Landscape with cows
(Enkhuizen 1625 - Amsterdam 1654)
Purchased by Camillo Borghese in 1819, this painting depicts a group of grazing cows. It was executed in the manner of Paulus Potter, the Dutch painter who specialised in the representation of animals and landscapes. Nonetheless, the complete absence of transparent tones and the rigidity of several features have rightly led critics to label it an imitation, made between the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Object details
Inventory
Location
Date
late 18th - early 19th century
Classification
Period
Medium
Dimensions
Frame
19th-century frame with cymatium moulding, lotus and acanthus motifs, 66.5 x 84.5 x 10, cm
Provenance
Rome, Camillo Borghese, 1819 (see Della Pergola 1959); Inventario Fidecommissario Borghese 1833, p. 8. Purchased by Italian state, 1902.
Conservation and Diagnostic
- 1863 - Bruxelles (cleaning);
- 1906 - Luigi Bartolucci (support).
Commentary
Together with the Visitation by Martin Mandekens (inv. no. 274), this panel was purchased on 11 August 1819 by Prince Camillo Borghese as a work by Paulus Potter, according to a note in Giovanni Piancastelli’s Note manoscritte (1891), which Paola della Pergola made known in 1959. After Platner raised doubts as to its authenticity (Della Pergola 1959), in 1863 the painting was sent to Brussels for cleaning and inspection by several experts, whose opinion persuaded Giovanni Morelli and Adolfo Venturi to label it a modern copy (Morelli 1893), as the work lacked those transparent tones and that lightness typical of the Dutch painter (Venturi 1893). These observations, together with the negative opinion of Giulio Cantalamessa (1911-12) and Roberto Longhi (1928), led Della Pergola to publish the panel as an ‘imitation of Paulus Potter’ executed between the late 18th and early 19th centuries; her theory was upheld by Kristina Herrmann Fiore (2006) and is shared by the present writer.
Antonio Iommelli
Bibliography
- W. T. van Westrheene, Paulus Potter, sa vie et ses œuvres, La Haye 1867, p. 169;
- X. Barbier de Montault, Les Musées et Galeries de Rome, Rome 1870, p. 363;
- G. Piancastelli, Catalogo dei quadri della Galleria Borghese, in Archivio Galleria Borghese, 1891, p. 417;
- G. Morelli, Italian Painters. The Borghese and Doria Pamphili Galleries, London 1892, p. 248;
- A. Venturi, Il Museo e la Galleria Borghese, Roma 1893, p. 248;
- G. Lafenestre, E. Richtenberger, La peinture en Europe. Rome. Les Musées, les Collections particulières, les Palais, Paris 1905, p. 45;
- J. A. Rusconi, La Villa, il Museo e la Galleria Borghese, Bergamo 1906, p. 89;
- A. Muñoz, La Galleria Borghese in Roma, Roma 1909, pp. 5-8;
- G. Cantalamessa, Note manoscritte al Catalogo di A. Venturi del 1893, in Archivio Galleria Borghese, 1911-1912, n. 285;
- R. Longhi, Precisioni nelle Gallerie Italiane, I, La R. Galleria Borghese, Roma 1928, p. 202;
- P. della Pergola, La Galleria Borghese. I Dipinti, II, Roma 1959, p. 182, n. 271;
- 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. 95.
