Altarpiece from the Church of San Francesco, Fano: The Madonna of Loreto Appearing to Saints John the Baptist, Eligius, and Anthony Abbot

Artist Domenichino (Domenico Zampieri) Italian, 1581–1641

Datecirca 1618–1620

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions94 7/8 x 67 1/8 in. (241 x 170.5 cm)
Frame: 105 1/4 x 77 1/4 in. (267.3 x 196.2 cm)

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineGift of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation

Object numberGL.60.17.51

On View

On view

ProvenanceCommissioned by goldsmith Antonio Salvatore for his family chapel in the Church of San Francesco, Fano [1]; acquired by the church on 25 February 1805 by Marchese Antaldo Antaldi (1770-1847) [2]; possibly Francesco Rosapina (1762-1841), Bologna [3]; Eugène Rose de Beauharnais (1781-1824), Viceroy of Italy [4]; Lucien Bonaparte (1775-1840), Prince of Canino, by 1805 [5]; sold in 1814 to Maria Luisa, former Queen of Etruria (d. 1824), Palazzo Ercolani, Rome; by descent to her son, Carlos Luis de Borbón-Parma (1799-1883), Duke of Lucca, 22 December, 1824-1840, London or Palazzo Ducale, Lucca [6]; [his sale, July 1840, no. 12, bought in or sale did not take place]; [Phillip's, London, 5 June 1841, lot 50]; sold to Johnston[e?]; Sir Frederick Lucas Cook (1844–1920) 2d Bart., Doughty House, Richmond, Surrey, by 1903; by inheritance to Sir Herbert Frederick Cook (1868–1939), 3d Bart., Doughty House, at least until 1932; by inheritance to his son, Sir Francis Ferdinand Maurice Cook, 4th bt. (1907-1978), Doughty House and Cothay Manor, Somerset; presumably sold after 1939 to [Alessandro Contini Bonacossi (1863-1955), Rome-Florence]; sold to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation on 10 March 1949, K1623; gift of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation to the NCMA, 1961.

[1] The chapel, perhaps one and the same as the sacristy of the church, was dedicated to saints John the Baptist and Eligius, both depicted in the painting. Anthony Abbot is the patron saint of the man who commissioned the painting, Antonio Salvatore, goldsmith of Fano. Eligius previously identified as Paternianus, the first bishop and patron saint of Fano. Archivio di Stato, Sezione di Fano, Fondo Notarile, Astolfo Battisti, v. YY 1602-1636, cc. 54r-57r. “After spending several years in Rome, Domenichino was called to Fano to execute a series of lucrative commissions for the Nolfi family.”

[2] The contract between Celestino Alcioni, the “guardiano” of the Convento of S. Francesco and Marchese Antaldi is found in the Archivio di Stato, Sezione di Fano, notarile Giuseppe Gregorio Polidori vol. E (1805-1806), cc. 46r-51v; cited in Tombari, 1989, 110, fn. 12.

[3] Rosaspina’s ownership of the painting has not been verified. The Memorie della vita e delle Opere di Francesco Rosaspina (1842) written by Marchese Antonio Bolognini Amorini, who knew Rosaspina well, makes no mention of the painting (or Rosaspina’s print after the painting) which seems highly improbable if Rosaspina had once owned the painting. The earliest mention of Rosaspina’s ownership appears to have been Tomani Amiani’s manuscript “Guida storica-artistica di Fano (1853), which was written only a few years after Rosaspina’s death. He reported that Domenichino’s painting had been sold for a high price to an avid collector by Rosaspina who had purchased it from the church “for very little money” and had engraved it. The account of the sale by the guardiano of the church to Antaldi (see note 2) disproves this account. Amiani knew that Rosaspina had engraved the work, and this seems the basis for his “elaboration” of Rosaspina’s involvement. A later (1909) account wrote that the priests of S. Francesco had sold the painting to Rosaspina for 40 scudi, and he made an outline engraving and then sold the painting for many thousand scudi.

[4] Stepson of Napoleon. Beauharnais was made a member of Napoleon Bonaparte’s Imperial family on June 14, 1804. Napoleon added the title of Viceroy of Italy on June 5, 1805. He was formally adopted by the Emperor on January 12, 1806. Lucien Bonaparte was Napoleon’s brother. Maria Luisa was the daughter of King Charles IV of Spain; Napoleon created the duchy of Etruria for her husband Louis, the great-grandson of Louis XV of France.

