Presentation of Jesus
(Genoa 1600 - 1649)
Forming part of the Borghese Collection since 1926, this work is a late copy of the central portion of the altarpiece by Gioacchino Assereto preserved today at the Pinacoteca di Brera. It was executed in oil on paper and then transposed onto canvas. The coarseness of the thin layer of plaster present on the work has led critics to place its execution in England at the end of the 17th century. It depicts the so-called presentation of Jesus in the Temple, the ritual carried out by Mary and Joseph 40 days after the birth of Christ, a subject frequently represented by artists.
Object details
Inventory
Location
Date
late 17th–early 18th century
Classification
Period
Medium
Oil on paper transposed onto canvas
Dimensions
Provenance
Collection of Lord Joseph Duveen, 1926 (Della Pergola 1955). Purchased by Italian state, 1926.
Commentary
The English merchant Joseph Duveen exchanged this work as payment of the export tax for the purchase of several Flemish tapestries from the Stroganoff collection. The Italian state gave the painting to the Galleria Borghese in 1926, when it was ascribed to Lorenzo Lotto. Not persuaded by this attribution, Roberto Longhi (1926) proposed the name of the Genoese painter Gioacchino Assereto. Longhi in fact published the small canvas as a partial replica of the Presentation of Jesus of the Pinacoteca di Brera, the altarpiece originally attributed to Benedetto Crespi, but which Longhi had proposed as a work by Assereto. Accepted by Paola della Pergola (1955), Longhi’s thesis was confirmed by Gian Vittorio Castelnovi (1971), who published the work as a ‘copy of Gioacchino Assereto’. Kristina Herrmann Fiore expressed her agreement with this position in 2006.
The canvas depicts the presentation of Jesus at the Temple of Jerusalem. Mary holds the Child in her arms in front of the high priest, while a boy brings sacrificial turtledoves to the altar. Although the work is a copy, it reflects the typical traits of Lombard painting, a circumstance which in the past led critics to suggest that the Genoese painter came into contact with the oeuvre of Giovan Battista Crespi, called Cerano.
Antonio Iommelli
Bibliography
- B. Ghiner, Referendum e A dispetto dei Santi. Il disfacimento della Collezione Stroganoff, in “Vita Artistica”, I, 1926, pp. 12, 17, 23 ss.;
- U. Ojetti, Notizie e Commenti, in “Dedalo”, VII, 1926, pp. 479-480;
- R. Longhi, L’Assereto, in «Dedalo», VII, 1926, pp. 356-359;
- P. della Pergola, La Galleria Borghese. I Dipinti, I, Roma 1955, p.71, n. 125;
- G. V. Castelnovi, La Pittura nella prima metà del Seicento dall’Ansaldo a Orazio De Ferrari, in La Pittura a Genova e in Liguria dal Seicento al primo Novecento, a cura di G. Bruno, I, Genova 1971, p. 157;
- 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. 182.
