A Beggar

Ribera Jusepe de' called Spagnoletto

(Jàtiva 1591 - Naples 1652)

While in the past scholars debated the attribution of this painting, today almost all critics agree on the name of Jusepe de Ribera, called Spagnoletto. It is thought that it was executed shortly after the painter’s arrival in Rome in roughly 1612. This early date makes the work a model for the development of the genre or representing paupers, which became quite popular in Rome in the following decades.

Object details

Commentary

The painting is a half-length frontal portrait of a poor mendicant as he holds out his upturned hat to ask for alms.

Critics had long debated the question of attribution. The question was only settled in 2002, when Gianni Papi (pp. 26-27) showed convincingly that the canvas was by Jusepe de Ribera, called Spagnoletto. This scholar further identified the work in the inventory of Cardinal Scipione Borghese (c.1633), which had been discovered and published by Sandro Corradini (1998, p. 454, n. 193). The entry in question, no. 193, reads, ‘a painting of a mendicant, in a walnut frame, 4 ⅓ spans wide, 3 high, by Spagnoletto’. (For the dating of the inventory, see S. Pierguidi, ‘“In materia totale di pitture si rivolsero al singolar Museo Borghesiano”’, Journal of the History of Collections, XXVI, 2014.) The work appears in later inventories with different attributions: it is variously ascribed to Caravaggio (1693), Ribera (1790) and to the Flemish school in the Inventario Fidecommissario (1833). Critics likewise proposed a series of different names, from Bartolomeo Manfredi (Venturi 1893, p. 161) to Dirck Van Baburen (Longhi 1928, pp. 26, 208; Della Pergola 1959, pp. 144-145, n. 198; Brejon de Lavergnée 1993, p. 208; but rejected by Leonard Slatkes 1965, p. 163) and to the Dutch artist Wouter Crabeth II (Nicolson 1979, p. 46, and 1990, I, p. 103; Spinosa 1992, p. 55). Papi’s confirmation of the attribution of the Beggar to Ribera was based in part on stylistic considerations; his theory was supported by Nicola Spinosa (2003, p. 249, n. A1). The painting has indeed been included in recent exhibitions dedicated to the Spanish painter, namely those held in Salamanca (see Spinosa 2005, p. 42, n. 1), Madrid and Naples (see Papi 2011, 120, n. 8).

Although the provenance of the work is still unknown, in light of its presence in the oldest inventory of Scipione Borghese’s collection it is probable that the cardinal purchased it shortly after its  execution or even commissioned it directly. As is known, Scipione held the art of Caravaggio’s school in great esteem and patronised many contemporary artists.

The canvas can be dated to roughly 1612, the time of the young Ribera’s arrival in Rome; indeed his presence in the city is documented with certainty from 1613, although it is quite probable that his Roman sojourn began the year before. His four-year stay in the Eternal City coincides with his turn toward the style of Caravaggio, whose influence is certainly evident in the work in question (Spinosa 2003, p. 42, n. 1; Papi 2005, p. 250, n. III.1, 2011, p. 120, n. 13, and 2014, p. 202, n. 27). This chronology is confirmed by the stylistic affinities with the Saint Jerome in the Tanenbaum collection in Toronto (currently in the storerooms of the Art Museum of Ontario), which dates to roughly 1615; a second version of this painting is preserved in the Trafalgar Galleries in London. Similarities between the Beggar and the Saint Jerome are evident in the naturalistic rendering of the facial features and expressions as well as in the free, frayed-edged brushwork. Spinosa had in fact noted these characteristics in the early 1990s, when he still ascribed both works to Crabeth.

The early date given to the work makes it a model for this entire genre, which was greatly successful in Rome from the second decade of the 17th century. Beginning in this period, painters produced a flurry of representations of humble subjects, such as modest workers or poor beggars, portrayed either individually or in groups; the same tendency is evident in northern European artistic circles (Papi 2005, p. 250, n. III.1, 2011, p. 120, n. 13, and 2014, p. 202, n. 27). Ribera’s Beggar is one of the highest-quality products of this revolutionary trend, above all thanks to the way in which he approached his subject, lending it the same monumentality traditionally reserved for figures of high rank, such as philosophers and saints. In Papi’s view, this work recalls the series of Cussida Apostles (later purchased by Gavotti), which Longhi ascribed to the Master of the Judgement of Solomon (R. Longhi, ‘Ultimi studi sul Caravaggio e la sua cerchia’, Proporzioni, I, 1943, p. 58). Papi, who strongly supported the identification of the Master with the young Ribera, saw the strongest resemblance with the Saint Bartholomew of the series (Fondazione Longhi, Florence): in his view, the Beggar shares the same powerful frontality and the same fixed stare, elements which make a deep impression on the viewer (see also Papi 2005, p. 260, n. III. 6-7). The figure emerges in the foreground from a dark, indefinite backdrop. He is struck by a ray of light coming from the upper left-hand corner; it illuminates his tattered clothes and his deeply marked face, which is characterised by an extraordinary expressive force.

Pier Ludovico Puddu