Salvator Mundi,
oil on panel, 23.5 x 19 cm, unframed

Inscribed on a label on the reverse: Vera Pittura/ di Federico Barocci urbinate/ comprato da […] Franco Giannini 1920

Provenance:
Aristocratic collection, Tolentino;
thence by descend to the present owner

The depiction of Christ in this Salvator Mundi relates, on a smaller scale, to that of the figure in Federico Barocci’s Last Supper painted in 1590–99 for the Cappella del Santissimo Sacramento in the Cathedral of Urbino (see fig.1). The Urbino picture is one of Barocci’s most ambitious, late, multi-figure compositions. Christ is seated with his Apostles at a large table, occupying the centre of the composition, while servants in the foreground supply the company with food and wine and a circle of angels and putti watch over the unfolding event from above.

In his monograph on Barocci, Andrea Emiliani included similar autograph and studio derivations of this composition (see A. Emiliani, Federico Barocci [Urbino, 1535–1612], Ancona 2008, vol. II, pp. 216, 238, 239). One is the Salvator Mundi in an English private collection (oil on canvas, 69 x 54.5 cm, see A. Emiliani, Ibid., 2008, p. 216, cat. no. 66.2). Although Christ holds a globus cruciger in his left hand and not a loaf of bread, Emiliani identified this picture as an ‘abbozzo’ for the figure of Christ in the Urbino Last Supper. In terms of the painting’s iconography, this picture from an English private collection most closely resembles the present panel. A workshop version of Salvator Mundi is in a private collection in Paris (oil on paper laid down on panel, 34 x 28.5 cm, see A. Emiliani, Ibid., 2008, p. 238, cat. no. 66.67) and another is conserved in the Galleria Palatina, Florence and has been given to Antonio Viviani (inv. no. 1912.101).

Federico Barocci rarely worked on panel as a support, preferring canvas, or paper laid down on canvas or panel. However, it has been suggested that the present painting may have been conceived as part of a ‘structure’, possibly as a tabernacle door. Another painting on panel by Barocci is known which is a still life (see F. Zeri, Una natura morta di Federico Barocci, in: Notizie da Palazzo Albani, no. 12, 1983, pp. 161-163). It should be noted that Federico Barocci was an innovative artist executing works on slate which are in the Oratorio di San Giovanni Battista, Urbino.

The prominence of the glass globus cruciger in the present Salvator Mundi seems to suggest that the artist knew, either directly or indirectly, of Titian’s Salvator Mundi now in the Hermitage, St Petersburg (inv. no. ГЭ-114), painted circa 1560–70, which is, in turn, based on Leonardo’s famous composition of the same subject. Titian’s canvas is said to have remained in the artist’s house at the time of his death in 1576. The glass orb held in the left hand of Titian’s Christ is a little larger in scale than the one held by Christ in the present panel, while the metal cross mounted on top is significantly taller.

Technical report by Gianluca Poldi:

At present there is little technical literature regarding the working practice of the late Mannerist (and proto-Baroque) master, Federico Barocci or his workshop. Barocci was an extraordinary exponent of the techniques of drawing, coloured pastel and oil painting and he was experimental.

The impressive quality of this small painting can be appreciated through close inspection, enlarging the image or observing it under a microscope: it is painted with care on a white ground, but nevertheless with rapidity on a panel made of a light pale wood.

Barocci was able to create extremely fused pastels and oils in shades, with bright colours and preciously combined pigments. He also knew how to work with the thicknesses of painting and with the freedom of the brush like almost no other Italian artist at this time. He somehow invented a new type of “sfumato” which is apparent in this small painting: the fusion of the different pigments and at the same time the ability to leave islands of colour as spots partially interpenetrated with the background, as in the case of pink of flesh tones.

Some irregular grains (of pigment or of sand?) added to the paint mixture and the peculiar brushstroke give a partially rough and almost sandy aspect that can be appreciated when the painting is examined close up. The light touches in the eyes are well preserved as well as the hair and beard paint finishes. As optical microscopy reveals, in the Salvator Mundi the flesh tones contain a few blue grains (azurite or natural ultramarine) added to lead white, vermillion, a few red purple lake and some ochre. Small black particles convey the grey-bluish tone of the shadows. Pigments, identified by means of Reflectance Spectroscopy (vis-RS) include also lapis lazuli in the blue cloak, presumably over azurite (as the lack of transparency in short-wave IR suggests), together with black in the shadows. Vermillion was used in the red tunic; lead-tin yellow in the halo painted over the black background and probably in the lights of its border and in the cross and decoration of the crystal globe that imitate gold, where darker yellow contains ochre and earths. Some red lake was employed in the lips.

Despite the white ground, almost no under-drawing can be seen by IR reflectography, only a very thin line along some fingers, and the borders of the cloak directly painted over the black background.