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Catalogue raisonné: Description in Italian Paintings: Three Centuries of Collecting, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2015, cat.no. 18:

FORMER INV. NOS.: 413 (M. 1796–97); 161 (F. 1798); 399 (M. 1804);
KM 975.

TECHNICAL NOTES: The support consists of a single hardwood
board. The panel has cracked into two pieces, perpendicular to the
wood grain, and has later been glued together. It is worm-eaten.
A thin, red-brown ground covers the whole panel. The paint layer
has a thin network of cracks in the direction of the grain. There are
some minor paint losses. The varnish is very thick and yellowed.

PROVENANCE: Martelli 1804.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Sander 1872–76, III, p. 131, no. 399 
(as Caravaggio); Prytz and Eriksson 2010, pp. 77–86.

This painting depicts an old man with a white
beard, who has his head turned to the right.
He is dressed in a yellow garment In the early
inventories and on a paper label on the reverse,
the work is entitled “Apostolo”,¹ which has led to
suggestions that it may depict Matthew or even
one of the church fathers, Jerome or Augustine.²
The head has similarities to the heads of Matthew
by Caravaggio, but even more to the depictions
of one of the shepherds in his Adoration, inspired
by an Adoration by Polidoro da Caravaggio, both
to be found in Messina.³ It is of course possible
to suggest an apostle or a church father as the
subject of this painting, but until the original to
which it refers has been found we cannot be certain
about the identity of the old man.

There are similar tondi by Caravaggio’s followers,
including artists like Angelo Caroselli and
Bartolomeo Manfredi,⁴ but none of them can
with certainty be assigned the authorship of these
paintings.
JE

1 NM Archives, Kongl. Museum, F:1, Catalogue du Cabinet
de Martelli (à Rome).
2 Ann-Christine Montalvo, unpublished paper, Gotland
University, 2012.
3 Ibid.
4 See Semprebene 2011; Hartje 2005; Papi 2013.
[End]

Foto: Erik Cornelius / Nationalmuseum 2010

Apostlahuvud