Head of a Man with a Turban
Believed by the critics to be a copy of a fresco by Iacopino del Conte, the work portrays the bearded face of a man wearing a typical oriental headdress. Painted on paper and later transferred to a panel, the painting was erroneously described in the list of trustees of the Borghese house as “Testa di s[an] Tommaso [Head of Saint Thomas], by Agostino Carracci”, and recently attributed to the Bolognese painter Sisto Badalocchio.
Object details
Inventory
Location
Date
Classification
Period
Medium
Oil on paper mounted on panel
Dimensions
Provenance
Rome, Borghese Collection, ca. 1670-93 (Tarissi de Jacobis 2002); Rome, Borghese Collection, 1833 (Inventario Fidecommissario Borghese 1833, p. 17). Purchased by the Italian State, 1902.
Exhibitions
- 2002-2003 Roma, Galleria Borghese.
Conservation and Diagnostic
- 1903-1905 Luigi Bartolucci (disinfestazione);
- 2004 Elisabetta Caracciolo, Elisabetta Zatti (consolidamento e risanamento supporto ligneo, pulitura superficie pittorica).
Commentary
This refined painting on paper is mentioned for the first time as part of the Borghese Collection between 1670 and 1693, described in the inventory as “a painting of a head on cardboard, 2 2/3 spans, inv. no. 404” (Tarissi de Jacobis 2002), and executed, according to the compiler of the fideicommissum listing (1833), by Agostino Carracci.
Adolfo Venturi (1893) judged the painting to be the work of an anonymous 18th century decorator, but it was later brought back to Carracci’s sphere by Roberto Longhi (1928), who considered it an “excellent study,” but was unable to identify its author, who Paola della Pergola (1955) described as a “follower of Annibale Carracci.” The subject, interpreted in 1833 as a “Head of St Thomas,” was later identified by Maria Luisa Madonna (see Longhi 1967), who in the Borghese head recognised the man on horseback depicted in The Preaching of St John the Baptist, a fresco by Iacopino del Conte in the Oratorio di San Giovanni Decollato in Rome. However, neither Maria Luisa Madonna nor Paola della Pergola were aware that a few years prior, in 1954, Iris Cheney Hofmeister had duly identified the subject of the work, and attributed the head to Iacopino, a name that was taken up again in 2010 by Andrea Donati, but was meanwhile rejected by Sara Tarissi de Jacobis (2002), who ascribed the painting to Annibale Carracci, and by Kristina Herrmann Fiore (2006), who attributed it to Sisto Badalocchio.
Antonio Iommelli
Bibliography
- G. Piancastelli, Catalogo dei quadri della Galleria Borghese, in Archivio Galleria Borghese, 1891, p. 180;
- 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, pp. 137, 193;
- I. Cheney Hofmeister, A Portrait by Jacopino del Conte in the Borghese Gallery, in "Marsyas", VI, 1954, pp. 35-41;
- P. della Pergola, La Galleria Borghese. I Dipinti, I, Roma 1955, p. 23, n. 21;
- R. Longhi, Saggi e ricerche 1925-28. Precisioni nelle gallerie italiane. La Galleria Borghese, Firenze 1967, pp. 317-340;
- S. Tarissi de Jacobis, in Incontri, catalogo della mostra (Roma, Galleria Borghese, 2002-2003), a cura di C. D’Orazio, Milano 2002, pp. 103-104;
- 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. 54;
- A. Donati, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Jacopino del Conte, Daniele Ricciarelli. Ritratto e figura nel manierismo a Roma, Repubblica di San Marino 2010, p. 150, fig. 167.
