Young Lady, called Lucrezia Cenci
Artist/Maker
Material / Technique
Dimensionsh x w: Mått 72 x 61 cm h x w x d: Ram 89 x 78 x 7 cm
Inventory numberNM 169
AcqusitionTransferred 1866 from Kongl. Museum
Other titlesTitle (sv): Yngre dam, kallad Lucrezia Cenci (1549-1599) Title (en): Young Lady, called Lucrezia Cenci Title (en): Portrait of a Lady with a Book (“Lucrezia Cenci”)
DescriptionCatalogue raisonné: Description in Italian Paintings: Three Centuries of Collecting, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2015, cat.no. 109: FORMER INV. NO.: KM 1046. TECHNICAL NOTES: The support is a single piece of medium- coarse, plain-weave linen fabric. It has been glue-lined and mounted on a non-original stretcher. The ground is red. There are numerous retouches in the background. The varnish is thick and yellowed. Documented restoration: 1927: Oil varnish removed. Repair. Varnish. PROVENANCE: Byström; Grubb 1853. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Byström 1853, p. 14, no. 154 (as Sassoferrato); NM Cat. 1927, p. 26; Baumgart, in Thieme and Becker, XXVII, p. 461; Zeri 1957, p. 93; NM Cat. 1958, p. 160 (as Scipione Pulzone); NM Cat. 1990, p. 280 (as Scipione Pulzone); Donò 1996, pp. 82–82, no. 44 II; Dern 2003, pp. 76, 168 (as Scipione Pulzone, copy after); Acconci and Zuccari 2013, p. 367. The elegant noblewoman in the picture is represented in an intimate moment of prayer. Seated at a table, she holds a small prayer book in her hands, from which she raises her watchful eyes to meet the viewer’s gaze. The woman’s severe black clothing is brightened by the white pleated cuffs of the sleeves, and by the blouse gracefully decorated with fine lace. The head with its dark brown hair and small curls by the temples is piously covered by a thin yellowish veil. The Nationalmuseum’s Portrait of a Lady with a Book (“Lucrezia Cenci”) belonged to the 19th-century Italian art collection of Johan Niklas Byström, and later to that of the Na Nationalmuseum curator Per Wilhelm Grubb, who sold the canvas to the Museum in 1857.¹ Today this painting is considered a copy of Scipione Pulzone’s famous canvas of the same subject, originally in the Barberini Collection in Rome. That work was long considered missing² and was rediscovered when sold in 2006 at Christie’s in Milan. The painting, signed by the artist, is now correctly dated to 1591.³ Scipione Pulzone was in great demand as a portraitist in late 16th-century Rome, as his contemporaries record. Raffaello Borghini (1537–1588) wrote of the artist: “Scipione Pulzone from Gaeta is very excellent … in doing portraits from life, so done by him that they appear alive. Therefore, he is required to portray all the principal lords of Rome and all the beautiful women … in the making of portraits Scipione is held marvellous by all”.⁴ Pulzone’s meticulousness, particularly visible in his early works, derives from 16th-century Flemish portraiture,⁵ but the eccentric artist shows a multitude of artistic and cultural influences, from which he created what Federico Zeri appositely, in his 1957 work on the artist, called a “Timeless Art”.⁶ Next to more refined and courtly portraits of the same period, Pulzone brings a greater naturalness to his Portrait of a Lady with a Book (“Lucrezia Cenci”), once in the Barberini Collection, and most scholars agree in considering it the artist’s innovative masterpiece in portraiture.⁷ Federico Zeri stressed how, in this work, Pulzone overcame Mannerism and created a parallel art to the Classicism of the Bolognese,⁸ while the great naturalism of this contemporary portraitist appealed to Caravaggio, present in Rome at the same time.