Adoration of the Magi

copy after da Ponte Jacopo called Jacopo Bassano

(Bassano del Grappa 1510 - 1592)

The panel was purchased by sculptor Bartolomeo Cavaceppi as a work by Filippo Lauri in 1787. Attributed to disparate artists (Giacinto Gimignani, Scarsellino, El Greco and Pietro de’ Marescalchi), it was later believed to be a copy from a lost original by Jacopo Bassano, engraved by Raphael Sadeler. The work can be generically dated to between the late 16th century and early 17th century.

Object details

Commentary

The painting, believed to be by Filippo Lauri, came from the collection of Bartolomeo Cavaceppi and was purchased by Prince Marcantonio Borghese in 1787, together with other paintings from the Cavaceppi collection in exchange for a life annuity (Della Pergola 1955, p. 154, doc. 27). In the 1790 inventory, it was listed as a work by Lauri, described as a “Holy Family”, maintaining the attribution to the Roman painter until Piancastelli’s catalogue (1891). Later, Venturi (1893) believed the work to be by Giacinto Gimignani, Porcella (1925) by Scarsellino, while Longhi (1928) considered it to be an original by Jacopo Bassano, dating it to around 1550-1560, an opinion that was accepted by both Berenson (1936) and Zampetti (1957). Attributed to El Greco by Cantalamessa (1916); Bertini-Calosso (1924); Mayer (1939) and Camon-Aznar (1950), it was attributed to Pietro de’ Marescalchi called lo Spada da Fiocco (1929) and at first by Arslan (1931), who in the re-edition of his monograph on the Bassano (1960) rehabilitated the painting by including it in Jacopo’s catalogue. Pallucchini (1948) and Della Pergola (1955) considered it to be a copy from a lost original by the Venetian painter, an opinion also echoed by Rearick in the catalogue of the exhibition dedicated to the painter in 1992. The scholar described the painting as a copy, possibly by a Flemish artist, based on an engraving by Raphael Sadeler from the original, of which he published a further version in a private collection in Bassano del Grappa (Rearick 1992, p. CXIII, fig. 25). Rearick reasoned by pointing out the existence of numerous derivations from Sadeler’s engraving, mostly by northern European artists, dating the execution of the painting to shortly after the publication of the print in 1598. Recently, however, Donati (2017) has revived the proposal to recognise an original by Jacopo Bassano in the painting, datable to after 1566.

The panel, characterised by a glazed surface and brilliant colours, depicts the biblical episode, repeatedly painted by the Bassano family (see Donati 2017), in a vertical variant that presents the group of the Holy Family and the Magi in a more compact arrangement, with the characters making up the royal procession reduced to just three figures. The upper part of the composition is largely occupied by a glory of flying cherubs that enhance the beam of divine light that descends from above to illuminate the scene.

Elisa Martini