Life of Joseph: Jacob Receiving the News of the Presumed Death of Joseph
(Florence 1497 - 1547)
Having entered the collection at quite a late date, recorded as the work of an unknown artist, the painting was long associated with Bachiacca on the basis of analogies with the latter’s Life of Joseph, also in the gallery. This work is now widely attributed to Antonio di Donnino del Mazziere.
Object details
Inventory
Location
Date
second-third decade of the 16th century
Classification
Period
Medium
Dimensions
Provenance
Rome, Borghese Collection, Inventario Fidecommissario Borghese 1833, p. 20. Purchased by Italian State, 1902.
Exhibitions
- 1956, Firenze, Palazzo Strozzi
Conservation and Diagnostic
- 1992 ICR (pest control)
- 1996 ENEA (diagnostics)
- 2012 EMMEBI (diagnostics); Paola Tollo (restoration)
Commentary
The work is first mentioned in the Fideicommissary Lists of 1833 as being by an unknown artist. Morelli (1897) attributed it to Francesco Ubertini, known as Bacchiacca, associating it with the Stories of Joseph by the painter held in the Borghese Gallery (inv. 425, 427, 440, 441) and assuming that it too was part of the decoration of Pier Francesco Borgherini’s bridal chamber in Florence mentioned by Vasari. The attribution to Bacchiacca and the Borgherini provenance were accepted by Berenson (1936), Venturi (1893), Longhi (1928) and Della Pergola (1959), while De Rinaldis (1948) suggested the name of Franciabigio and Carlo Gamba (1957) that of Sogliani. In his reconstruction of the figure of Antonio di Donnino del Mazziere, Zeri (1962) ascribed it to him, by associating it with a set of works he had attributed to the artist, mentioned by Vasari as a pupil of Franciabigio. Noting in the painting ‘a certain stylistic difficulty in rendering the forms and sculpture ‘without error’ on the part of Franciabigio, Andrea and their followers’ (ibid., p. 234), Zeri traced the painting back to the sphere of a group of painters active in Florence in the first half of the 16th century that he defined as ‘eccentric’. The scholar, furthermore, likened the panel to a work already in the Weitzner collection in New York (Zeri 1962, p. 232, fig. 28) ‘whose similarity to the Borghese panel is such that one wonders if both are not part of the same series’.
Nikolenko (1966) also rejected the attribution to Bacchiacca, without, however, suggesting another artist to whom the painting could be credited.
Antonio di Donnino del Mazziere came from a family of artists. Both his father Donnino and uncle Agnolo del Mazziere were painters. Agnolo was part of the group of artists called to Rome in 1507-1508 by Michelangelo as consultants for the Sistine Chapel (see Forlani 1960). His father was head of the brothers’ workshop, and it seems likely that the young Antonio received his early training there, although Vasari noted him as a pupil of Franciabigio.
Two episodes from the Stories of Joseph (Genesis 37:12-36) are described simultaneously in the work. Jacob, the bearded old man with a halo, appears at either end of the panel; on the right he is in conversation with his young son Joseph who, being his favourite, attracts the envy of his brothers. The brothers, not having the courage to kill him, after lowering him into a cistern, sell him to the Ishmaelites. This episode is seen in the background, while in the foreground Jacob listens to the false account of his son’s death.
Elisa Martini
Bibliography
- F. Fantozzi, Guida di Firenze, Firenze 1842, p. 117.
- G. Piancastelli, Catalogo dei quadri della Galleria Borghese, in Archivio Galleria Borghese, 1891, p. 439.
- A. Venturi, Il Museo e la Galleria Borghese, Roma 1893, p. 213.
- G. Morelli, Della Pittura Italiana. Studi Storici Critici: Le Gallerie Borghese e Doria Pamphili in Roma, Milano 1897, p. 95, 102.
- M. Tinti, Francesco Bachiacca e i suoi arazzi, in “Dedalo”, I, 1920, pp. 805-806.
- A. McComb, Francesco Ubertini (Bachiacca), in “The Art Bullettin”, VIII, 1926, p. 167.
- R. Longhi, Precisioni nelle Gallerie Italiane, I, La R. Galleria Borghese, Roma 1928, p. 222.
- B. Berenson, Pitture Italiane del Rinascimento: catalogo dei principali artisti e delle loro opere con un indice dei luoghi, Milano 1936, p. 31.
- B. Berenson, The Drawings of the Florentine Painters, Chicago 1938, I, p. 298.
- A. De Rinaldis, Catalogo della Galleria Borghese in Roma, Roma 1948, p. 58.
- P. della Pergola, Itinerario della Galleria Borghese, Roma 1951, p. 37.
- L. Berti, Note brevi su inediti toscani, in “Bollettino d’Arte”, XXXVII, 1952, p. 258.
- C. Gamba, Antonio di Donnino, in “L’Arte”, XXI, 1957, p. 7.
- Il Pontormo e del primo Manierismo fiorentino, catalogo della mostra (Firenze, Palazzo Strozzi, 24 marzo-15 luglio 1956), a cura di L. Berti, Firenze 1956, pp. 110-111, n. 144.
- A. Pigler, Barockthemen. Eine Auswahl von Verzeichnissen zur Ikonographie des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, I, Budapest 1956, p. 70.
- P. della Pergola, La Galleria Borghese. I Dipinti, II, Roma 1959, pp. 15-16, n. 12.
- S.J. Freedberg, Painting of the high Renaissance in Rome and Florence, Cambridge, Mass. 1961, p. 499.
- L. Nikolenko, Francesco Ubertini called Il Bacchiacca, Locust Valley, N.Y. 1966, p. 77.
- F. Zeri, Eccentrici fiorentini: I, in “Bollettino d’arte”, 47, 1962, pp. 233-234, p. 231, fig. 27.
- R. Longhi, Edizione delle opere complete. II. Saggi e ricerche 1925-1928, 2 voll., Firenze 1967, I, p. 354.
- P. Moreno, C. Stefani, Galleria Borghese, Milano, 2000, p. 283, n. 1.
- K. Herrmann Fiore, Museo e Galleria Borghese. Roma scopre un tesoro. Dalla pinacoteca ai depositi un museo che non ha più segreti, San Giuliano Milanese 2006, p. 151.
- A. Forlani, Agnolo, di Domenico di Donnino, detto il Mazziere, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, volume 1, 1960.
