The Woman Taken in Adultery
(Verona 1487 - Venice 1553)
The painting is mentioned in the collection starting with a document from 1613. Already believed to be by Titian, the canvas is actually the work of a follower of Bonifacio de’ Pitati. The composition has the characteristic narrative tones, derived from coffer paintings and northern European influences, probably absorbed through the graphic medium. In the armoured man in the group on the right, there is a faithful quotation from Giorgione’s Castelfranco Veneto Altarpiece.
Object details
Inventory
Location
Date
Second half of the 16th century
Classification
Period
Medium
Dimensions
Provenance
Rome, Borghese Collection, 1693 (Inventory 1693, St. III, no. 4); Inventory 1700, St. III, no. 38; Inventory 1790, St. III, no. 38; Inventario Fidecommissario Borghese 1833, p. 23. Purchased by the Italian state in 1902.
Commentary
The work can be identified as “the painting of the Adulteress, 7 palms high by 10 palms wide”, for which Annibale Durante made a frame in 1613 (Della Pergola 1955). It can be found in the Borghese collection from this time onwards.
In the inventory of 1693, that of 1700 and that of 1790, as well as in Pietro Rossini’s guide (ed. 1750), the painting always appears with a reference to Titian. The Fideicommissary Inventory of 1833 indicates it as being of the Venetian school, while Morelli (1897) attributed it to Bonifacio de’ Pitati. This was rejected by Venturi (1893) and Longhi (1928), who nevertheless judged it to be the work of an imitator of the Veronese painter “influenced by northern European graphics”. Longhi’s opinion was accepted by Della Pergola (1955), who identified the Adulteress in the inventory of 1693 (1964).
As already noted by Venturi, the figure of St George in armour is derived from Giorgione’s Castelfranco Altarpiece. The unknown follower of de’ Pitati clearly drew inspiration from models by the master such as the Christ and the Adulteress in the Pinacoteca di Brera (cat. 213) and the later version in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin (cat. 200), dated by Cottrell and Humfrey to around 1539-1542 and 1552 respectively (Cottrell, Humfrey 2021, p. 373, cat. 111 and p. 408, cat. 180). The artist reworks the horizontal compositional style and the setting inspired by classical architecture, presenting a new version of the religious subject, which was widespread in Veneto painting in the first half of the 16th century.
Elisa Martini
Bibliography
- P. Rossini, Il Mercurio errante delle grandezze di Roma, tanto antiche, che moderne, Roma 1750, I, p. 62
- G. Piancastelli, Catalogo dei quadri della Galleria Borghese, in Archivio Galleria Borghese, 1891, p. 65
- A. Venturi, Il Museo e la Galleria Borghese, Roma 1893, p. 105
- G. Morelli, Della Pittura Italiana. Studi Storici Critici: Le Gallerie Borghese e Doria Pamphili in Roma, Milano 1897, p. 243
- R. Longhi, Precisioni nelle Gallerie Italiane, I, La R. Galleria Borghese, Roma 1928, p. 192
- P. della Pergola, La Galleria Borghese. I Dipinti, I, Roma 1955, pp. 107-108, n. 191
- P. della Pergola, L’Inventario Borghese del 1693 (II), in “Arte Antica e Moderna”, XXVI, 1964, p. 113
- R. Longhi, Edizione delle opere complete. II. Saggi e ricerche 1925-1928, 2 voll., Firenze 1967, I, p. 340
- 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. 53
- P. Cottrell, P. Humfrey, Bonifacio de’ Pitati, Treviso 2021
