A Surgical Operation
(Amsterdam c. 1622 - after 1683)
Like many other works by Flemish artists in the Borghese Collection, this panel was purchased by Marcantonio IV Borghese in 1783. Signed and dated, the painting is by the Dutch artist Gerrit Lundens, who specialised in the production of genre scenes and was above all known for his portraits and his copy of Rembrandt’s Night Watch.
This composition depicts an anatomy lesson: a surgeon medicates the shoulder of a poor patient who looks directly at the spectator with a grisly expression of pain.
Object details
Inventory
Location
Date
Classification
Period
Medium
Dimensions
Frame
19th-century frame, 49 x 42 x 5.5 cm
Provenance
Rome, purchased by Marcantonio IV Borghese through Antonio Asprucci and Gavin Hamilton, 1783 (Della Pergola 1959); Inventario Fidecommissario Borghese 1833, p. 38. Purchased by Italian state, 1902.
Inscriptions
Dated and signed "G. LUNDENS. F. 1648 +".
Conservation and Diagnostic
- 1906 Luigi Bartolucci (pest control)
- 1936 Augusto Cecconi Principi
Commentary
A notice of payment dated 7 July 1783 describes a painting depicting ‘a surgeon medicating the shoulder of a peasant’. The receipt was drafted by Antonio Asprucci for the painter Gavin Hamilton, who had been entrusted by Prince Marcantonio IV Borghese to purchase the work in question together with another painting – perhaps its pendant – representing a ‘school with a number of boys and a deaf headmaster’. The pair of works were acquired for 120 scudi (see Della Pergola 1959).
The work first received a specific attribution in 1870 (see by contrast Inv. Fid. 1833; Piancastelli 1891), when Xavier Barbier de Montault ascribed it to Adrien Brouwer. While Giovanni Morelli (1892) agreed with this name, it was rightly rejected by Adolfo Venturi (1893), who noticed the painter’s signature and the date of execution, details which previous inventory compilers and critics had missed. Venturi confirmed the attribution to Lundens by pointing to similarities with two other paintings by him, one held at the Landesmuseum in Hannover and the other at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf: both works are characterised by applications of layers of glaze and by ‘a mysterious use of colour, in accordance with the manner of Rembrandt’ (Venturi 1893).
Executed in 1648, this panel is a perfect example of the oeuvre of the Dutch artist, who specialised in genre scenes and portraits. Specifically, the subject and figures of this painting are quite close to those of other of his compositions, including the work held in Göttingen (Kunstsammlung der Universität), in which the squinting right eye of the unfortunate patient communicates the same feeling of pain.
Antonio Iommelli
Bibliography
- X. Barbier de Montault, Les Musées et Galeries de Rome, Rome 1870, p. 363;
- G. Piancastelli, Catalogo dei quadri della Galleria Borghese, in Archivio Galleria Borghese, 1891, p. 431;
- G. Morelli, Italian Painters. The Borghese and Doria Pamphili Galleries, London 1892, pp. 246-247;
- A. Venturi, Il Museo e la Galleria Borghese, Roma 1893, p. 143;
- G. Lafenestre, E. Richtenberger, La peinture en Europe. Rome. Les Musées, les Collections particulières, les Palais, Paris 1905, p. 36;
- J. A. Rusconi, La Villa, il Museo e la Galleria Borghese, Bergamo 1906, p. 88;
156;
- R. Longhi, Precisioni nelle Gallerie Italiane, I, La R. Galleria Borghese, Roma 1928, p. 201;
- A. De Rinaldis, Catalogo della Galleria Borghese, Roma 1948, p. 79;
- P. della Pergola, La Galleria Borghese in Roma, Roma 1951, p. 51;
- P. Della Pergola, Un acquisto di opere fiamminghe per la Galleria Borghese, “Mededeelingen van het Nederländsch. Historisch. Instituut te Rome”, X, 1958, p. 34;
- P. della Pergola, La Galleria Borghese. I Dipinti, II, Roma 1959, p. 169, n. 246; p. 222 n. 92:
- 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. 92.
