Landscape with the Flight into Egypt
(Bouvignes? c. 1510 - after 1554)
Recorded as a work by Civetta since the earliest inventories, the painting is actually of difficult attribution. It is to be located in the context of early Flemish landscape painting, which in this case is characterised by scenes of work in the fields and views of villages with houses with pointed roofs. On the right, the painter included the episode of the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt, while a stone idol falls and breaks into pieces in their presence.
Object details
Inventory
Location
Date
Classification
Period
Medium
Dimensions
Frame
Salvator Rosa, 54.2 x 75.2 x 7 cm
Provenance
Ferrara, collection of Lucrezia d'Este, 1592 (Inventory Lucrezia d'Este, 1592, p. 13; Della Pergola 1959); Rome, collection of Olimpia Aldobrandini, 1626 (Inventory Olimpia Aldobrandini, 1626, c. 91, no. 9); Inventory 1682; Rome, Borghese Collection, 1693 (Inventory 1693, room III, no. 10); Inventario Fidecommissario Borghese 1833, p. 38. Purchased by Italian state, 1902.
Conservation and Diagnostic
- 1942 Carlo Matteucci;
- 2003 Andrea Parri (frame);
- 2012 Paola Tollo.
Commentary
The provenance of this painting is known today: it is in fact mentioned in the 1592 description of the belongings of Lucrezia d’Este: ‘a work of the Madonna when she went to Egypt, by Civetta, no. 1). When the Duchy of Ferrara was absorbed by the Papal States, the panel was transferred into the collection of the Aldobrandini family in Rome, where it appears in the 1626 inventory of the elder Olimpia (‘A small work with the Madonna going to Egypt, by Ciovitta, no. 224’) and in that of 1682 (‘A work on panel with Magdalene, or rather the Madonna going to Egypt, 1¼ palms high, by Civetta, as inventoried on page 226, no. 224’). From here it reached the collection at the Casino di Porta Pinciana, where it was listed among the possessions of Giovanni Battista Borghese as ‘a work on panel with a village and the Madonna going to Egypt, roughly 3 palms, oblong, no. 172 with a gilded frame, by Civetta’ (Inv. 1693). The 1833 Inventario Fidecommissario, finally, attributed it to the ‘Flemish school’.
While Adolfo Venturi (1893) ascribed it Joachim Patenier, Giulio Cantalamessa proposed Herri met des Bles, a name rejected by Roberto Longhi (1928) but revived by Paola della Pergola (1959); since then, no critic has challenged this attribution (Herrmann Fiore 2006).
Although scholars have long regarded the panel as by Civetta, certain compositional features, such as the scenes of work in the fields and the presence of numerous structures, seem to antedate the work to the beginnings of Flemish landscape painting, in some ways closer to the style of Patenier than to his nephew Herri met des Bles, whose oeuvre is characterised by greater wave-like movement. In addition, as Paola della Pergola (1959) pointed out, the detail of the Holy Family on the right seems quite similar to that found in another work by Joachim, the Landscape with the Flight to Egypt, held today in Antwerp (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten).
Antonio Iommelli
Bibliography
- G. Piancastelli, Catalogo dei quadri della Galleria Borghese, in Archivio Galleria Borghese, 1891, p. 432;
- A. Venturi, Il Museo e la Galleria Borghese, Roma 1893, p. 214;
- R. Longhi, Precisioni nelle Gallerie Italiane, I, La R. Galleria Borghese, Roma 1928, p. 222;
- P. della Pergola, La Galleria Borghese. I Dipinti, II, Roma 1959, pp. 175-176, n. 258;
- 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. 151.
