Adoration of the Magi

Tempesta Antonio

(Florence 1555 - Rome 1630)

A part of the Borghese collection since the 17th century, the work has been attributed to Antonio Tempesta in the collection’s inventories since the end of the 18th century. The attribution to the master is almost unanimously confirmed by critics, due to the sophisticated execution and the artist’s great mastery in taking advantage of the veining and natural hues of the support from a figurative point of view, skilfully integrating them into the setting and sky that form part of the background.

Object details

Commentary

The scene of the adoration of the Child, being lifted up by the Madonna, is depicted in the foreground, to the left of the composition, with St Joseph apart from the Mother and Son; the Magi approach from behind the Virgin, followed by a crowded colourful procession of pages, soldiers, horses and camels. An enormous golden, luminous cloud dominates the upper part of the painting, leaving two glimpses of blue sky on either side, with the guiding star-comet standing out on the left. In the cloud is a lively host of seraphim and angels and, at the top, God the Father. The cloud extends down to the ground to occupy the space behind the Holy Family and partly hides the figures of the ox and the donkey.

In the catalogue of the Galleria Borghese (1959, pp. 55-56, no. 81), Paola Della Pergola reported that an Adoration of the Magi on alabaster was already listed in 1615 in the inventory of Marcantonio Borghese’s estate. However, the measurements were very different from those of this painting and she concluded that it was a different work. The first certain mention for this alabaster can be found in the 1693 inventory, with no reference to the artist: “Underneath the aforementioned, a painting about one and a half palms high on stone with the Madonna, Child and Adoration of the Maggi with the Heavenly Glory of No. 336 black frame. Uncertain” (Della Pergola, 1965, p. 207, no. 534). Antonio Tempesta’s name appears for the first time in the inventory dated 1790: “The Adoration of the Maggi, Tempesta, on alabaster” (Tarissi de Jacobis 2003, p. 110, no. 9), repeated in Camillo Borghese’s 1812 inventory: “Adoration of the Maggi by Antonio Tempesta on alabaster”, and finally in the fideicommissary inventory of 1833(Mariotti 1893, p. 92, no. 25) . Strangely enough, in Barbier de Montault’s 1870 guidebook, which shows the captions of the works exhibited in Palazzo Borghese in Campo Marzio, in Room 8, the alabaster is described as follows: “16. Thadée Zuccari. Adoration des mages, peinte sur albatre’” This reference was not followed up and the attribution to Tempesta was reconfirmed in Giovanni Piancastelli’s files (ms. 1888-1891) and in the literature that followed (Venturi 1893, p. 219, no. 500; Longhi 1928, p. 223, no. 500; Calabi 1938, p. 517; Della Pergola cit.).

Luciana Ferrara was responsible for identifying Tempesta’s signature on the casket carried by the page with the blue and red headdress with feathers (S. Staccioli 1971, pp. 34-35, no. 18): the inscription consists of a few capital letters arranged in two rows, partly concealed by the arm of the person carrying it: ANT .. . P / F ...TA, and by adding in the missing letters it could read, ANT. TEMP / FEC. ESTA. However, while scholars more or less generally accepted the attribution to the Florentine painter (Collomb 2006, p. 269, no. 64; Herrmann Fiore 2006, p. 161, no. 500), in the opinion of Johanna Beate Lohff, the signature on the work does not definitively answer the question of the artist’s identity (2015, pp. 183-184, n. 1.6). The scholar compared the Borghese Adoration of the Magi with two other paintings on alabaster portraying the same subject and attributed to Tempesta, the first in an antiques market (New York, Stanley Moss & Co. Inc., Clinton Corners) and the second part of a portable altarpiece conserved in the museum of the Cathedral of Segovia. She found an analogous composition in the three works but, the Borghese version had less dynamism and more schematic and rigid figures and animals. She concluded that the layout of the scene, the type of figures and the signature suggested that the Borghese Adoration of the Magi was painted by someone close to Antonio Tempesta, but that it was perhaps the work of a pupil or workshop.

Contrary to what Lohff claims, the accurate portrayal of the animals and figures, albeit in less sumptuous garb than the New York and Segovia versions, the rich layered colours in the Borghese painting and the studied composition suggest the expert craftsmanship of a master, skilled enough to exploit the alabaster surface with its veining and nuances, only here and there emphasised and reinforced by oil paint in the parts left visible. In fact, the stone is an authentic protagonist, as much as the characters depicted, indeed in some cases it suggests or determines compositional solutions. For example, one can see how the veining in the cloud, reinforced only with minimal veils of paint, is used by the painter to position the angels and cherubs on the surface. The way the two rounded light areas on the alabaster are resolved is even more enchanting: the artist uses them as a starting point to position the Madonna and Child, interpreting them with the halo behind their heads, resulting in a mirror-image inversion of the figures - with the Madonna with her back to the procession of Magi - compared to the New York and Segovia versions.

Such mastery in handling the natural material, which implies a consummate experience in working with this particular type of support, cannot be attributed to a pupil or workshop assistant, but rather to a skilful master such as Antonio Tempesta, who had a great deal of experience in painting on stones of various kinds, judging by the frequency of his name in collections and inventories, including the Borghese ones, beyond the actual survival of such works. It is not easy to date this type of painting, but using as a reference the New York Adoration of the Magi, a more complex and elaborate composition, signed and perhaps datable to 1624 (Vannugli 2007, p. 233), a date between the beginning of the pontificate of Paul V and the second decade of the 17th century could be proposed for the Borghese alabaster.

Emanuela Settimi