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Res. Katalogtext: Description in Italian Paintings: Three Centuries of Collecting, 
Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2015, cat.no.12:

FORMER INV. NOS.: 410 (M. 1804); KM 995.

TECHNICAL NOTES: The original support consists of a single
piece of coarse, plain-weave linen fabric, which has been lined
onto a sparsely woven linen fabric and mounted with staples on
a typical Martelli strainer. This was probably done in Italy before
shipping to Sweden. The oval shape is probably not original; the
painting may have been rectangular. The ground is red. The paint
layer is in fairly good condition, with some minor losses and old,
discoloured retouches. The varnish is yellowed.

PROVENANCE: Martelli 1804.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: NM Cat. 1867, p. 10 (as Guido Reni); Sander
1872–76, III, p. 132, no. 410 (as Guido Reni); NM Cat. 1990, p. 293
(as Guido Reni, manner of).. 

The present painting is not found in the catalogues
of Martelli and Fredenheim, but it is listed in the
inventory made upon the arrival of the Martelli 
Collection in Sweden in 1804. Here it is simply 
described as a ´Head of Cleopatra’.¹ The painting 
retains the original paper label on the verso, where
Corvi and Tofanelli correctly attribute  it to Cagnacci, 
describing it as ‘Guido Cagnacci. Cleopatra. Ovato’. 
Strangely enough, when Fredrik Sander transcribed
the 1803 inventory together with the existing paper 
labels, he mistakenly wrote: ‘Guido Reni. Cleopatra. 
Ovato’.² This mistake can only have been intentional: 
Sander, not knowing of Cagnacci, must have ignored
the name, perhaps dismissing it as an inaccuracy, 
and decided that the intended attribution must have 
been to the most famous Guido of all, Guido Reni, 
especially since the painting was very much in the
style of that artist. The particular rendition of 
Cleopatra foundhere exists in two previously known
paintings, one in a private Italian collection and the
other in the Museo della Città, Rimini. These works
were not listed in Pier Giorgio Pasini’s catalogue 
raisonné of 1986, but the one in Rimini was included
in the exhibition Seicento Inquieto: Fra Cagnacci e
Guercino in Rimini in 2004 and was published with
an attribution to Cagnacci in the exhibition catalogue.³ 
The firm and comparatively early attribution of the
Nationalmuseum work to this artist would confirm
that the attribution of the Rimini painting is correct. 
The Nationalmuseum painting has been lined: an 
oval part of the original canvas appears to have been
cut out, perhaps along the border of the original oval
frame, and then laid down on a square canvas. 
Cleopatra’s chin and nose seem somewhat poorly
executed in comparison with the rest of the painting.
IR reflectography has in fact revealed damage with
paint loss in these areas, which have later been poorly
retouched. The quality of the brushstrokes is 
otherwise of a high order, and in parts fine impasto 
brushwork is preserved. Especially fine are the small
impasto details highlighting Cleopatra’s nails. While
there is a difference in the execution of the hands 
between the Rimini and the Nationalmuseum painting
 – the fingers in the former are somewhat thinner and
can perhaps be considered finer – the fingers of the
Nationalmuseum version are nevertheless entirely in 
Cagnacci’s manner. The execution of these hands is 
particularly close to the depiction of the rather fleshy, 
yet feminine, hands of Judith in the painting of Judith 
with the Head of Holofernes in the Pinacoteca Nazionale,
Bologna.⁴

Of Cagnacci’s other versions of the subject, the one
that comes closest thematically and compositionally
to the Nationalmuseum painting is the famous 
half-length rendering of Cleopatra in the Collezioni 
Comunali d’Arte, Bologna, of which there is also an
excellent variant in a private collection.⁵ The present
work is by necessity more concentrated: a reduced 
variant where the entire focus is on the decisive 
moment of the suicide, conveyed in particular by the
expression on Cleopatra’s face and the bite of the 
viper, whose head is not visible in the Bologna 
painting. However, the face of Cleopatra in the 
Nationalmuseum canvas is without question derived
directly from Cagnacci’s painting of St Agatha in 
the collection of the Banca Popolare dell’Emilia 
Romagna. Interestingly, that painting, just like the 
present one, exists in two close versions, both of
which seem to be by Cagnacci’s hand.⁶ Despite
the almost exact correspondence between the 
Stockholm and Rimini paintings, the former must
still be considered a studio replica of the latter, 
even if we take the damage it has suffered into
account. More than anything else, it is perhaps 
the somewhat summary execution of a few 
details, particularly in the depiction of the folds
of the white parts of Cleopatra’s tunic, that 
points  to this conclusion. In several instances, 
for example, detailed shadowy parts are missing
altogether. Although this can partly be attributed 
to a smoothing out of impasto areas during the 
lining of the painting, it is too dominant to be 
solely a result of that process.

Some other details of the lining also point to the
Stockholm painting being a replica. For example
the fact that it has been lined onto a square, 
typical of the Martelli Collection sparsely- woven
canvas, but retains an oval shape. Along the edge
there are about one to two centimetres which
seem to have constituted the part of the canvas 
that was folded round the edge of an oval frame.
The Rimini painting originally seems to have been
 painted on a square canvas, and as the Stockholm
 work is also somewhat smaller, some details 
were probably lost when it was painted, such as 
the part of the viper’s body that coils around the 
wrist of Cleopatra’s right arm. Inconclusion, the 
Nationalmuseum painting must be considered a 
replica, whose quality and closeapproximation to
the original point to it having been made in 
Cagnacci’s own studio, with some parts, 
such as the hands, possibly by the master 
himself.

DP

1 NM Archives, Kongl. Museum, F:1, Catalogue du Cabinet
de Martelli (à Rome).
2 Sander 1872–76, III, p. 132, no. 410.
3 Mazza 2004, pp. 180–181, cat. no. 51.
4 Pasini 1986, pp. 244–245, cat. no. 45; Benati and Paolucci
2008, pp. 234–235, cat. no. 50, entry by F. Massaccesi.
5 Pasini 1986, pp. 259–261, cat. no. 58. Benati and Paolucci
2008, pp. 218–219, cat. no. 44, pp. 286–287, cat. no. 70.
6 Benati and Paolucci 2008, pp. 220–221, cat. no. 45.
[End]

Foto: Erik Cornelius / Nationalmuseum 2011

Kleopatra