This painting, first documented in the Borghese Collection in 1790, is by Alonso Berruguete, a Spanish painter active in Rome from 1508, where he became acquainted with the painting of Raphael, Michelangelo and Leonardo, reworked in the light of the early Florentine mannerist experiences. The painting depicts the Virgin Mary and her cousin Elizabeth, portrayed in a typically Florentine landscape in the company of the Infant Jesus and the young John the Baptist.
sixteenth-century frame decorated with leaves, pomes, and palmettes (cm 130 x 106 x 8)
Provenance
Rome, Borghese Collection, 1790 (Inventory 1790, St. I, no. 12; Della Pergola 1959); Inventario Fidecommissario Borghese 1833, p. 15. Purchased by the Italian State, 1902.
Exhibitions
1952 Napoli, Mostra d'Oltremare;
1956 Firenze, Palazzo Strozzi;
1984 Roma, Palazzo Venezia;
2011-12 Roma, Palazzo Sciarra;
2013 Firenze, Galleria degli Uffizi.
Conservation and Diagnostic
1906 - Luigi Bartolucci;
1937 - Carlo Matteucci;
2011- Nicoletta Naldoni (pest control).
Catalogue entry
The provenance of this painting remains uncertain. The first secure reference to the panel dates to 1790, when it appears in the Borghese family records with an attribution to Andrea del Sarto, a name that would change repeatedly over the centuries. It was successively linked to Fra Paolino da Pistoia, to the school of Fra Bartolommeo (Venturi 1893), to Piero di Cosimo (Berenson 1903; Gamba 1936; De Rinaldis 1937; Berenson 1937), and to Pontormo (Longhi 1928).
According to a hypothesis proposed by Paola Della Pergola (1959), the work may have come from the collection of Cardinal Antonio Maria Salviati, who owned a painting of the same subject without attribution, recorded in an inventory drawn up on 26 April 1602. However, since the Salviati collection only became part of the Borghese holdings in 1794 (Costamagna 2001), there is no longer sufficient reason to continue pursuing this line of enquiry, as previously followed by scholars.
In 1953, Roberto Longhi revisited the question of attribution and assigned the painting to Alonso Berruguete, the Spanish artist active in Italy from around 1508 to 1518, a period during which he came into contact with Raphael, Leonardo, and Michelangelo. Longhi, comparing the present painting with the additions made by Berruguete to the Coronation of the Virgin with Four Saints altarpiece now in Paris (Louvre, INV 419), had no doubt in dating the Borghese work between 1508-1510 and 1514. His opinion was confirmed by Paola Della Pergola (1955–1959) and has since been unanimously accepted by the scholarly community (see, most recently, K. Herrmann Fiore in Il Rinascimento a Roma, 2011; T. Mozzati in Norma e capriccio, 2013; Dickerson 2019).
G. Vasari, Vite de’ più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori italiani, da Cimabue a’tempi nostri, Firenze 1550, ed. a cura G. Milanesi, III, Firenze 1971, p. 567;
G. Piancastelli, Catalogo dei quadri della Galleria Borghese, in Archivio Galleria Borghese, 1891, p. 239;
B. Berenson, Florentine Painters, New York 1909, p. 131;
R. Longhi, Precisioni nelle Gallerie Italiane, I, La R. Galleria Borghese, Roma 1928, p. 208;
B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the The Renaissance, Oxford 1932, p. 453;
B. Berenson, Pitture Italiane del Rinascimento, Milano 1936., p. 390;
C. Gamba, Piero di Cosimo e i suoi quadri mitologici, in “Bollettino d’Arte”, XXX, 1936-1937, p. 57;
A. De Rinaldis, La Galleria Borghese in Roma, Roma 1939, p. 31;
P. della Pergola, La Galleria Borghese in Roma, Roma 1951, p. 29;
Fontainebleau e la Maniera Italiana, catalogo della mostra (Napoli, Mostra d'Oltremare, 1952), Firenze 1952, p. 33, n. 55;
L. Beccurucci, Alonso Berreguete, in “Bollettino d'Arte”, XXXVIII, pp. 168-169;
R. Longhi, Avvio a Pier Francesco Foschi, in “Paragone”, XLIII, 1953, 43, pp. 7-8;
F. Zeri, Alonso Berruguete: Una Madonna con San Giovannino, in “Paragone”, XLIII, 1953, p. 51;
Il Pontormo e il Primo Manierismo Fiorentino, catalogo della mostra, Firenze 1956, p. 113;
P. Della Pergola, La Galleria Borghese in Roma, Roma 1957, p. 29;
J. A. Gaya Nuño, La Pintura Española fuera de España, Madrid 1958, p. 113;
P. della Pergola, La Galleria Borghese. I Dipinti, II, Roma 1959, p. 17, n. 14;
J. Gudiol, Alonso Berreguete, in Enciclopedia Universale dell'Arte, XII, 1964, p. 803;
M. G. Ciardi Dufrè Del Poggetto, Sull’attività italiana di Alfonso Berreguete scultore, in “Commentari”, XIX, 1968, pp. 11-36;
C. Stefani, in P. Moreno, C. Stefani, Galleria Borghese, Milano 2000, p. 288;
P. Costamagna, La collection de peintures d'une famille florentine étabilie à Rome: l'inventaire d'apres décès du Duc Antonio Maria Salviati, in "Nuovi Studi", V, 2001, pp. 184, 213 nota 76; Herrmann Fiore 2006, p. 110;
K. Hermann Fiore in Il Rinascimento a Roma. Nel segno di Michelangelo e Raffaello, catalogo della mostra (Roma, Fondazione Roma 2011-2012), a cura di M.G. Bernardini, M. Bussagli, Roma 2011, p. 282, n. 45;
T. Mozzati, in Norma e capriccio. Spagnoli in Italia agli esordi della "maniera moderna", catalogo della mostra (Firenze, Galleria degli Uffizi, 2013), a cura di T. Mozzati, Firenze 2013, pp. 17-47, 206, n. I.5.
C.D. Dickerson, Alonso Berruguete. First sculptor of Renaissance Spain, New Heaven-London 2019, pp. 26, 28
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