An untraced painting by Caravaggio and its Early Christian Iconography

An untraced painting by Caravaggio and its Early Christian iconography by RICCARDO GANDOLFI

ON 18 TH AUGUST 1611 the merchant Marcello Lopez dictated his last will.1 A few months later, in April 1612, a lengthy posthumous inventory was drawn up, a record of all the goods owned by the deceased, for the benefit of his heirs.2 The description of his house in the via dei Banchi in Rome provides a vivid testimony of how comfortably the Lopez family lived: among the objects listed there are jewels, silver, tooled leather and a good number of paintings. The Lopez family’s wealth was mostly based on income from investment funds and financial corporations, as well as debts to be collected from Marcello’s numerous clientele. Most of the works of art mentioned in the notarial documents were housed ‘Nella Camera dove stava dicto q. Marcello’ (in the room occupied by the late Marcello), although the portraits of eminent people were displayed in rooms in which he received his clients. This suggests that Lopez may have managed a parallel business as a paintings dealer – a practice that was fairly widespread among the professional class, including a notably well-documented number of tailors.3 Moreover, evidence is beginning to emerge of the existence of a middle layer of society in contact with the most eminent artists, as in the case of the tailor Antonio Valentini, who owned a canvas by Caravaggio at a very early date.4 As regards iconography, the subjects of the paintings in Lopez’s collection were mostly religious, although it also included some secular works, such as ‘un ragazzo che suona il ciuffolo’ (a boy playing the whistle), and a portrait of the celebrated fifteenth-century Albanian patriot Scanderbeg, who also worked for the Venetian Republic and the Kingdom of Naples. Although the paintings were not assessed for their monetary worth, certain clues allow us to guess at the value of the collection: after listing a ‘Nostro Signore alla Colonna’ (‘Our Lord at the Column’) and a ‘S. Francesco piccolo’ (‘small St Francis’), the anonymous writer notes ‘una cornice di noce grande in tela tutta intagliata di diverse figure senza quadro, quale ora sta in lite avanti a Monsignor A[uditor] C[amerae] con Donato Lopez’ (‘a large walnut frame for a canvas, entirely carved with divers figures, without

a painting, now a subject of dispute involving Donato Lopez, being heard before Monsignor A[uditor] C[amerae]’). Evidently the frame, or the painting it once contained, must have been of considerable value, enough to lead to a legal dispute between Marcello and his brother.5 Of all the paintings listed in the inventory only one is provided with the artist’s name: the first painting listed in the inventory in the main room of the house is described as ‘un quadro grande scorniciato di cornice negro con taffetà verde di N. Sig.re quando da gli documenti agli Apostoli di mano di Michelangelo di Caravaggio’ (a large picture in a black frame with green taffeta of Our Lord when he gives the documents to the Apostles by the hand of Michelangelo di Caravaggio). This inclusion of a work by the Lombard painter is not unique among the numerous Roman inventories of the seventeenth century, given the custom of attributing Caravaggesque paintings to the master himself.6 What prompts us to examine this reference more closely is a specific combination of elements. The list was compiled in 1612, only two years after Caravaggio’s death, and it gives a precise, if sibylline, description of a subject not found in his œuvre, thus leading us to exclude that the work might be a copy of one of his celebrated paintings.7 There is a further coincidence that, together with the early date of the inventory and the painting’s unusual subject, makes it very likely that the inventory indeed describes an autograph painting by Caravaggio in the Lopez residence, all memory of which has been lost until now. The document’s reliability can be determined only by investigating Marcello Lopez and the network that closely links him with Caravaggio’s entourage. Marcello, the son of Giovanni Lopez and a native of Squillace in Calabria, had a flourishing commercial enterprise in the via dei Banchi. Documents identify him as ‘sutor in Urbe’ (tailor in the City), a term used for tailors and shoemakers; but his business went far beyond the activity of an artisan. He must have been a significant businessman dealing in precious clothing, fabrics and leather, for he left his heirs a considerable fortune. Since 1598 this wealthy merchant had been a member of the Confraternita della Buona Morte,8 and was in touch with Marchese Fabio Gonzaga

I wish to thank Professor Alessandro Zuccari for his continuous support and valuable comments. I also thank Patrizia Cavazzini, Massimo Moretti, Michele Nicolaci, Frank Dabell, Federica Papi and Lothar Sickel for many useful discussions. 1 Archivio di Stato di Roma (hereafter cited as ASR), Notai A.C., vol. 4588, fols.739r–740v and 735. 2 ASR, Trenta notai capitolini, uff. 28, vol. 83, fols.764r–777r. 3 In her study of how the early seicento Roman art market was regulated, Patrizia Cavazzini published the 1634 inventory of the tailor Christiano Stringherlandt, rich in works destined for the art market; see P. Cavazzini: Painting as Business in Early Seventeenth-Century Rome, University Park PA 2008. 4 L. Sickel: ‘Der Schneider und die Maler. Giuseppe Cesari, Pulzone und Caravaggio im Vermächtnis des Antonio Valentini’, Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft 41 (2014), pp.53–81; see also Cavazzini, op. cit. (note 3). 5 A similar case also involving a tailor and a valuable frame, is cited in idem: ‘A Painting by Michael Sweerts on the Roman Art Market’, Oud Holland 127, 2/3

(2014), pp.109–15. 6 On Caravaggio’s works cited in archival documents, see S. Macioce: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. Documenti, fonti e inventari 1513–1875, Rome 2010; M. Marini: Caravaggio ‘pictor prestantissimus’, Rome 2005. 7 No painting of this subject is listed by A. Moir: Caravaggio and his Copyists, New York 1976; B. Nicolson: The International Caravaggesque Movement, Oxford 1979; and idem: Caravaggism in Europe, Turin 1989. 8 Marcello Lopez is listed in the confraternity from 1598, Archivio Storico del Vicariato di Roma (hereafter cited as ASVR), Santa Maria dell’Orazione e Morte, b.647; he attended meetings in 1600–05 (ASVR, Santa Maria dell’Orazione e Morte, b.687, fols.58r, 63r, 65r, 74r and 75v). In 1604 he was named oratore for the feast of St Michael. A payment of 10 scudi to the confraternity appears in P. Anderson: ‘Francesco Nicolini, “falegname et intagliatore in legno”, and the Role of Carpenters in Cinquecento and Seicento Rome’, Pantheon 57 (1999), pp.90–103. the burlington magazine • clix • april

LAY_GANDOLFI_Caravaggio.indd 273

2017

273

17/03/2017 18:43