Madonna and Child
(Rome c. 1499 - Mantua 1546)
First mentioned in connection with the Borghese Collection in 1833, this panel is a workshop copy of an original by Giulio Romano, which today is held in Florence. It depicts the Virgin and Child, with Mary portrayed with a book and bouquet of flowers in her hands. The latter includes blue cornflowers and pink carnations, which clearly allude to Christ’s death. According to tradition, cornflowers were seen by Flora around the dead body of her dead lover Cyanus, while carnations grew from the tears shed by Mary during her son’s Passion; for this reason, the latter are also known by their Latin name Dianthus, from the Greek for ‘flower of God’.
Object details
Inventory
Location
Date
Classification
Period
Medium
Dimensions
Frame
Salvator Rosa, 114.5 x 93 x 7 cm
Provenance
Rome, Borghese Collection, 1833 (Inventario Fidecommissario Borghese 1833, p. 32; Della Pergola 1959). Purchased by Italian state, 1902.
Conservation and Diagnostic
- 1965-66 Alvaro Esposti
- 2012 EMMEBI (diagnostics)
- 2012 Paola Tollo
Commentary
The provenance of this panel is unknown. The first certain information regarding it in the context of the Borghese Collection dates to 1833, when the work appeared in the Inventario Fidecommissario as a painting by the ‘school of Raphael’. While Giovanni Piancastelli (1891) upheld this attribution, Adolfo Venturi (1893) unhesitatingly changed it to Giulio Romano, an opinion accepted by Roberto Longhi (1928).
As Paola della Pergola (1959) noted, the prototype for this work was undoubtedly by Pippi, specifically the work held by the Uffizi Gallery (Inv. 1890, 1247), which was executed in 1520-22 by Raphael’s faithful student. For the face of the Virgin, Giulio certainly drew inspiration from the Madonna del Parto (church of Sant’Agostino, Rome) sculpted shortly before by Jacopo Sansovino (T. Henry, P. Joannides in Raphäel 2012).
Like the other copy after Giulio Romano in the Borghese Collection (Holy Family, inv. no. 387), this panel was executed in the mid-16th century.
Antonio Iommelli
Bibliography
- G. Piancastelli, Catalogo dei quadri della Galleria Borghese, in Archivio Galleria Borghese, 1891, p. 306;
- A. Venturi, Il Museo e la Galleria Borghese, Roma 1893, p. 188:
- R. Longhi, Precisioni nelle Gallerie Italiane, I, La R. Galleria Borghese, Roma 1928, p. 215;
- P. della Pergola, La Galleria Borghese. I Dipinti, II, Roma 1959, p. 93;
- 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. 129;
- T. Henry, P. Joannides, in Raphaël, les derniéres années, catalogo della mostra (Parigi, Musée du Louvre, 2012-13), a cura di T. Henry, P. Joannides, Dijon 2012, pp. 310-312, n. 85.
