Holy Martyr
Sesto Calende 1477 - Milan 1523)
Identified with the ‘Bust’ documented in the Galleria in 1693, this painting was stolen in 1978. It is a half-length portrait of a young woman with a laurel wreath on her head and a small palm branch in her right hand. This attribute, together with the halo-like headdress, are undoubtedly meant to indicate that she is a holy martyr. The work was executed in the 1510s by an artist from Leonardo’s circle, most likely Cesare da Sesto.
Object details
Inventory
Date
second decade of the 16th century
Classification
Period
Medium
Dimensions
Provenance
Rome, Borghese Collection, 1693 (Inventory 1693, room III, no. 24; Della Pergola 1955); Inventario Fidecommissario Borghese 1833, p. 21. Purchased by Italian state, 1902 (stolen in 1978).
Conservation and Diagnostic
- 1907 Luigi Bartolucci (pest control);
- 1950-53 ca. Alvaro Esposti (restoration of the original size; discovering of the right hand with the palm branch)
Commentary
The provenance of this panel is still unknown. It was first documented in connection with the Borghese Collection in the late 17th century; Paola della Pergola (1955) indeed identified it with the entry in the 1693 inventory describing a small work ‘roughly two spans high on panel with a half-length portrait of a saint, no. 63, with a gilded frame, by Leonardo da Vinci’. The attribution to the great master, however, was not accepted by the compilers of later inventories or by critics. While both the 1833 Inventario Fidecommissario and Giovanni Piancastelli (1891) ascribed the work to Zuccari, Adolfo Venturi (1893) was more cautious, describing it as a product of the Florentine school. In the view of the latter scholar, the pale pink and light green of the woman’s garments suggested an unknown artist familiar with the style of Santi di Tito.
The first critic to make the attribution to Cesare da Sesto was William Suida (1929), who built on Roberto Longhi’s proposal (1928) that this Holy Martyr was rather a work of the Lombard school. Although this thesis did not persuade Berenson (1936), who instead suggested the name of Andrea da Salerno, it was taken up by Della Pergola (1955) and later by Alessandro Vezzosi (in Leonardo e il leonardismo 1983): noting similarities between the work in question and the two versions of Herodias held in Vienna and London, they confirmed Suida’s theory.
Given that the work cannot be more closely examined today – it was stolen from the Galleria in 1978 – the present author deems it appropriate to maintain the attribution to the follower of Leonardo, in line with the view expressed by Kristina Herrmann Fiore in 2006.
Antonio Iommelli
Bibliography
- G. Piancastelli, Catalogo dei quadri della Galleria Borghese, in Archivio Galleria Borghese, 1891, p. 338;
- A. Venturi, Il Museo e la Galleria Borghese, Roma 1893, p. 107;
- R. Longhi, Precisioni nelle Gallerie Italiane, I, La R. Galleria Borghese, Roma 1928, p. 193;
- W. Suida, Leonardo und sein Kreis, München 1929, pp. 220, 303;
- B. Berenson, Pitture Italiane del Rinascimento, Milano 1936, p. 14;
- P. della Pergola, La Galleria Borghese. I Dipinti, I, Roma 1955, p. 76, n. 135;
- P. della Pergola, L’Inventario Borghese del 1693 (I), in “Arte Antica e Moderna”, XXVI, 1964, p. 226;
- A. Vezzosi, in Leonardo e il leonardismo a Napoli e a Roma, catalogo della mostra (Napoli, Museo di Capodimonte, 1983), a cura di A. Vezzosi, Firenze 1983, pp. 206-207;
- 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. 57.