[5] Younger brother of Napoleon.

[6] Kress says Duke of Lucca, London. See Nannini 2005, 134, 136.
Published ReferencesPitture d’Uomini Eccellenti che si vedono in diverse chiese di Fano (Fano: Andrea Donati, 1765), 19. [S. Franceso…”Nella Sagrestria di detta Chiesa, il Quadro, che sta in facciata, è opera del Domenichini.”]

Marcello Oretti, “Notizie de Professori del Dissegno cioè Pittori, Scultori ed Architetti Bolognesi e de’ Forestieri di sua Scuola Raccolte ed in più tomi divise da Marcello Oretti Bolognese,” Biblioteca Archiginnasio, Bologna, ms. B 128 n.d. [c.1780], parte sesta, p. 15.

Antonio Mazzarosa, Guida del forestiere per la Città e il Contado di Lucca, de Tommaso Trenta, rielaorata dal marchese Antonio Mazzarosa (Lucca: Jacopo Balatresi, 1829) 85 [Nannini 2005, 53].

Athenaeum, no. 711 (June 12, 1841), 460.

C. C. Malvasia, Felsina Pittrice (Bologna,1678, ed. 1841, vol. 2), 243 no.1; [Gaetano Giordani changed identity of saint from Eligius to Paternianus]. This seems to be beginning of misidentification.

Stefano Tomani Amiani, “Guida storico-artistica di Fano,” Biblioteca comunale federiciana, Fano, Amiani ms. [busta] no.125 [1853], fol. 66r, note d. [Printed edition, a cura di Franco Battistelli, published by Banca Popolare Pesarese, Pesaro, 1981, p. 175, note d).

E. Ridolfi, Relazione sulla Galleris del R. istituto di Belle Arti a Lucca (Lucca: Tipografia Landi, 1872), 3 [as “La Vergine e S. Eligio, del Domenichino”].

C. Massei, Storia civile di Lucca dall’anno 1848 (Lucca: Tipografia Editrice Del Serchio, II, 1878), 465, or maybe 466–468?+

[Vincenzo Nolfi (Fano 1594–1665?] Catalogo delle pitture esistenti nella città di Fano nel secolo XVII con correzioni ed aggiunte di autore ignoto. Edizione a cura di Ruggero Mariotti (Fano: Societá Tip. Cooperativa, 1909), 16–17, no. 1 [Nella sacrestia la tavola in facia, cioé Gio: Batta cons. Eligio è del Domenichino, avvertendo che un piede e la mano che indica la Gloria di S. Giovanni, per essere state fatte da un Priore indiscreto, che volle emendare certa scrostatura, toglie molto preziosità di quell Quadro.” [Also published in Battistelli 1995, 22]

Tancred Borenius, A Catalogue of the Paintings in the Collection of Sir Frederick Cook, Bt., Vol. 1, notes by Tancred Borenius (1913), 103, no. 89.

Commandant Weil, “Le Duc de Lucques, la vente de sa Galerie et ses embarrass financiers,” Revue d’Histoire Diplomatique (Paris: Editions A. Pedowe, 1919), 168.

Catalogue of Pictures at Doughty House, Richmond, Surrey. Collection of Sir Herbert Cook, Bart (London: William Heinemann, Ltd., 1932), 33, no. 89 (30).

H. Voss, Die Malerei des Barock in Rom (Berlin: Im Propyläen Verlage, 1924), 512–13.

J. Hess, Die Kunstlerbiographien von Giovanni Battista Passeri (1934), no. 1.

E. Borea, “Domenichino a Fano,” Arte Antica e Moderna, 8 (1959), [420–27] 421–23, 427 note 4, pl. 176b.

The Samuel H. Kress Collection (Raleigh: The North Carolina Museum of Art, 1960), 104, illus. (b-w) 105.

E. Borea, Domenichino (Florence, 1965), 55.

Istituto Giovanni XXIII della Pontificia Universita Lateranense, Bibliotheca Sanctorum (Rome: Tipografia Citta Nuova, 1968), 384, illus. 382.

Fern R. Shapley, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools XVI–XVIII Century, Vol. 3 (London: Phaidon, 1973), 76, fig. 136.

Richard E. Spear, Domenichino (New Haven, 1982), Vol. 1, 210–11; Vol. 2, illus. pl. 219.

