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Catalogue raisonné: Description in Italian Paintings: Three Centuries of Collecting, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2015, cat.no. 68: 

FORMER INV. NOS.: 187 (M. 1796–97); 261 (F. 1798); 215 (M. 1804);
KM 527.

TECHNICAL NOTES: The support is a single piece of fine, densely
woven, plain-weave linen fabric. It has been lined with glue and
mounted with staples on a Martelli strainer. The ground is red and
thin. The paint layers are thinly applied. There are a few retouches,
and the outlines of the soldier’s armour have been reinforced. The
painting is in good condition.

PROVENANCE: Martelli 1804.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: NM Cat. 1867, p. 15 (as anonymous); Sander
1872–76, III, p. 112, no. 215 (as Giorgione); Crowe and Cavalcaselle
1912, vol. III, pp. 324–325, notes 1 and 4; NM Cat. 1990, p. 439 (as
anonymous, 17th century); Franz 2010; Franz 2012, pp. 165–172.

In Fredenheim’s catalogue, this painting is
attributed to Giorgione. Corvi and Tofanelli, on
the retained original paper label, ascribe it to the
same artist.¹ Although the attribution is certainly
far too ambitious, it is not altogether arbitrary or
off the mark. Nonetheless, it was probably arrived
at quite summarily, in all likelihood purely on the
basis of a few stylistic traits associated with the
oeuvre of the great Venetian master.

In 1865 the Italian art historian and connoisseur
Giovan Battista Cavalcaselle (1819–1897)
travelled round Europe visiting the burgeoning
national museums to study their collections of
Italian painting. While in Stockholm, he was the
first to link the present painting to the work of
Callisto Piazza of Lodi in Lombardy.² He noticed,
for example, the similarities between the
tormenter of Christ to the right in the composition
and the henchman holding the knife in the
foreground of Piazza’s painting of the Massacre
of the Innocents, which is part of a polyptych in
the Duomo in Lodi, executed in 1529.³ In his
notes, Cavalcaselle draws attention in particular
to the similarly rendered clothing and to the arms
holding the scourge and the knife, respectively.
Cavalcaselle believed that the thin paint, and the
somewhat rough execution of the work, indicated
that it was painted in the early stages of the
working process, close to the preparatory drawing
stage, and that it had probably been partly
repainted in the 17th century by a Bolognese
artist.⁴

For the Chapel of the Crucifixion in the
church of Santa Maria Incoronata, Lodi, Callisto
painted four canvases depicting scenes from the
Passion: Christ Carrying the Cross, the Flagellation
of Christ, the Betrayal of Christ and the Nailing
of Christ to the Cross.⁵ In these paintings, the
influence of the early 16th-century master from
Brescia, Romanino (1484–1566), and of the stylistically
related Ferrarese master Dosso Dossi (c.
1486–1542) clearly shows, especially in the muted
and harmonizing colours, often with saturated
greens and reds set off to great effect against the
white gleam of a piece of armour or a weapon.

The Incoronata painting of Christ Carrying
the Cross shows the moment when St Veronica
and her companions try to comfort Christ and
relieve him for a while of his burden⁶
Callisto contrasts this action in the left half of
the composition with the tormentor who continues
beating him to the right. The cross is used in
the composition as the divider between these acts
of good and evil. This division is made even more
pronounced by the rather flat background, which
seems to be pressed against the central scene of
the foreground. Clearly it is this painting that the
Nationalmuseum work is related to, rather than
the one in the Duomo.

The Nationalmuseum painting is quite small
and of an unusual square format, and yet it should
be viewed as a result of the commission for the
Incoronata and the working process in Callisto
Piazza’s family studio. The appearance of the beleaguered
Christ is remarkably similar in the two
paintings: his pose, kneeling on the ground and
steadying himself with his right hand, the turn
of his head, and his tormented countenance. His
tormentor to the right in the composition stands
in almost exactly the same position in both works,
raising his whip to strike him. The rope which he
has used to bind Christ is also very similar and
positioned in the same way in the two paintings.

