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Res. Katalogtext: Description in Italian Paintings: Three Centuries of Collecting, 
Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2015, cat.no. 8:

FORMER INV. NOS.: 253 (M. 1796–97); 103 (F. 1798); 195
(M. 1804); KM 520.

TECHNICAL NOTES: Painted on a coarse, plain-weave linen fabric,
on a brown ground that covers the whole support. The painting
has been glue-lined (probably during conservation in 1845) and
mounted on a non-original stretcher. The paint layer is abraded
and partly blanched. There are some old discoloured retouches.
The varnish is yellowed. Documented restorations: 1845: Restored
by Mlle Lundmark; 1926: Uneven yellow varnish removed, cleaning,
mending and varnish; 2012: Surface dirt removed. Blanched paint
layer regenerated (not entirely successfully).

PROVENANCE: Martelli 1804.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: NM Cat. 1867, p. 2 (as Benefial); Sander 1872–76,
III, p.110, no. 195 (as Benefial); NM Cat. 1958, p. 13 (as Benefial, attributed
to); NM Cat. 1990, p. 65 (as Annibale Carracci, copy after).

In the 1990 Nationalmuseum catalogue of European
paintings, this painting is listed as an anonymous copy
of Annibale Carracci’s  version, now in the National 
Gallery in London. Sander, by contrast, mentions the 
name of Marco Benefial, a suggestion that probably 
reflects Martelli’s own original  labelling. Although this 
particular label is missing, Martelli’s attribution is 
confirmed by the surviving inventory,in which the painting
is listed under the name of Benefial as Un Christ avec 
S. Pierre.  In contrast to NM 24 (cat. no. 34), regarding 
which the attribution to Benefial has been abandoned, 
the present painting has features that permit a possible
affirmation  of the 18th-century attribution.

From the composition of the painting, it is clear that
Annibale Carracci’s work served as a first prototype. 
A rather rare subject in early modern painting, 
the scene shows an encounter that took place as 
St Peter, during the persecutions of the Emperor Nero, 
attempted to flee from Rome. On the Appian Way 
he had a vision of Christ, crowned with thorns and 
carrying the cross. The apostle asked where Christ 
was heading (“Domine, Quo Vadis?”) and Christ 
affirmed his intention to go to Rome to be crucified 
again. Eventually, Peter returned to face his martyrdom.
Carracci’s painting was commissioned by Cardinal 
Pietro Aldobrandini fairly soon after the artist had 
finished the Farnese Gallery (1601). It shows a 
sculptural Christ figure against the background of 
an ideal landscape that perfectly evoked the 
Appian Way.¹

It is more likely, however, that the formal influence
for the Nationalmuseum canvas came from a different 
source, namely a painting of same subject and with
 similar compositional features by Ligurian artist 
Giovanni Battista Gaulli ‘il Baciccio’ (1639–1709).
Gaulli’s own dependence on the Carracci painting 
is evident and understandably so, since his own 
connections with Camillo Pamphilj and Olimpia 
Aldobrandini Borghese, Camillo’s wife and heiress
to Cardinal Pietro’s art collection, were strong and
he  may have had ample opportunity to study 
Carracci’s version closely.² The Gaulli version’s 
oldest provenance  has not yet been established.³ 
Its close connection with the painter’s Christ and
the Samaritan Woman, today in the Galleria Spada
and once part of Cardinal Fabrizio Spada’s collection, 
suggests a possible date around 1675.⁴

In 1980, Elena Calbi presented two previously 
unpublished pendants by Benefial, one of which 
relates directly to NM 25.⁵ The paintings, at that
time part of the Massari-Ricasoli Collection in 
Voghenza  near Ferrara, show the themes of Noli 
me tangere and Domine, Quo Vadis.⁶ Given the
strong link between Benefial’s work and the Bologna
School, Calbi justly recognizes the Carracci version
as a definite prototype. Yet she overlooks the 
fundamental connection with Gaulli’s later version. 
Both NM 25 and the Voghenza paintings, almost
identical in size and smaller than Gaulli’s work, 
are indebted to the latter in terms of composition 
and style. The Voghenza version completely inverts
 the positions of Christ and St Peter, whereas 
NM 25 simply inverts the position of the cross and
the figure of Christ carrying it. Calbi dates the 
Voghenza paintings to the end of the 1730s, as she
regards their stylistic dependence on the Carracci 
idiom as typical of this period in the artist’s life.⁷

The Nationalmuseum version is problematic, since
it combines different formal solutions which may all 
connect to the eclectic and versatile style of Marco
Benefial. The Christ figure shares the vigour and 
slightly curved body shape proposed by Gaulli and 
which evoked Bernini’s solutions for the angels on 
the Ponte Sant’Angelo. It also relates to the figure of
 Christ in the Flagellation which Benefial painted in 1731,
albeit in a more graceful and less dramatic manner, for 
the Church of the Stimmate di San Francesco in Rome.⁸ 
Perhaps the strongest stylistic link is offered by the 
Deposition of Christ, once part of the collection of 
Count Niccolò Soderini (1691–1779) who was among
Benefial’s chief patrons.⁹ The similarities between 
the Christ figure in that painting and that of NM 25
are evident in the shape of the mouth, nose and ears, 
as well as in the vigorous torso. St Peter, by contrast, 
evokes Benefial’s less classicist manner, moving more
 towards the sought-after realism and evident contouring
 found in the Portrait of the Quarantotti Family in the 
Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica in Rome, as well as 
in the harsh style of some of his sketches, such as 
the Beheading of St John the Baptist in the 
Kupferstichkabinett of the Staatliche Museen
in Berlin.¹⁰

Benefial’s irregular career, independent personality
and multifaceted style offer the possibility of assigning
the present painting to his oeuvre, yet not without a degree
 of doubt. The subject matter certainly conforms to his
repertoire. And given the formal discrepancies – recalling
 the epithet once proposed by Benefial scholar Giorgio 
Falcidia, “senza stile” – the present painting may very 
well be related to an oeuvre that was never easily
categorized.
SNE

1 Robertson 2008, pp. 184 and 339. On the commissioning
and display of the Carracci painting, see Borea 1976, p. 95.
2 Fagiolo dell’Arco, Graf and Petrucci 1999, pp. 206–207.
3 The painting has been documented in various private
collections in Genoa since the 1960s, Gavazza and
Terminiello 1992, pp. 187–188.
4 Fagiolo dell’Arco, Graf and Petrucci 1999, pp. 206–207.
5 Calbi 1980, pp. 91–100.
6 Ibid., pl. 122–123.
7 Ibid., pp. 97–98.
8 Barroero 2005, pp. 12, 26 and pl. 5.
9 Fiorenti 2004, pp. 140–141 and fig. 6, p. 172.
10 Barroero 2005, pp. 17, 21–22, 29 and pl. 28.
[end]

"Domine, quo vadis?"