A Portrait Drawing of Pope Paul V Attributed to Guido Reni Art Bulletin
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Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum Stockholm Volume 23 A Portrait Drawing of Pope Paul V Attributed to Guido Reni Martin Olin, Deputy Director of Collections and Research Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, © The National Library of Sweden, Stockholm Graphic Design is published with generous support from (Fig. 4, p. 38. Fig. 21, p. 211. Fig. 28, p. 215) BIGG the Friends of the Nationalmuseum. © Alte Nationalgallerie, Berlin (Fig. 2, p. 40) Layout Nationalmuseum collaborates with © Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg Agneta Bervokk Svenska Dagbladet and Grand Hôtel Stockholm. (Fig. 3, p. 41) We would also like to thank FCB Fältman & © Neue Pinakothek, Munich Translation and Language Editing Malmén. (Fig. 5, p. 43) Gabriella Berggren, William Jewson, David Jones © The Morgan Library & Museum, New York and Martin Naylor Cover Illustration (Fig. 4, p. 109. Fig. 32–33, p. 217) Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg (1783–1853), © The Matthiesen Gallery, London Publishing Danish. “Ciociara”– Portrait of a Roman Country Girl, (Fig. 1, p. 108) Ludvig Florén, Magnus Olausson (Editors) and 1816. Oil on canvas, 52 x 46.5 cm. Purchase: Wiros © The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford Ingrid Lindell (Publications Manager) Fund. NM 7334. (Fig. 2, p. 122) © Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum is published Publisher (Fig. 3, p. 123) annually and contains articles on the history and Berndt Arell, Director General © Robilant + Voena theory of art relating to the collections of the (Fig. 4, p. 124) Nationalmuseum. Editor © The Swedish National Archives, Stockholm Ludvig Florén and Magnus Olausson (Fig. 3, p. 204) Nationalmuseum © The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City. Box 16176 Editorial Committee Photo: Joshua Ferdinand SE–103 24 Stockholm, Sweden Janna Herder, Linda Hinners, Merit Laine, (Fig. 4, p. 205) www.nationalmuseum.se Lena Munther, Magnus Olausson, Martin Olin, © Musée du Louvre, Paris. RMN-Grand Palais/Art © Nationalmuseum, the authors and the owners of Maria Perers and Lidia Westerberg Olofsson Resource, NY the reproduced works (Fig. 5, p. 205) Photographs © Kunsthistoriches Museum, Vienna ISSN 2001-9238 Nationalmuseum Photographic Studio/ (Fig. 8, p. 207) Linn Ahlgren, Bodil Beckman, Erik Cornelius, © The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Anna Danielsson, Cecilia Heisser, Sofia Persson, Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Per-Åke Persson and Hans Thorwid Program (Fig. 10, p. 208. Fig. 30, p. 216) Picture Editor © Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam Rikard Nordström (Fig. 11, p. 208) © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Photo Credits (Fig. 18, p. 210. Fig. 23, p. 212. Fig. 31, p. 216) © Thorvaldsens Museum, Copenhagen © Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia (Fig. 5, p. 21. Fig. 1, p. 36) (Fig. 24, p. 213. Fig. 26, p. 214) © Amsterdams Historisch Museum, Amsterdam © Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis. (Fig. 2, p. 32) John Herron Fund. © Trustees of the British Museum, London (Fig. 25, p. 213) (Fig. 3, p. 33. Fig. 6, p. 38) © Stockholms auktionsverk © The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland (Fig. 8, p. 136) (Fig. 2, p. 36) Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum Volume 23, 2016 4 acquisitions/a portrait drawing of pope paul v attributed to guido reni A Portrait Drawing of Pope Paul V Attributed to Guido Reni Martin Olin Deputy Director of Collections and Research A recurring topos in the artists’ biographies of the 16th and 17th centuries is that of the accomplished painter declining to paint the portrait of a prince. The justification is usually a one-li- ner to the effect that even portraits of kings and popes are unworthy subjects for a real artist, since realistic reproduction of nature ranks lower in the hierarchy of artistic genres than idealised history painting. In his 1678 biography of Guido Reni (1575–1642), Carlo Cesare Malvasia writes that, despite promises of handsome remuneration, Reni declined to paint the French king “because he was not a portrait painter”, but adds that there are never- theless several portraits by his hand. Malvasia mentions those of the artist’s mother and brother and of another person, and a series of portraits of princes of the Church: “Clement [VIII], Paul V, his nephew Cardinal Scipione [Borghese], Cardinal Sfondrati, Cardinal Senesio [Sannesio] . Cardinals Spada and Sacchetti”.1 The full-length seated portrait of Cardinal Bernardino Spada (Galleria Spada, Rome) is the only one of the works enumerated that has been identified with certainty, although an image of a widow Fig. 2 Attributed to Guido Reni (1575–1642), Portrait Drawing of Pope Paul V, 1605–10. Black chalk heightened with white on bluish-grey paper, 17,9 x 12,9 cm. Purchase: The Wiros Fund. Nationalmuseum, NMH 524/2016. 