Christ on the Tomb with Two Angels

Ciampelli Agostino

(Florence 1565 - Rome 1630)

Although some payments to the painter Agostino Ciampelli for one of his works (1614) were found, the work depicting Christ on the tomb with two angels has only been documented in the collection since the 19th century. For this painting, which has also been attributed to Passignano, the name of the Florentine artist has now been definitively accepted.

Object details

Commentary

The first certain reference to Christ on the Tomb with Two Angels is found in the fideicommissary inventory of 1833 as ‘Jesus with angels’ with an attribution to the school of Leonardo da Vinci. The documentary sources are uncertain, but there exists a note from 1614 regarding some payments by Scipione to the painter Agostino Ciampelli, which, according to Della Pergola, Gregorio and Hermann-Fiore, could relate to this painting. On the other hand, it is difficult to associate it with the picture mentioned among the ‘many very large and famous paintings’ in Descrizione di Roma of 1697 (p. 399). This book, Description of Rome, references a painting which is also attributed to the Tuscan painter, but which most likely refers either to a Last Judgement, now lost – which had already been described in 1650 by Giacomo Manilli – or to a Resurrection mentioned by Montelatici (1700).

Cristo, seduto su di un semplice blocco di marmo, con la testa cinta dalla corona di spine, è affiancato da due angioletti. La costruzione dello spazio risulta piuttosto angusta con le tre figure che si stagliano in primo piano occupando gran parte della tela.

Christ, seated on a simple block of marble, his head encircled by a crown of thorns, is accompanied by two little angels. The arrangement of the space is rather cramped, with the three figures that stand out in the foreground taking up most of the painting.

The name of the Florentine artist has now been definitively accepted for this painting, although the name of Passignano has also been mooted. In view of conflicting documentary sources and its unknown provenance, the attribution has relied on Roberto Longhi’s œil du connaisseur (1928, p. 218). Longhi disagreed with the ascription to Passignano, as suggested by Venturi (1893, p. 200), and associated the painting with Agostino Ciampelli, an attribution now definitively accepted (cf. Della Pergola 1959, p. 89). According to Carlo Gregorio, this is one of the earliest paintings of the painter’s ‘courtly’ period of production, and accordingly it is to be dated to the second decade of the 17th century (2023, p. 83).

Gabriele De Melis