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Catalogue raisonné: Description in Italian Paintings: Three Centuries of Collecting, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2015, cat.no. 69: 

FORMER INV. NOS.: 188 (M. 1796–97); 261bis (F. 1798); 216
(M. 1804); KM 793.

TECHNICAL NOTES: The painting is in very poor condition, with
heavy paint losses. Only a few outlines of the figures in the composition
are still visible. The support consists of a single piece of thin,
plain-weave linen fabric. The ground is red and thin, and covers the
whole support. The painting has been lined with glue and mounted
with staples on a Martelli strainer. This was probably done in Italy
before shipping to Sweden. The paint layer is in very poor condition,
blanched and with numerous losses all over the surface. The
varnish is broken down and yellowed. According to the KM inventory
of 1861, the painting was already badly damaged at that time.

PROVENANCE: Martelli 1804.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Sander 1872–76, p. 112, no. 216.

This painting is pendant to NM 217 (cat. no. 68)
and, like that work, was attributed to Giorgione
by Martelli and by Corvi and Tofanelli.¹ Just
like its pendant, it should be placed within the
context of Callisto Piazza’s commission for the
Incoronata in Lodi. Unlike NM 217 however, its
specific subject from the Passion, Christ Crowned
with Thorns, is not found in the Incoronata.²
Due to the painting’s abysmal condition, it is of
course quite hard to make out the actual composition.
In the centre, Christ has been seated on
a stool, while four persecutors attend to binding
and placing the crown of thorns on his head. To
protect themselves from the thorns they apply
the crown using sticks. In the background to the
left we can just distinguish a group of soldiers,
of the same Landsknecht type as found in NM
217 it seems, and some of their arsenal of spears
and halberds.³ The scene depicted is probably
from the praetorium, the house of the Roman
governor: the vaults and pillars receding into the
left background must have created a fine sense
of perspective in a better preserved state of the
painting.

Several characteristics of Callisto Piazza’s
hand are found in the painting. Despite its poor
condition, we can for example make out the use
of the saturated moss-green in the clothing of the
soldier to the right, who is leaning on his spear
watching the proceedings. The two principal tormentors
standing closest to Christ are of course
very similar to their counterparts in NM 217 and
the corresponding painting in the Incoronata,
and to the henchman in the Massacre of the Innocents
in the Duomo, Lodi, both in their clothing
and in the way the artist has rendered their quite
rigid poses, especially their limbs.⁴ The rigidity
of the figure painting is also evident in the two
seated figures: Christ in the centre and, in particular,
the awkwardly seated persecutor in the
left foreground. The position of Christ is quite
similar, for example, to the seated position of the
chief priest in the centre of the Massacre of the
Innocents.⁵

On the whole, the composition seems to be
derived from German prints of the Passion,
which were popular in late 15th- and early
16th-century northern Italy.⁶ Callisto’s painting
seems to be particularly close to Martin Schongauer’s
(c. 1448–1491) print of the subject, where
the composition is centralized in a like manner,
with a seated Christ surrounded by his tormentors
under a vaulted ceiling. Interestingly, given
that his style exerted a pronounced influence on
Callisto, Titian’s famous painting of the subject,
executed in the 1540s and now in the Louvre, also
seems compositionally similar to prints such as
Schongauer’s.⁷

Like its pendant, the present painting was
perhaps used as a modello in a presentation of
the Piazza studio’s projected decorations for the
Incoronata.
DP

1 NM Archives, Kongl. Museum, F:1, Catalogue du Cabinet
de Martelli (à Rome).
2 Sciolla 1989, pp. 262–269, cat. no. 42.
3 See entry no. 68.
4 Sciolla 1989, pp. 262–269, cat. no. 42, pp. 214–220, cat. no.
32. The Massacre of the Innocents is pictured on p. 217.
5 Sciolla 1989, pp. 214–220, cat. no. 32.
6 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Department of
Prints and Drawings, Martin Schongauer, Christ Crowned
with Thorns, accession no. 28.26.2; Manca 1994, pp. 223–228.
7 Wethey 1969, pp. 82–83, cat. nos. 82–83, pls. 132, 134. [End]

Foto: Erik Cornelius / Nationalmuseum 2012

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