107 Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum Volume 23, 2016 acquisitions/a portrait drawing of pope paul v attributed to guido reni in the Pinacoteca in Bologna has long been referred to as “the artist’s mother”. A painting of Cardinal Camillo Borghese currently on the British art market has been ascribed to Reni, citing support from several scholars (Fig. 1).2 In 2016, the Nationalmuseum acquired a portrait drawing attributed to Reni representing the same sitter, but made after Borghese had ascended the papal throne as Paul V in May 1605 (Fig. 2). Here, Borghese has exchanged the cardinal’s biretta of the painting for a camauro, a red velvet cap trimmed with white fur that was worn only by the pope. Executed in black chalk with white highlights on bluish-grey paper, the Nationalmuseum’s portrait is a charac- teristic example of a manner of drawing that flourished in Rome at the beginning of the 17th century. The great prestige project of the turn of the century in that city was the decoration of the Galleria of the Palazzo Farnese. The work was led by Annibale Carracci, with the assistance of several younger artists who had studied at the Carracci family’s school of painting in their home city of Bologna. The many preparatory drawings for the Farnese Galleria are largely executed in black chalk on coloured paper, a medium that was adopted by both the Bolognese painters in Carracci’s immediate circle and contemporary Roman artists.3 The younger generation of artists with roots in Bologna and the surrounding country- side of Emilia who had flocked to Rome for Carracci’s project were to dominate painting in Rome in the early decades of the 17th century.4 Among them was Guido Reni, although he had established an in- dependent career before leaving Bologna. Reni’s first patron in Rome was Cardinal Fig. 1 Attributed to Guido Reni (1575–1642), Cardinal Camillo Borghese (Future Paul V). Oil on canvas. The Matthiesen Gallery, London (photo: Matthiesen Gallery). Paolo Emilio Sfondrati (whose portrait he also painted, according to Malvasia; cf. note 1), and his commissions for Sfondrati in the latter’s titular church of S. Cecilia were his entry ticket to the Roman art scene. It would be some time, though, before the Borghese family began in earnest to engage the services of the Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum Volume 23, 2016 108 acquisitions/a portrait drawing of pope paul v attributed to guido reni Fig. 3 Unknown, Pope Paul V. Oil on canvas, 53 x 46 cm. Nationalmuseum, NM 7269. Fig. 4 Ottavio Leoni (c. 1578–1630). Portrait of Cardinal Camillo Borghese. Black chalk, heightened with white chalk, on paper prepared with a blue wash, 21,9 x 15,9 cm. The Morgan Library & Museum, New York. ©The Morgan Library & Museum. I, 24. Purchased by Pierpoint Morgan (1837–1913) in 1909. Bolognese painters. Not until 1608 was The portrait drawing of Paul V was chalk strokes, forming marked angles in Reni called upon to provide monumental previously ascribed to Domenichino, but a kind of zigzag pattern. Parallels can be decoration for the papal palaces, and was acquired with an attribution to Reni found, for instance, in drawings for images Malvasia claims that it was while working that seems entirely plausible, for one thing of saints, including a St Dominic and a on the pope’s private chapel in the in view of the historical circumstances.5 bishop saint (with a headdress indicated Quirinal Palace that he came into Stylistically, there are few exact compari- in a similar fashion) in the Louvre.6 The personal contact with Paul V. Around sons, as drawn portraits by Reni scarcely way of drawing the white collar in white 1612, a conflict with Scipione Borghese exist, but one characteristic of the artist is bodycolour also has counterparts in both resulted in Reni leaving Rome to work for the sketchy manner of drawing the folds the examples mentioned and others. On a time in Bologna. of the clothing with firm, often parallel, the reverse of the mount is a modern 109 Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum Volume 23, 2016 acquisitions/a portrait drawing of pope paul v attributed to guido reni inscription claiming that the National- appearance; the later one by the evidence museum drawing is by Ottavio Leoni of direct contact between the pope and (c. 1578–1630), a prominent and produc- Reni, who began work at that time on the tive portrait draughtsman in Rome in the decoration of the Quirinal Palace. first decades of the 17th century. Although there are certain similarities to Leoni’s Notes: black- and red-chalk drawings of prela- 1. Carlo Cesare Malvasia, Felsina Pittrice, Bologna 1841 (1678), II, p. 47. In addition, according to tes from the 1620s, they are different in Malvasia, Reni painted a number of portraits of manner, and the Nationalmuseum’s head poets and others which he gave to the sitters. of a pope fills the picture space more than 2. D. Stephen Pepper and Patrick Matthiesen, Leoni’s head-and-shoulders portraits.7 “A Portrait of Cardinal Camillo Borghese”, in We find an interesting parallel, however, Guido Reni.