Head of a friar
Bologna 1557 - Parma 1602)
Documented in the Borghese collection from 1833, this Friar's Head shows the importance of past painting influences by the Carracci school, first of all of Raphael, whose classicism is assimilated and combined with the naturalistic and illusionist canons of the various Italian schools, to achieve an original synthesis of the models offered by Titian, Michelangelo, Correggio and Veronese.
Object details
Inventory
Location
Date
Classification
Period
Medium
oil on paper applied on canvas
Dimensions
Frame
19th century frame, 40.5 x 32 x 4.3 cm
Provenance
Rome, Borghese Collection, 1833 (Inventario Fidecommissario Borghese 1833, p. 23). Purchased by the Italian State, 1902.
Commentary
Listed for the first time as part of the Borghese Collection in 1833, this Head of a Friar was attributed by Adolfo Venturi (1893) to the school of Agostino Carracci, a theory that was not embraced by Roberto Longhi, who, with reason, in 1928 considered it to be a study of a 16th century work. In fact, as Paola della Pergola (1955) duly noted, this painting is the reproduction of one of the figures portrayed by Raffaello in 1509 in the Room of the Segnatura in the Vatican, the profile of a friar in the group on the left-hand side of the fresco of the Disputation over the Most Holy Sacrament.
Della Pergola attributed this work to a follower of Annibale Carracci, but it was later ascribed to Agostino (see Herrmann Fiore 2006) and dated around the first years of the 17th century. Regardless of who its painter may have been, this Head attests to the influence of Raffaello’s work on Carraccesque painting, which elevates the 16th century artist to champion of beauty and ideal grace.
Antonio Iommelli
Bibliography
- G. Piancastelli, Catalogo dei quadri della Galleria Borghese, in Archivio Galleria Borghese, 1891, p. 441;
- A. Venturi, Il Museo e la Galleria Borghese, Roma 1893, p. 106;
- R. Longhi, Precisioni nelle Gallerie Italiane, I, La R. Galleria Borghese, Roma 1928, p. 193;
- P. della Pergola, La Galleria Borghese. I Dipinti, I, Roma 1955, p. 23, n. 22;
- R. Longhi, Saggi e ricerche 1925-28. Precisioni nelle gallerie italiane. La Galleria Borghese, Firenze 1967, p. 340;
- 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.55.
