The Return of the Prodigal Son
(Serina 1515 - Venice 1575)
The picture, which has been in the Borghese collection since 1682, was first attributed to Titian, then to Bonifacio de’ Pitati, and finally, at the beginning of the 20th century, was definitively recognised as the work of Antonio Palma. The composition, clearly influenced by Jacopo Palma’s earlier models, is highly intricate. In the foreground is the main theme of the subject, the return of the prodigal son (Luke 15: 11-32), while in the background – divided roughly in half by a courtyard enclosed by noble architecture and a rich landscape – are other episodes relating to the biblical tale.
Object details
Inventory
Location
Date
seventh decade of the 16th century
Classification
Period
Medium
Dimensions
Provenance
Rome, Olimpia Aldobrandini Collection, 1682 (Inventory Aldobrandini 1682); Rome, Borghese Collection, 1693 (Inventory Borghese 1693, room VIII, no. 60); Inventario Fidecommissario Borghese 1833, p. 12. Purchased by Italian State, 1902.
Exhibitions
- 1985 Roma, Palazzo Venezia
- 2000 Pavia, Castello di Belgioioso
- 2001 Ariccia, Palazzo Chigi
- 2009-2010 Tokyo, National Museum of Modern Art
Conservation and Diagnostic
- 2009 Matteo Rossi Doria, Leonardo Severini
- 2020 Leonardo Severini
Commentary
Listed in the inventory of Olimpia Aldobrandini’s estate in 1682 (Della Pergola 1963), the painting appeared in the Borghese inventory of 1693 (Della Pergola 1965) with an attribution to Titian, which remained unchanged in the subsequent inventories of 1700 (St. IX, no. 36) and 1790 (St. X, no. 33). Ascribed to Bonifacio de’ Pitati known as il Veronese in the fideicommissary list of 1833, it was attributed by Venturi (1928) to Antonio Palma, nephew of the Venetian painter Palma the Elder. Rejecting Venuti’s suggestion, which had been accepted by Longhi (1928) and later by Della Pergola (1955), Berenson (ed. 1957) once again put forward the name Bonifacio de’ Pitati.
The work depicts the parable of the return of the prodigal son as recounted in the Gospel of Luke (15:11-32). In the Gospel story we read that the prodigal son, after squandering his father’s inheritance and living a life of indulgence, is forced to return to the house of his father, who compassionately decides to take him in even before he has expressed his repentance. The painter depicts the meeting between the father and the son, dressed in rags, in the presence of distinguished figures in contemporary dress. The episode is set outdoors, in front of a sumptuous porticoed palace beyond which a sweeping landscape unfolds.
Vertova (1976) suggested identifying the prototype for this painting, as well as for a similar version by Giulio Licinio, in a work by Bonifacio de’ Pitati, in whose workshop Antonio Palma remained until the death of the Verona-born painter in 1553. Aikema (1996) pointed out that the composition is based on Northern European prints.
Il ritorno del figliol prodigo è accostabile alla Cena in casa del fariseo del Musée des Beaux-Arts di Bruxelles (inv.
The Return of the Prodigal Son has analogies with Supper in the House of Simon Pharisee in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Brussels (inv. 280), as both are ‘marked by consistent borrowings from works by Bonifacio’ (Biffis 2013), to whom the works were long attributed. Ivanoff (1979) pointed out similarities with the Esther before Ahasuerus at the Ringling Museum in Sarasota (inv. SN85), a work dated 1574 and credited by him to Antonio Palma.
Elisa Martini
Bibliography
- G. Piancastelli, Catalogo dei quadri della Galleria Borghese, in Archivio Galleria Borghese, 1891, p. 36.
- A. Venturi, Il Museo e la Galleria Borghese, Roma 1893, p. 117.
- A. Venturi, Storia dell’arte italiana, IX, La pittura del Cinquecento: parte 3, Milano 1928, p. 1057.
- R. Longhi, Precisioni nelle Gallerie Italiane, I, La R. Galleria Borghese, Roma 1928, p. 196.
- D. Westphal, Beiträge zu A. Palma, in “Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst”, LXV (1931-32), p. 16.
- P. della Pergola, La Galleria Borghese. I Dipinti, I, Roma 1955, p. 123, n. 222.
- B. Berenson, Italian pictures of the Renaissance. A list of the principal artists and their works with an index of places. Venetian School, 2 voll., London 1957, I, p. 43, tav. 1146.
- C. Gilbert, A Sarasota notebook, in “Arte veneta”, XV, 1961, p. 43.
- P. della Pergola, Gli inventari Aldobrandini: l’inventario del 1682 (III), in “Arte Antica e Moderna”, XXII, 1963, p. 186, n. 656.
- P. della Pergola, L’inventario Borghese del 1693 (III), in “Arte Antica e Moderna”, XXX, 1965, p. 204, n. 469.
- R. Longhi, Edizione delle opere complete. II. Saggi e ricerche 1925-1928, 2 voll., Firenze 1967, I, p. 342.
- L. Vertova, Giulio Licinio, in I Pittori Bergamaschi dal XIII al XIX secolo. Il Cinquecento, III.2, a cura di P. Zampetti, Bergamo 1976, p. 554.
- N. Ivanoff, Antonio Negretti detto Antonio Palma, in I Pittori Bergamaschi dal XIII al XIX secolo. Il Cinquecento, III.3, a cura di P. Zampetti, Bergamo 1979, n. 6.
- K. Herrmann Fiore, in Paesaggio con figura: 57 dipinti della Galleria Borghese esposti temporaneamente a Palazzo Venezia, (Roma, Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia, 30 luglio-30 settembre 1985), a cura della Soprintendenza ai Beni Artistici e Storici di Roma, Roma 1985, n. 13.
- L. Vertova, Profilo di Antonio Palma, in “Antichità viva”, XXIV, 5-6, 1985, p. 24.
- S. Simonetti, Profilo di Bonifacio de’ Pitati, in “Saggi e Memore di storia dell’arte”, 15, 1986, p. 125, n. A140.
- B. Aikema, Jacopo Bassano and his Public. Moralizing Pictures in a Age of Reform, 1535-1600, Princeton 1996, pp. 196-197.
- K. Herrmann Fiore, in I piaceri della vita in campagna nell’arte dal XVI al XVIII secolo, catalogo della mostra (Belgioioso, Castello di Belgioioso, 13 maggio-16 luglio; Ariccia, Palazzo Chigi, 16 settembre-26 novembre 2000), a cura di F. Moro, Milano 2000, p. 47.
- 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. 65.
- M. Gianandrea, Galleria Borghese: the splendid collection of a noble family, catalogo della mostra (Kyoto, The National Museum of Modern Art, 31 ottobre-27 dicembre 2010), a cura di R. Vodret, Kyoto 2009, pp. 116-117, n. 22.
- M. Biffis, Negretti, Antonio, detto Antonio Palma, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 78, 2013.
