel entered the Bonaparte collection, namely during the 19th century, when the Borghese family ordered a copy to replace the first work.

Regarding the artist, in the view of Kristina Herrmann Fiore (1995; 2006), the work was executed by an anonymous Spanish painter between 1565 and 1600, as suggested by several details such as the sombre atmosphere of the composition and the archaeological landscape dear to Flemish painters. The latter motif was much in vogue in late 16th-century Spain, in particular in the circle of painters active at El Escorial, including Miguel Barroso, Fernandez de Navarrete and Luis de Carvajal.

A version of the work, which also derives from a drawing by Michelangelo, is conserved at the Doria Pamphilj Gallery in Rome (inv. no. 340; Della Pergola 1959).

Antonio Iommelli