Head of St Francis
Artist/Maker
Material / Technique
Dimensionsh x w: Mått 44,5 x 37,5 cm
Inventory numberNMDrh 267
AcqusitionTransferred 1866 from Kongl. Museum
Other titlesTitle (sv): S:t Francisci huvud Title (en): Head of St Francis
DescriptionCatalogue raisonné: Description in Italian Paintings: Three Centuries of Collecting, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2015, cat.no. 83: FORMER INV. NOS.: 430 (M. 1796–97); 45 (F. 1798); 105 (M. 1804); KM 769. TECHNICAL NOTES: Inscriptions: on verso, paper labels: “A. Sacchi. San. Fran. da Paola Mart: 105”; “Sacchi. St. Francisci hufvud. 18 t: hög N:o 769. 15 t. bred”; “769.” The support consists of a single piece of densely woven, medium-coarse, plain-weave linen fabric. It has been glued onto hardboard (marouflage); the back of the hardboard is covered with linen fabric, and the original strainer has been glued back onto the verso. The painting is cropped. There are some old retouches and the varnish is yellowed. The painting is generally in good condition. Documented restoration: 1924: Restored. PROVENANCE: Martelli 1804. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Sander 1872–76, III, p. 102, no. 105 (as Sacchi). This painting, possibly a studi, shows the head of St Francis di Paola. In Fredenheim’s catalogue, it is attributed to Andrea Sacchi and described as “Tête de St Francois di Paolo”.¹ Corvi and Tofanelli also attribute the work to Sacchi, describing it as “A. Sacchi. San. Franc. da Paola”. The attribution to Sacchi is convincing, even though the work, if accepted as a study, does not directly correspond to any of his known paintings. However, there are other known “heads”, or oil studies of heads, of a similar kind to the present painting in Sacchi’s oeuvre. Ann Sutherland Harris lists three in her catalogue raisonné of Sacchi’s paintings: Head of an Apostle, Head of an Apostle with a Book and Head of an Old Man.² All three of these canvases have been enlarged and were originally about the same size as the present work. They show other similarities to it as well. Perhaps the Head of an Apostle with a Book comes closest: it shares the present painting’s “drawn out” but otherwise markedly pastose brushstrokes, which impart a characteristic light haziness to the colours. In the Nationalmuseum painting, this is perhaps most pronounced along the contours of the saint’s profile and halo. This characteristic is typical of Sacchi’s work as a whole and was probably originally influenced by Correggio’s style and to some extent Titian’s style.³ The Head of an Apostle is probably identical with a painting in an 1833 inventory of the Rospigliosi-Pallavicini Collection, Rome, described as “(Un) altro (quadro) da testa piccolo, rappresentante la testa di un vecchio, viena da Andrea Sacchi, esistente sopra il gabinetto”.⁴ It has later been described as a saint, an apostle and St Bartholomew. Federico Zeri has suggested that this painting belonged to a possible series of saints or apostles executed by Sacchi. A series of unidentified heads of old men also appears in the artist’s inventory of 1661. In the sacristy of the church of Santa Maria in Via in Camerino, there is an alternative version of the Head of an Apostle, hanging together with six other heads of a similar kind. Possibly these were made as copies from a few of the heads in Sacchi’s now “lost” original series. Sutherland Harris has dated the Head of an Apostle to the 1630s.⁵ There is a possibility that the present work could be one of the lost paintings of heads of saints; if it is, it should be dated to the same decade. dp 1 NM Archives, Kongl. Museum, F:1, Catalogue du Cabinet de Martelli (à Rome). 2 Sutherland Harris 1977, pp. 63–64, cat. nos. 23–25, pls. 43–45. 3 Sutherland Harris 1977, pp. 17, 28–29, 126–127. 4 Ibid., pp. 63–64, cat. no. 23. 5 Ibid. [End]
Collection
TechniquePainting
Object category