A. N. Cecini Amaduzzi and L. Fontebuoni, Collezioni private a Fano (Fano 1983), 237.

Edgar Peters Bowron, ed., Introduction to the Collections (Chapel Hill: published for the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, by The University of North Carolina Press, 1983), illus (b-w) 196.

David Steel, “A Bolognese Legacy: Emilian Paintings in the Collection,” North Carolina Museum of Art Preview (Winter, 1991–92), discussed 5–6, illus. (b-w) 5.

Introduction to the Collections, rev. ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1992), illus. (b-w) 183.

Giuseppina Boiani Tombari, “Note sulla ‘Madonna di Loreto’ del Domenichino già in S. Francesco a Fano,” Nuovi studi fanesi 4 (1989), 105–113.

Béatrice Edelein-Badie, “La collection de tableaux de Lucien Bonaparte, prince de Canino,” Thèse de doctorat en Historie de l’Art, 4 vols., (Montpellier, Lille, 1992), Vol. 2, 283–84, no. 66.

Marina Natoli, ed., Luciano Bonaparte. le sue collezioni d’arte, le sue residenze a Roma, nel Lazio, in Italia (1804–1840) (Rome, 1995), 35–36, 301, 334.

Rosella Carloni, “Per una ricostruzione della collezione dei dipinti di Luciano: Acquisti, venditi, e qualche nota sul mercato antiquario romano del primo Ottocento,” Luciano Bonaparte e le sue collezioni d’arte, le sue residenze a Roma, nel Lazio, in Italia (1804–1840)], 5–47 [35–36].

Pitture d’Uomini Eccellenti nelle Chiese di Fano, a cura di Franco Battistelli, Quaderno di Nuovi studi fanesi” (Fano: Biblioteca Comunale Federiciana, 1991), 22, 24. Includes: 1. Anonimo / Donati 1765; 2. Nolfi? 17th century; and 3. late 18th century (post 1773) guide published by Nando Cecini in 1983.

David Steel, entry for The Madonna of Loreto Appearing to St. John the Baptist, St. Eligius, and St. Anthony Abbot, in North Carolina Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections, Rebecca Martin Nagy, ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1998), 133, illus. (color).

Franco Mormando, ed., Saints and Sinners: Caravaggio & the Baroque Image (exhibition catalogue) (Boston: McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, 1999), cat. no. 41, illus. (color) pl. 17.

Rosella Carloni, “La collezione di dipinti di Maria Luisa di Borbone, duchessa di Lucca,” Paragone LI, 603 (May 2000), 81–2, 85, 86, no. 191, 95 no. 61 [79–96].

Luigi Lanzi, Viaggio del 1783 per la Toscana Superiore, per l’Umbria, per la Marca, per la Romagna, pittori veduti: antichità trovateri (Venice: Marsilio Editore, 2003), no. 94, listed 52, illus. (b-w) 285,

Costanzo Costanzi, ed., le Marche disperse: Repertorio di opere d’arte dalle Marche al mondo (Milan: Silvana Editoriale, 2005), no. 286, illus. (b-w) 204 and (color) 357.

Alessandra Nannini, La Quadreria di Carlo Lodovico di Borbone: Duca di Lucca (Lucca: Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Lucca, 2005), 134–136, illus. (b-w) 135.

Extensive bibliography cited in A. Brogi, Ludovico Carracci (1555–1619), I (Bologna: Edizione Tioparte, 2001), 125–126

Babette Bohn, Ludovico Carracci and the Art of Drawing (Turnhout: Harvey Miller/Brepols, 2004), illus (b-w) 127, fig. 24a.

Ilaria Bianchi, La politica delle immagini nell’età della Controriforma (Bologna: Editrice Compositori, 2008), 194–195, illus. (b-w), 191, fig. 87.

David Steel, entry for The Madonna of Loreto Appearing to St. John the Baptist, St. Eligius, and St. Anthony Abbot, in North Carolina Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections, rev. ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 2010), 280, illus. (color) 281.

Lyle Humphrey, "Saul Among the Prophets: W.R. Valentiner, Robert L. Humber, Carl W. Hamilton, and the Italian Collection at the NCMA," Lisandra Estevez, ed., Collecting Early Modern Art (1400-1800) in the U.S. South (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2021), 23, 39.Exhibition HistoryBoston, MA, McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, "Saints and Sinners: Caravaggio & the Baroque Image," February 1-May 30, 1999, cat. no. 41, illus. (color) pl. 17.

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