拍品专文
Scipione Pulzone was a key figure at the time of the Counter Reformation in Rome in the later 16th century. Born in Gaeta, he excelled as both a portraitist and history painter, working for major families in Rome, and travelling to the courts at Florence and Naples. In the wake of the Council of Trent, his spirited history painting was aimed at stirring pathos, creating devotional pictures that would bring the viewer closer to the story and suffering of Christ. This picture is an ambitious demonstration of that intent. It was first shown publicly during the 2013 exhibition at Gaeta, the first to be dedicated to Pulzone, when the early history of the picture was reconstructed. The circumstances of the commission were known through documented sources: Marcantonio II Colonna, a key patron of Pulzone, had ordered the picture in 1581, and the finished work was delivered to Palermo in 1583. Colonna then gifted it to Mateo Vázquez de Leca, the powerful secretary of Philip II, in order to ingratiate himself to the Spanish court, and the picture passed subsequently to the nephew of Vázquez de Leca in Seville, after which all traces of the work were lost. When the picture in question came to light and was exhibited in 2013, it was documented as the lost Colonna picture. An alternative theory however has recently been proposed that our picture is instead the version that Pulzone painted for Cardinal Ferdinando de' Medici in 1583. The emergence of an old copy, or replica (Scipione Pulzone. Da Gaeta a Roma alle Corti europee, 2013, p. 292), testifies to the importance and popularity of the composition, which is one of Pulzone’s most elaborate works.
The subject itself and complex arrangement of the figures owes much to the revival of interest in the work of Sebastiano del Piombo during the Counter Reformation and to Pulzone’s own admiration for Raphael. The debt to the latter’s Lo Spasimo di Sicilia (c. 1514, Madrid, Museo del Prado) is evident. The pious expressions of the Madonna, and the figure behind her on the right, are typical of Pulzone’s devotional art. They can be compared to the figures in The Crucifixion in the Chiesa Nuova, Rome, which dates to the same moment, 1583, and to the Lamentation, made for the Chiesa del Gesù, Rome (now New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art). The drama wrought by such intensity of expression is due in part to his renowned skill as a portraitist, which was highly praised by Raffaello Borghini, saying that he was ‘very excellent in painting portraits [which] seem to be alive’ (‘che paiono vivi’) and that his portraits were sought after by the ‘most important gentlemen of Rome and all of the beautiful women’ (‘Signori principali di Roma, e tutte le belle donne’) (R. Borghini, Il Riposo, Florence, 1584, p. 578). We are grateful to Antonio Vannugli for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.
The subject itself and complex arrangement of the figures owes much to the revival of interest in the work of Sebastiano del Piombo during the Counter Reformation and to Pulzone’s own admiration for Raphael. The debt to the latter’s Lo Spasimo di Sicilia (c. 1514, Madrid, Museo del Prado) is evident. The pious expressions of the Madonna, and the figure behind her on the right, are typical of Pulzone’s devotional art. They can be compared to the figures in The Crucifixion in the Chiesa Nuova, Rome, which dates to the same moment, 1583, and to the Lamentation, made for the Chiesa del Gesù, Rome (now New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art). The drama wrought by such intensity of expression is due in part to his renowned skill as a portraitist, which was highly praised by Raffaello Borghini, saying that he was ‘very excellent in painting portraits [which] seem to be alive’ (‘che paiono vivi’) and that his portraits were sought after by the ‘most important gentlemen of Rome and all of the beautiful women’ (‘Signori principali di Roma, e tutte le belle donne’) (R. Borghini, Il Riposo, Florence, 1584, p. 578). We are grateful to Antonio Vannugli for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.