Domine, Quo Vadis?
Artist/Maker
DatesMade: Probably beginning of 18th century
Material / Technique
Dimensionsh x w: Mått 76 x 48 cm h x w x d: Ram 95 x 68 x 9 cm
Inventory numberNM 25
AcqusitionTransferred 1866 from Kongl. Museum (Martelli 1804)
Other titlesTitle (sv): "Domine, quo vadis?" Title (en): Domine, Quo Vadis?
DescriptionCatalogue raisonné: Description in Italian Paintings: Three Centuries of Collecting, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2015, cat.no. 8: FORMER INV. NOS.: 253 (M. 1796–97); 103 (F. 1798); 195 (M. 1804); KM 520. TECHNICAL NOTES: Painted on a coarse, plain-weave linen fabric, on a brown ground that covers the whole support. The painting has been glue-lined (probably during conservation in 1845) and mounted on a non-original stretcher. The paint layer is abraded and partly blanched. There are some old discoloured retouches. The varnish is yellowed. Documented restorations: 1845: Restored by Mlle Lundmark; 1926: Uneven yellow varnish removed, cleaning, mending and varnish; 2012: Surface dirt removed. Blanched paint layer regenerated (not entirely successfully). PROVENANCE: Martelli 1804. BIBLIOGRAPHY: NM Cat. 1867, p. 2 (as Benefial); Sander 1872–76, III, p.110, no. 195 (as Benefial); NM Cat. 1958, p. 13 (as Benefial, attributed to); NM Cat. 1990, p. 65 (as Annibale Carracci, copy after). In the 1990 Nationalmuseum catalogue of European paintings, this painting is listed as an anonymous copy of Annibale Carracci’s version, now in the National Gallery in London. Sander, by contrast, mentions the name of Marco Benefial, a suggestion that probably reflects Martelli’s own original labelling. Although this particular label is missing, Martelli’s attribution is confirmed by the surviving inventory,in which the painting is listed under the name of Benefial as Un Christ avec S. Pierre. In contrast to NM 24 (cat. no. 34), regarding which the attribution to Benefial has been abandoned, the present painting has features that permit a possible affirmation of the 18th-century attribution. From the composition of the painting, it is clear that Annibale Carracci’s work served as a first prototype. A rather rare subject in early modern painting, the scene shows an encounter that took place as St Peter, during the persecutions of the Emperor Nero, attempted to flee from Rome. On the Appian Way he had a vision of Christ, crowned with thorns and carrying the cross. The apostle asked where Christ was heading (“Domine, Quo Vadis?”) and Christ affirmed his intention to go to Rome to be crucified again. Eventually, Peter returned to face his martyrdom. Carracci’s painting was commissioned by Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini fairly soon after the artist had finished the Farnese Gallery (1601). It shows a sculptural Christ figure against the background of an ideal landscape that perfectly evoked the Appian Way.¹ It is more likely, however, that the formal influence for the Nationalmuseum canvas came from a different source, namely a painting of same subject and with similar compositional features by Ligurian artist Giovanni Battista Gaulli ‘il Baciccio’ (1639–1709). Gaulli’s own dependence on the Carracci painting is evident and understandably so, since his own connections with Camillo Pamphilj and Olimpia Aldobrandini Borghese, Camillo’s wife and heiress to Cardinal Pietro’s art collection, were strong and he may have had ample opportunity to study Carracci’s version closely.² The Gaulli version’s oldest provenance has not yet been established.³ Its close connection with the painter’s Christ and the Samaritan Woman, today in the Galleria Spada and once part of Cardinal Fabrizio Spada’s collection, suggests a possible date around 1675.⁴ In 1980, Elena Calbi presented two previously unpublished pendants by Benefial, one of which relates directly to NM 25.⁵ The paintings, at that time part of the Massari-Ricasoli Collection in Voghenza near Ferrara, show the themes of Noli me tangere and Domine, Quo Vadis.⁶ Given the strong link between Benefial’s work and the Bologna School, Calbi justly recognizes the Carracci version as a definite prototype. Yet she overlooks the fundamental connection with Gaulli’s later version. Both NM 25 and the Voghenza paintings, almost identical in size and smaller than Gaulli’s work, are indebted to the latter in terms of composition and style. The Voghenza version completely inverts the positions of Christ and St Peter, whereas NM 25 simply inverts the position of the cross and the figure of Christ carrying it. Calbi dates the Voghenza paintings to the end of the 1730s, as she regards their stylistic dependence on the Carracci idiom as typical of this period in the artist’s life.⁷ The Nationalmuseum version is problematic, since it combines different formal solutions which may all connect to the eclectic and versatile style of Marco Benefial. The Christ figure shares the vigour and slightly curved body shape proposed by Gaulli and which evoked Bernini’s solutions for the angels on the Ponte Sant’Angelo. It also relates to the figure of Christ in the Flagellation which Benefial painted in 1731, albeit in a more graceful and less dramatic manner, for the Church of the Stimmate di San Francesco in Rome.⁸ Perhaps the strongest stylistic link is offered by the Deposition of Christ, once part of the collection of Count Niccolò Soderini (1691–1779) who was among Benefial’s chief patrons.⁹ The similarities between the Christ figure in that painting and that of NM 25 are evident in the shape of the mouth, nose and ears, as well as in the vigorous torso. St Peter, by contrast, evokes Benefial’s less classicist manner, moving more towards the sought-after realism and evident contouring found in the Portrait of the Quarantotti Family in the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica in Rome, as well as in the harsh style of some of his sketches, such as the Beheading of St John the Baptist in the Kupferstichkabinett of the Staatliche Museen in Berlin.¹⁰ Benefial’s irregular career, independent personality and multifaceted style offer the possibility of assigning the present painting to his oeuvre, yet not without a degree of doubt. The subject matter certainly conforms to his repertoire. And given the formal discrepancies – recalling the epithet once proposed by Benefial scholar Giorgio Falcidia, “senza stile” – the present painting may very well be related to an oeuvre that was never easily categorized. SNE 1 Robertson 2008, pp. 184 and 339. On the commissioning and display of the Carracci painting, see Borea 1976, p. 95. 2 Fagiolo dell’Arco, Graf and Petrucci 1999, pp. 206–207. 3 The painting has been documented in various private collections in Genoa since the 1960s, Gavazza and Terminiello 1992, pp. 187–188. 4 Fagiolo dell’Arco, Graf and Petrucci 1999, pp. 206–207. 5 Calbi 1980, pp. 91–100. 6 Ibid., pl. 122–123. 7 Ibid., pp. 97–98. 8 Barroero 2005, pp. 12, 26 and pl. 5. 9 Fiorenti 2004, pp. 140–141 and fig. 6, p. 172. 10 Barroero 2005, pp. 17, 21–22, 29 and pl. 28. [end]
Motif categoryReligion/Mythology
Collection
TechniquePainting
Object category
Keyword
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