La Fornarina

Attributed to Raffaellino del Colle

San Sepolcro end of the 15th century - 1566)

copy after Sanzio, Raphael

(Urbino 1483 - Rome 1520)

This is a copy of the celebrated portrait by Raphael depicting, according to tradition, Margherita Luti, the daughter of a Trastevere baker – hence the name ‘Fornarina’ – held in the Galleria Nazionale di Palazzo Barberini in Rome. Attributed in 19th-century descriptions to Giulio Romano, in more recent times it has been ascribed to another pupil of Sanzio and collaborator of Pippi (Giulio Romano), Raffaellino del Colle.

Object details

Commentary

The painting in the Galleria Borghese is a copy of the celebrated portrait by Raphael, housed in the Galleria Nazionale di Palazzo Barberini. The figure of the young woman, wearing a bright, luxurious turban of golden yellow cloth crossed by turquoise stripes, ending in fringes and adorned with a jewel consisting of a ruby and pearl pendant. The black hair, parted in the middle, heightens the whiteness of her complexion. The young woman, seated three-quarter-length, holds a diaphanous veil with her right hand, which leaves her breasts uncovered and winds around her waist, leaving her navel visible; a coral-coloured fabric with silky reflections rests on her legs. On her left arm, the famous bracelet worn in the classical manner, stands out. It bears the inscription ‘Raphael Urbinas’ in gold letters on a turquoise background. Compared to the original, the copy, which is largely faithful, differs not only in the support, canvas rather than panel, but also in the absence of a ring on the left ring finger at the second phalanx, but also in the background, which appears considerably darker and more uniform than the Barberini panel – probably due to oxidation partially caused by the transfer of the canvas onto a wooden support, carried out at a later date. The Borghese Fornarina is also depicted in front of a thick myrtle and quince bush, plants with symbolic significance, as they refer to Venus. Near the upper edge, one can glimpse small portions of sky, albeit in a much darker shade than the intense blue of Raphael’s original.

For a long time, it was thought that it may have come from the Aldobrandini collection (Della Pergola 1959; L. Mochi Onori in Raffaello 1984; A. Costamagna in Raffaello. La Fornarina 2001, pp. 25-26). However, research has revealed new information on when it actually entered the Borghese collection, which is currently being published.

Considering documentary sources, the earliest evidence of there being a copy of the Fornarina in the Borghese is from Vasi in 1824 (p. 311 ‘the sixth room ... the portrait of Raphael’s Fornarina, excellently painted by Giulio Romano’). This was followed shortly afterwards by a note in the margin of the biography of the painter written by Quatremère de Quincy, translated and edited with additions by Francesco Longhena (1829), which mentioned the three copies present ‘in Rome, very beautiful: one in the Galleria Sciarra, the other in the Borghese home, and the third in the possession of a certain Signor Celli, a private individual’.

In the 1833 fideicommissary inventory, the painting appeared with an attribution to Giulio Romano, though with the mistaken indication ‘on panel’: an attribution supported by Nibby (1841) and Barbier de Montault (1870). Venturi (1893), however, disagreed and shifted the date to the 17th century, suggesting it be by Sassoferrato, an idea already put forward by Mündler (in Burckhardt 1869) and accepted by Cantalamessa in his manuscript notes to Venturi’s catalogue. The opinion of Longhi (1928) was different, who considered the work to be ‘excellent’, undoubtedly 16th century and more likely to have been painted by Giulio Romano. Della Pergola (1959) agreed with this dating, wrongly pointing out that it was painted on wood, although she considered it to be ‘not by a very noble hand’. It was Hartt who first attributed (1944; 1958; 1981) the painting to Raffaellino del Colle, speculating that it might be a commission received by Giulio Romano but that it was left unfinished for his collaborator following his departure for Mantua – an attribution that more recent critics have endorsed (Herrmann Fiore 1992; Meyer zur Capellen 2008).

At the time of the drawing up of the fideicommissary inventory, when it was included among the masterpieces of the collection, the work was placed for reasons of iconographic affinity in the ‘Room of the Venuses’ in the Palazzo di Ripetta, but between 1854 and 1859 it appeared in Room II, together with the works of Raphael and his workshop, following the reorganisation of the collection by schools of painting and chronological considerations at the behest of by Pietro Rosa (Mochi Onori 1984). In 1891, in view of the sale of the collection to the Italian State, it was transferred to the Villa Pinciana in the then Room X (today Room IX; Venturi 1893), where it is still located along with Raphael’s masterpieces.

In 1943, during the War, the painting was transferred firstly, along with other pictures from the Gallery, to Carpegna, and later brought back to Rome, to the Holy See (Melograni 2015).

Marina Minozzi