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.
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 ProdigalSon has analogies with Supper in the Houseof SimonPharisee 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
July 2024
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Bibliography
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