Life of Joseph: the Finding of the Stolen Cup
(Borgo San Lorenzo 1494 - Florence 1557)
The panel illustrates an episode from the Life of Joseph [Old Testament] and is part of a series of six panels produced in 1515-1516 by Francesco Ubertini, known as Bachiacca, for the bridal chamber of Pierfrancesco Borgherini and Margherita Acciaiuoli in the family palazzo in Florence. The works were part of a large and sumptuous decorative scheme with paintings by artists such as Andrea del Sarto, Jacopo Pontormo and Francesco Granacci, in addition to Ubertini. The display was soon dismantled and four of the six panels by Bachiacca ended up in the Borghese collection, where they were mentioned as early as the mid-17th century. Variously attributed to Raphael, Giulio Romano and Orazio Gentileschi, they were traced to Bachiacca by Giovanni Morelli, who also reconstructed their Borgherini provenance.
Object details
Inventory
Location
Date
Classification
Period
Medium
Dimensions
Frame
19th century 44.5 x 62 x 6.6 cm
Provenance
Florence, Piefrancesco Borgherini - Margherita Acciaiuoli Collection, 1515-16; (?) Rome, Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici Collection (Iommelli, Inventory 425, 427); Rome, Borghese Collection, 1650; Inventory 1693, St. VII, no. 391; Inventory 1700, St. III, no. 106; Inventory 1790, St. X, nos. 26-27, 38-39; Inventario Fidecommissario Borghese 1833, p. 9, nos. 16-17, 22-23. Purchased by the Italian State, 1902.
Exhibitions
- 1940 Firenze, Palazzo Strozzi
- 1956 Firenze, Palazzo Strozzi
- 1996 Firenze, Galleria degli Uffizi
- 2010 Roma, Palazzo del Quirinale
Conservation and Diagnostic
- 1903-1905 Luigi Bartolucci
- 1970 Oddo Verdinelli
- 1978-1979 Gianluigi Colalucci
- 1996 ENEA (diagnostics)
Commentary
The small panel showing an episode from the life of Joseph [Old Testament] was originally part of the decoration of the bridal chamber of Pierfrancesco Borgherini and Margherita Acciaiuoli in the family palazzo in Florence. The complex scheme, mentioned by Vasari (1568) was commissioned in 1515 by Salvi Borgherini on the occasion of his son’s wedding and involved well-known artists of the time, such as Baccio d'Agnolo for the furnishings and Andrea del Sarto, Jacopo Pontormo, Francesco Granacci and Francesco Ubertini known as Bachiacca for the paintings. The panel here can be attributed to Bachiacca , together with three others of identical dimensions that also passed into the Borghese Collection (inv. 425, The Arrest of the Brothers; inv. 427, The Sale of Joseph; inv. 440, The Search for the Stolen Cup), while two other scenes belonging to the same series are today held in the National Gallery in London (inv. 1218, 1219).
The lavish decorative scheme of the bedchamber immediately fired the collecting ambitions of the Medici, who succeeded in having it dismantled in the 1680s, after the death of Margherita Acciaiuoli, who had fiercely opposed this. This led to the dispersion of the paintings; specifically, those by Andrea del Sarto, Pontormo and Granacci are currently divided between Florence (Uffizi Gallery, Palazzo Pitti) and London (National Gallery).
The four Ubertini panels came into the Borghese collection, perhaps via the Medici (for this hypothesis, see Iommelli, commentaries inv. 425 e inv. 427), and are confirmed in the Borghese collection from 1650 onwards, the year in which they appear in the guide to the Villa Pinciana compiled by Manilli – where they are described as being by Raphael. In subsequent inventories of the collection, they appear with attributions to Giulio Romano (Inv. 1693) and Orazio Gentileschi (Inv. 1700; Inv. 1790; Inv. Fid. 1833), the latter being supported by Piancastelli (1891). It was Giovanni Morelli (1897) who traced the authorship of the panels to Bachiacca and recognised them as part of the decoration of Palazzo Borgherini, an identification accepted by all subsequent critics (Longhi 1928; De Rinaldis 1937; Berenson 1938; Marcucci 1958; Della Pergola 1959; Freedbreg 1961; Id. 1963; Monti 1965; Nikolenko 1966; Braham 1979; La France 2008).
The style of painting in the panels reveals the training of the artist, who was a pupil of Perugino, and bears the influence of Raphael (Abbate 1965, Nikolenko 1966), Franciabigio (Marcucci 1958; Mancini 1998) and Andrea del Sarto. The brightly coloured clothing recalls the types of costumes commonly found in North-European engravings, found in, for example, Albrecht Altdorfer and Lucas van Leyden (Bartoli 1996; Stefani 2000). As part of the series, entirely devoted to the figure of the patriarch Joseph, intended to invoke conjugal virtues, the scene examined here is closely related to The Search for the Stolen Cup (inv. 440), its pendant, in which some of the same characters appear.
Various drawings held in Florence, Paris and Vienna have been traced back to Bachiacca's series (Morelli 1897; Berenson 1937; McComb 1926; Bertelà 1980; Fischer 1984; Riccardo 2020).
Pier Ludovico Puddu
Bibliography
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