St Veronica and her companion in the Incoronata
painting are harder to find in the Nationalmuseum
painting; here, they are obscured by the
conspicuous figure of the soldier holding Christ
by his hair.⁷ A man trying to relieve Christ of his
burden can at least be seen directly to the left of
the tormentor with his left hand wrapped around
the cross, appearing pained and gazing in the
direction of the lower left corner of the composition.
The composition seems crowded and even
the cross is somewhat obscured. Yet there is a
similar kind of harmony on display here as in
the Lodi painting, albeit amidst the hustle and
bustle of the scene. Instead of the cross dividing
the composition, the soldier and the tormentor
create a natural triangle framing the action in
the foreground. These two figures both exhibit
the kind of rigidity of limbs that was a typical
characteristic of Callisto’s figure drawing and
perhaps his greatest fault.⁸ The flat profile of the
soldier’s stiff leg stretching forward in the centre
foreground is for example repeated in a figure
in Callisto’s painting of the Assumption in San
Biagio in Codogno.

Other clear similarities between the Nationalmuseum
painting and that in the Incoronata
are the depiction of the horses’ heads and the
rendering of several faces in the crowd, which are
also found in several of Callisto’s other paintings.
These include, for example, the young man in the
background to the left and the man in the turban,
who seem to be related to each other; both are
found in the Nationalmuseum painting and in
Christ Carrying the Cross and the Nailing of Christ
to the Cross in the Incoronata.

In addition, there is the soldier turning his
head over his shoulder, as if to see what the
commotion behind his back is about. This device
lends an added sense of drama and action to the
composition and is used both in the Nationalmuseum
painting, where he is depicted in the
upper right corner of the background, and in
the Passion series for the Incoronata: in Christ
Carrying the Cross, in the Nailing of Christ to the
Cross and twice in the Betrayal of Christ. The use
of this device may reflect the influence of Titian;
in fact, in the painting of Christ Carrying the Cross
in the Gemäldegalerie, Dresden, Callisto directly
adopts the positions of the figures in Titian’s Bravo,
one of the best examples of the dramatic use
of this type.⁹ There are other similarities regarding
the dramatic interplay between the figures
in the Dresden and Nationalmuseum paintings,
suggesting that they were painted at about the
same time. For instance, there is a close similarity
in dress, countenance and demeanour between
the soldiers in the two compositions.

In all likelihood, the present work was painted
by Callisto Piazza, or at least in his workshop, in
the course of his completing the commission for
the Incoronata; perhaps not as a clear-cut modello,
but more as a general presentation of what he had
in mind for the project or, perhaps less likely, as a
variant ricordo for himself or one of the patrons.
The square format could perhaps explain why the
composition of the more clearly upright and rectangular
painting in the Incoronata seems to be
adapted to the frame to some degree, for example
in the way the left-hand side of the tormentor
falls outside the frame. The existence of the pendant
painting NM 7203 (cat. no. 69), depicting
another scene from the Passion not included in
the Incoronata series, would confirm the use of
the present painting as a proposal for the project.
The pendant’s existence would also confirm the
authenticity of both paintings, making it implausible
that they are later interpretations or copies.
IR reflectography has shown that slight retouches
have been made to the thinly painted canvas of,
NM 217,confirming Cavalcaselle’s assumption.
Yet these additions, mainly found in the soldier’s
armour, are quite deftly executed and not nearly
as extensive as was possibly presumed.
DP

1 NM Archives, Kongl. Museum, F:1, Catalogue du Cabinet de
Martelli (à Rome).
2 Moretti 1973, pp. 13–52; Levi 1988; Tommasi 1997; Franz
2010. I want to thank Fabio Franz for alerting me to
Cavalcaselle’s assessment of the present painting’s relationship
to the work of Callisto Piazza.
3 Franz 2010; Crowe and Cavalcaselle 1912, vol. III, pp.
324–325, notes 1 and 4; Sciolla 1989, pp. 214–220, cat. no. 32,
The Massacre of the Innocents is pictured on p. 217.
4 Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. III, pp. 324–325, notes 1 and 4.
5 Sciolla 1989, pp. 262–269, cat. no. 42.
6 Ibid.
7 The soldier’s countenance, dress and armour were probably
modelled on a typical Landsknecht. These were German
mercenaries active in northern Italy in the 16th century.
They are pictured in prints of the time, as well as in
paintings with themes similar to NM 217, for example by
Romanino.
8 Russel 1991, pp. 694–695.
9 Nova 1989, pp. 874–876.[End]

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Foto: Erik Cornelius / Nationalmuseum 2012