Dead Christ Supported by Angels

Zuccari Federico

(Sant'Angelo in Vado 1542-43 - Ancona 1609)

The painting is a replica of a prototype by Taddeo Zuccari. The attribution to Federico is supported by a mention of the painting in the collection’s inventory from the early decades of the 17th century. The iconography of the Imago pietatis is associated with devotion in the 16th century in Rome, promoted also by the Society of Jesus, to which the Zuccari family was connected. Christ is supported from behind by an angel, while four other angels keep vigil over the body with lit torches. The subject seems to reflect the popularity of the cult of archangels, especially in Rome, from the seventh decade of the 16th century.

Object details

Commentary

The transfer of Christ’s body to Calvary and the iconography of the imago pietatis were important themes for the Counter-Reformation devotional culture, which the Zuccari brothers, Taddeo and Federico embraced spiritually.

This version of the Dead Christ Supported by Angels is a faithful reproduction deriving from a subject already explored by his brother Taddeo. In fact, before his death in 1566, Taddeo was making a panel, traces of which were lost at the end of the 19th century and re-emerged in the early 2000s, with a similar scene. This iconography later reappeared in various versions, including in the painting in the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche and the fresco in the chapel of Palazzo Farnese in Caprarola. After Taddeo’s death, Federico became master builder on the Farnese building site with the task of completing the works already in progress, which included the above-mentioned fresco. The prototype is described by Vasari, in Taddeo’s life, as ‘a beautiful Christ in a painting, which was to be sent to Caprarola’, and then passed, circa 1760, to the home of Marchese Vitelleschi (Herrmann-Fiore, pp. 15, 18-20).

In fact, issues regarding the authorship of such works with the same subject seemed to have been solved at the beginning of the 17th century, when an inventory note identified the Borghese painting as ‘a [...] dead Christ with five angels holding four torches, 10 high, 6 ¾ wide, with a black frame outlined in gold’, attributing it to Federico Zuccari (Inv. pre-1633, no. 122). But a few years later Giacomo Manilli wrote of the same canvas: ‘large painting above this, of a Pietà, with four angels standing, holding torches, is by Taddeo Zuccaro’ (Manilli 1650, p. 85). Manilli’s mistaken attribution to Taddeo was later confirmed by documented sources: in Villa Borghese, published in 1700 by Domenico Montelatici, we read ‘(canvas) representing the dead Christ in the arms of the Virgin Mary standing, with lighted torches in his hands, is by Taddeo Zuccari’ (Montelatici 1700, p. 216). The painting at the time was in the ‘Room of the Moor’ so named for the statue of a young man ‘large in person, carved in Lydian stone, with a very rich robe of flowered alabaster’ (ibid., p. 212). Burckhardt, in contrast, in Cicerone (1855), attributed the Borghese canvas to Federico. Moreover, in the 19th century, a restorer, Achille Merola, was paid to restore a number of paintings including ‘The Deposition from the Cross by Federico Zuccari (that is, Taddeo’s Dead Christ)’ (Hermann-Fiore, p. 22), thus revealing awareness of the twofold nature of the canvas derived from an iconographic conception by Taddeo but executed by Federico. 

After Venturi and Longhi, Paola della Pergola also ascribed the canvas to Taddeo, believing it to be one of the paintings ‘lifted from the churches’ that was gifted to Scipione Borghese between 1608 and 1619, as it was certainly already in his collection in 1622. In fact, a payment to Annibale Durante is dated that year ‘for having given in black oil a Frame where is the Christo of Zuccaro with mordant gilded moulding, m.ta sc. 5’ (Della Pergola 1959, pp. 140-141).

Thanks to the contribution of Herrmann-Fiore, we now tend to consider the canvas in the Borghese collection to a version to be attributed entirely to Federico’s hand. The stylistic features in the work, which is distinguished by a soft, atmospheric tone, typical of Federico’s painting, far from the strong colour scheme and the bright, shimmering hues employed by his brother, confirm this hypothesis.

Thanks to Herrmann-Fiore’s contribution, we now tend to consider the canvas in the Borghese collection as a version to be attributed wholly to Federico’s hand. The stylistic features of the latter distinguished by a soft and atmospheric tone, typical of Federico’s painting, far from the strong colour tone, bright and iridescent colours expressed by his brother, confirm this hypothesis.

As for the configuration of the image, classical references to Raphael’s Baglioni Deposition are evident; here the body of Christ, abandoned, is supported by an angel while four others keep vigil with burning torches held on high. This iconography enjoyed moderate success, as can be seen in the numerous citations that followed, from Raffaelino da Reggio, who was inspired by it to create a magnificent drawing of an angel torchbearer, to Otto van Veen.

Gabriele de Melis