⁹ The painting was traditionally considered a portrait of Lucrezia Cenci (1549–1599), the stepmother of Beatrice Cenci (1577–1599), the young noblewoman and tragic protagonist in one of Rome’s most lurid murder trials of the time. It was first recorded in the 1644 list of Cardinal Antonio Barberini’s (1607–1671) art collection in the Barberini palace in Rome.¹⁰ In the 19th century the work was displayed together with the famous portrait supposedly of Beatrice Cenci, once attributed to Guido Reni,¹¹ and that of Beatrice’s mother, Ersilia Cenci, then attributed to Caravaggio; and it was therefore considered to depict the stepmother of the young Beatrice, Lucrezia Petroni Cenci.¹² The two women, Beatrice and Lucrezia, shared the same cruel fate and were sentenced to death for the alleged family conspiracy, which had led to the violent death of the despotic paterfamilias Francesco Cenci (1549–1598).¹³ The original and the copy of Portrait of a Lady with a Book (“Lucrezia Cenci”) show a few minor differences. In the Nationalmuseum version, the cover of the small prayer book the woman holds in her hands is red, and not blue as in the original. The sitter’s face is rounder in the copy and her head leans slightly forward. The little finger of her left hand also protrudes somewhat. A replica of Pulzone’s work, resembling the original painting in every detail, is today preserved in a private collection in Vienna.¹⁴ se 1 In the Byström Collection the painting was considered a work of Giovanni Battista Salvi, called il Sassoferrato. RA, E I a: 280 Finansdep. Konseljakt, ärende nr. II, 1852–05–26, Katalog öfver framlidne Professor J. N. Byströms Tafvel-Samling, no. 55 “Fruntimmers porträtt av Sassoferrato, 120 Rdr Banco”. The canvas continued to be regarded as a work by Sassoferrato after it was purchased for Grubb’s collection and when it finally entered the Nationalmuseum in 1857. Byström 1853a, no. 154, p. 12; SSA, Stockholms Auktionsverk, A I: a, Auktionsprotokoll 1853; NM, Kongl. Museum, D I; Inventarier 1803–1857. 2 The painting was last recorded in the Barberini Gallery in Rome by Adolfo Venturi in 1934 (Venturi 1934, pp. 762, 779, 781). In the same year, 1934, a special decree was issued allowing the Barberini family to sell a large portion of the collection, and Portrait of a Lady with a Book (“Lucrezia Cenci”) was later sold at a judicial sale in Rome in 1958. Christie’s, Milan, 7 June 2006, Dipinti antichi (sale cat. 2006), p. 46; Aronberg Lavin 1975, p. X, note 4. 3 Christie’s, Milan, 7 June 2006 (sale cat. 2006), no. 78, pp. 46–49, Scipione Pulzone, Portrait of a Lady with Book (“Lucrezia Cenci”), oil on canvas, 70.5 x 57.5. The date on the canvas was erroneously interpreted as 1594, a date first recorded in Mariotti 1924, p. 37. 4 Ellis 2007, p. 277. 5 Zeri 1957, pp. 15–19. 6 Zeri 1957. 7 Mariotti 1924, pp. 37–38, fig. 11; Venturi 1934, pp. 778–780, fig. 435; Zeri 1957, p. 81, fig. 88; Vaudo 1976, pp. 43–44, fig. 53; Zuccari 1985, pp. 170–171; Donò 1996, pp. 20, 82–3, n. 44; Dern 2003, p. 76. 8 Zeri 1957, p. 81. 9 Zuccari 1985, pp. 170–171. 10 Aronberg Lavin 1975, p. 166, no. 233, “Un ritratto di una Dama, che tiene un offitiolo in mano, con cornice di noce di mano di Scipione Gaetano”. 11 Vodret 1999, pp. 131–139. 12 Barbier de Mantault 1870, pp. 343, nos. 81, 83 and 85. 13 Sivo 1999, pp. 61–80. 14 Dern 2003, pp. 168–169, no. 58. The phenomenon of replicas is very [End]
Depicted Person
Motif categoryPortrait
Collection
TechniquePainting
Object category
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