The Vision of Saint Augustine
Together with The Vision of Anthony the Great (inv. no. 474), this work on alabaster was first documented as forming part of the Borghese Collection in the late 17th century. While in the past critics ascribed it to Federico Zuccari of the Marche, recently scholars have proposed the names of Jacques Stella and Siegmund Laire.
It depicts Augustine, the saint from Hippo, meditating on the mystery of the Trinity, shown here in a sort of fantastic cloud, which is represented through skilful use of the natural veins of the support material.
Object details
Inventory
Location
Date
early years of the 17th century
Classification
Period
Medium
Dimensions
Frame
Late 18th-/19th-century frame, part of a polyptych, 82 x 25 x 4.3 cm
Provenance
Rome, Borghese Collection, 1693 (Inventory 1693, room XI, no. 82; Della Pergola 1959); Inventory 1790, room VII, nos 14, 24; Inventario Fidecommissario Borghese 1833, p. 29. Purchased by Italian state, 1902.
Exhibitions
- 1972 Roma, Galleria Borghese
Conservation and Diagnostic
- 1997 Ditta Cobisi (frame)
Commentary
The similar medium, dimensions and subject indicate that this painting is the pendant of The Vision of Anthony the Great (inv. no. 474). It was first mentioned in connection with the Borghese Collection in 1693, when it was described in the inventory in these words: ‘two small paintings on stone with a frame and frontispiece with copper and silver, one with the Trinity and the other with a reclining friar, painted on stone. Unknown artist, no. ...’ The 1790 inventory ascribed it generically to ‘Zuccari’, which Adolfo Venturi (1893) more precisely identified as Federico. Yet this attribution was called into question by Roberto Longhi (1928), who wrote of an anonymous Roman artist of the second half of the 16th century.
While a number of later critics accepted Longhi’s theory (Della Pergola 1959; Staccoli 1971; Stefano 2000), in 2006 Kristina Herrmann Fiore associated the work with the French painter Jacques Stella in the image catalogue of the Galleria Borghese. This attribution, however, was not confirmed in either the catalogue of the exhibition dedicated to the painter in 2006-07 or in Jacques Thuillier’s monograph, published in 2006. In the view of the present writer (Iommelli 2022), the artist should be located in the world of late Roman Mannerism, specifically in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. In this milieu the painter would have been familiar with the figurative models of Cavalier d'Arpino. One possibility is Siegmund Laire, the Bavarian artist who came to Rome in 1585 and was noted by Giovanni Baglione (1642) for his compositions on stone, executed ‘[...] in a manner that filled observers with great awe’. In close contact with the Jesuits, this painter produced a number of small-format works depicting the most venerated saints of the Christian community.
Antonio Iommelli
Bibliography
- G. Baglione, Le vite de' pittori, scultori, architetti ed intagliatori..., Roma, Andrea Fei, 1642, p. 53;
- X. Barbier de Montault, Les Musées et Galeries de Rome, Rome 1870, p. 357;
- G. Piancastelli, Catalogo dei quadri della Galleria Borghese, in Archivio Galleria Borghese, 1891, pp. 339, 540;
- A. Venturi, Il Museo e la Galleria Borghese, Roma 1893, p. 215;
- R. Longhi, Precisioni nelle Gallerie Italiane, I, La R. Galleria Borghese, Roma 1928, p. 223;
- P. della Pergola, La Galleria Borghese. I Dipinti, II, Roma 1959, p. 97, n. 138;
- P. della Pergola, L’Inventario Borghese del 1693 (III), in “Arte Antica e Moderna”, XXX, 1965, p. 210;
- S. Staccioli, in Opere in mosaico, intarsi e pietra paesina, catalogo della mostra (Roma, Galleria Borghese, 1971), a cura di S. Staccioli, Roma 1971, p. 36;
- C. Stefani, in P. Moreno, C. Stefani, Galleria Borghese, Milano 2000, p. 207 ;
- 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. 154;
- Jacques Stella (1596-1657), catalogo della mostra (Lyon, Musée des Beaux-Arts, 2006-2007; Toulouse, Musée des Augustins, 2007), a cura di S. Laveissière, I. Dubois, Paris 2000 (assente);
- J. Thuillier, Jacques Stella (1596-1657), Metz 2006 (assente);
- A. Iommelli, 'Petrae volant, scripta manent': tracce di pietre in casa Borghese nel XVII secolo, in Meraviglie senza tempo. Pittura su pietra a Roma nel Seicento, catalogo della mostra (Roma, Galleria Borghese, 2022), a cura di F. Cappelletti, P. Cavazzini.
