Cleopatra
Artist/Maker
Material / Technique
Dimensionsh x w: Mått 71 x 56 cm
Inventory numberNM 140
AcqusitionTransferred 1866 from Kongl. Museum
Other titlesTitel (sv): Kleopatra Titel (en): Cleopatra
DescriptionRes. Katalogtext: Description in Italian Paintings: Three Centuries of Collecting, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2015, cat.no.12: FORMER INV. NOS.: 410 (M. 1804); KM 995. TECHNICAL NOTES: The original support consists of a single piece of coarse, plain-weave linen fabric, which has been lined onto a sparsely woven linen fabric and mounted with staples on a typical Martelli strainer. This was probably done in Italy before shipping to Sweden. The oval shape is probably not original; the painting may have been rectangular. The ground is red. The paint layer is in fairly good condition, with some minor losses and old, discoloured retouches. The varnish is yellowed. PROVENANCE: Martelli 1804. BIBLIOGRAPHY: NM Cat. 1867, p. 10 (as Guido Reni); Sander 1872–76, III, p. 132, no. 410 (as Guido Reni); NM Cat. 1990, p. 293 (as Guido Reni, manner of).. The present painting is not found in the catalogues of Martelli and Fredenheim, but it is listed in the inventory made upon the arrival of the Martelli Collection in Sweden in 1804. Here it is simply described as a ´Head of Cleopatra’.¹ The painting retains the original paper label on the verso, where Corvi and Tofanelli correctly attribute it to Cagnacci, describing it as ‘Guido Cagnacci. Cleopatra. Ovato’. Strangely enough, when Fredrik Sander transcribed the 1803 inventory together with the existing paper labels, he mistakenly wrote: ‘Guido Reni. Cleopatra. Ovato’.² This mistake can only have been intentional: Sander, not knowing of Cagnacci, must have ignored the name, perhaps dismissing it as an inaccuracy, and decided that the intended attribution must have been to the most famous Guido of all, Guido Reni, especially since the painting was very much in the style of that artist. The particular rendition of Cleopatra foundhere exists in two previously known paintings, one in a private Italian collection and the other in the Museo della Città, Rimini. These works were not listed in Pier Giorgio Pasini’s catalogue raisonné of 1986, but the one in Rimini was included in the exhibition Seicento Inquieto: Fra Cagnacci e Guercino in Rimini in 2004 and was published with an attribution to Cagnacci in the exhibition catalogue.³ The firm and comparatively early attribution of the Nationalmuseum work to this artist would confirm that the attribution of the Rimini painting is correct. The Nationalmuseum painting has been lined: an oval part of the original canvas appears to have been cut out, perhaps along the border of the original oval frame, and then laid down on a square canvas. Cleopatra’s chin and nose seem somewhat poorly executed in comparison with the rest of the painting. IR reflectography has in fact revealed damage with paint loss in these areas, which have later been poorly retouched. The quality of the brushstrokes is otherwise of a high order, and in parts fine impasto brushwork is preserved. Especially fine are the small impasto details highlighting Cleopatra’s nails. While there is a difference in the execution of the hands between the Rimini and the Nationalmuseum painting – the fingers in the former are somewhat thinner and can perhaps be considered finer – the fingers of the Nationalmuseum version are nevertheless entirely in Cagnacci’s manner. The execution of these hands is particularly close to the depiction of the rather fleshy, yet feminine, hands of Judith in the painting of Judith with the Head of Holofernes in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna.⁴ Of Cagnacci’s other versions of the subject, the one that comes closest thematically and compositionally to the Nationalmuseum painting is the famous half-length rendering of Cleopatra in the Collezioni Comunali d’Arte, Bologna, of which there is also an excellent variant in a private collection.⁵ The present work is by necessity more concentrated: a reduced variant where the entire focus is on the decisive moment of the suicide, conveyed in particular by the expression on Cleopatra’s face and the bite of the viper, whose head is not visible in the Bologna painting. However, the face of Cleopatra in the Nationalmuseum canvas is without question derived directly from Cagnacci’s painting of St Agatha in the collection of the Banca Popolare dell’Emilia Romagna. Interestingly, that painting, just like the present one, exists in two close versions, both of which seem to be by Cagnacci’s hand.⁶ Despite the almost exact correspondence between the Stockholm and Rimini paintings, the former must still be considered a studio replica of the latter, even if we take the damage it has suffered into account. More than anything else, it is perhaps the somewhat summary execution of a few details, particularly in the depiction of the folds of the white parts of Cleopatra’s tunic, that points to this conclusion. In several instances, for example, detailed shadowy parts are missing altogether. Although this can partly be attributed to a smoothing out of impasto areas during the lining of the painting, it is too dominant to be solely a result of that process. Some other details of the lining also point to the Stockholm painting being a replica. For example the fact that it has been lined onto a square, typical of the Martelli Collection sparsely- woven canvas, but retains an oval shape. Along the edge there are about one to two centimetres which seem to have constituted the part of the canvas that was folded round the edge of an oval frame. The Rimini painting originally seems to have been painted on a square canvas, and as the Stockholm work is also somewhat smaller, some details were probably lost when it was painted, such as the part of the viper’s body that coils around the wrist of Cleopatra’s right arm. Inconclusion, the Nationalmuseum painting must be considered a replica, whose quality and closeapproximation to the original point to it having been made in Cagnacci’s own studio, with some parts, such as the hands, possibly by the master himself. DP 1 NM Archives, Kongl. Museum, F:1, Catalogue du Cabinet de Martelli (à Rome). 2 Sander 1872–76, III, p. 132, no. 410. 3 Mazza 2004, pp. 180–181, cat. no. 51. 4 Pasini 1986, pp. 244–245, cat. no. 45; Benati and Paolucci 2008, pp. 234–235, cat. no. 50, entry by F. Massaccesi. 5 Pasini 1986, pp. 259–261, cat. no. 58. Benati and Paolucci 2008, pp. 218–219, cat. no. 44, pp. 286–287, cat. no. 70. 6 Benati and Paolucci 2008, pp. 220–221, cat. no. 45. [End]
Depicted Person
Motif categoryReligion/Mythology
Collection
TechniquePainting
Object category
Keyword