(Viterbo 1610–1662)
The Death of Cleopatra,
oil on canvas, 196 x 222 cm, in the original frame decorated with the Chigi family heraldic emblem of oak leaves

Provenance:
Collection of Lorenzo Chigi Montoro, Marquis of Viterbo (1627–1697), Rome;
by descent his son Giovanni Chigi Montoro (1700–1772) and his wife Maria Virginia Patrizi Montoro (1717–1788), Rome;
by descent to their daughter Porzia Maria Patrizi Chigi Montoro (1752–1835) and her husband Francesco Tommaso Naro (circa 1743–1813);
by descent to their son Giovanni Patrizi Chigi Naro Montoro (1775–1818) and his wife Kunigunde of Saxony (1774–1828), Rome;
and thence by descent;
sale, Dorotheum, Vienna, 13 April 2011, lot 450 (as Giovanni Francesco Romanelli);
Private collection, Switzerland

Documentation:
Inventarium bonor. herior. bo: me: Ill.mi D. March.nis Laurentij Montorij Prò Ill.mis DD. Car.o Fran.o et alijs fratribus de Chisijs, Die prima Quarta Mensis Junj 1697, Archivio di Stato, Rome, Trenta Notai Capitolini, Angelus Perellus, Uff. 25, vol. 449, f. 145, no. 73, as in the ‘Altra stanza contigua alla sud.a ad uso di Galleria’: ‘Quattro quadri di nove e otto con cornice intagliata e dorata con Istorie diverse del Romanelli’;
Inventario dei Quadri che si trovano nel Palazzo Chigi a Corte Savelli e rispettivamente nella stanza dell’Appartamento Nobile presso il Signor Commendatore Frà Costantino Chigi che appartengono all’Eredità della Bona Memoria Marchese Giovanni Patrizi fatto lì 8 Agosto 1776, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Archivio Patrizi Montoro, B 78, c. 12r: ‘Num.o quattro quadri, in misura di 7 e nove per traverso rappresentanti quattro Storia diverse: Cioè due Istorie Sagre e due Profane, con sue cornici Indorate ed intagliate all’antica Dipinti da Francesco Romanelli’

Literature:
L. Pascoli, Vite de’ pittori, scultori, ed architetti moderni, vol. I, Rome 1730, p. 95;
F. Baldinucci, Notizie dei professori del disegno da Cimabue in qua, Florence 1847, vol. V, p. 422;
E. K. Waterhouse, Baroque Painting in Rome. The Seventeenth Century, London 1937, p. 90;
I. Faldi, Restauri e acquisizioni del patrimonio artistico di Viterbo, exhibition catalogue, Viterbo 1972, mentioned on p. 40;
E. K. Waterhouse, Roman Baroque Painting: A list of the principal painters and their works in and around Rome, Oxford 1976, p. 110;
B. Kerber, Addenda zu Giovanni Francesco Romanelli, in: Giessener Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte, vol. IV, 1979, p. 6, plate XIII, fig. 28;
A. M. Pedrocchi, Le Stanze del Tesoriere. La quadreria Patrizi: cultura senese nella storia del collezionismo romano del Seicento, Milan 2000, p. 272, no. 142, illustrated p. 273

The stretcher bears an old label with the following inscription: ‘Quattro quadri, in misura di 7 e 9 / per Traverso, Rapp.ti quattro Storie / diverse, Cioé due Istorie Sagre, / e due Profane, con Sue Cornici In= / dorate ed Intagliate all’antica, / dipinti da Francesco Romanelli’.

The present painting originally formed part of a series of four large pictures by Francesco Romanelli for the Marchese di Viterbo, Lorenzo Chigi Montoro: ‘[…] quattro ne colori per Lorenzo Chigi, e vi rappresentò Ulisse, Cleopatra, Polisena, e Venere’ (see op. cit. Pascoli, 1730, p. 95). Various art historians have tried to reconstruct this group of paintings which most probably comprised The Sacrifice of Polyxena (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), The Daughters of Lycomedes (Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia) and The Triumph of Venus (Caravit Collection, Viterbo).

Indeed, the present painting shares strong affinities with The Sacrifice of Polyxena in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: the dimensions, the treatment of the complexions, the draperies of the garments, the rhythm of the scene and the figural groups alternating between the foreground and the background, as well as the colouring. As in the present work, there is also an old label on the reverse of the painting in the Metropolitan Museum, whose handwritten inscription states that the work belonged to a series of four paintings (op. cit. Kerber, 1979, pp. 13–14, note 45).

Already in 1968, the Metropolitan Museum considered The Daughters of Lycomedes from Chrysler Museum as companion piece to their Sacrifice of Polyxena. In the 1970s Federico Zeri proposed that the present painting also belongs to this group made for Lorenzo Chigi Montoro, which is recorded by Katherine Baejert, curatorial assistant at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1975: ‘Dr. Zeri […] identifies our picture as one of a series of four which, according to Badinucci and Pascoli, was executed for Lorenzo Chigi. He further proposes the Death of Cleopatra (Patrizi-Montoro family, Rome, descendants of Lorenzo Chigi) as the third painting of the series’ (see op. cit. Kerber, 1979, note 45, pp. 13–14). According to Kerber, the Venus today in the Caravit Collection in Viterbo could be the fourth and missing piece of the series.

The present work has been dated to the late 1630s or the early 1640s, as is also suggested by payments the Chigi Montoro family made to the painter. The composition is comparable to Romanelli’s Arion and the Dolphin, painted in 1642 for Palazzo Costaguti in Rome (see op. cit. Pedrocchi, 2000, p. 271).

Romanelli enjoyed great confidence with his important patron Lorenzo Chigi Montoro and was consulted in matters of interior decoration. Apart from Romanelli’s paintings, the inventory of Lorenzo and his brother Francesco Chigi Montoro, compiled in 1697, lists works by Paul Bril, a Rape of Europa by Francesco Albani, an Entombment by Lanfranco, as well as paintings by Pieter Mulier, il Tempesta, and Mattia Preti. The Chigi Montoro family in Viterbo maintained friendly relations with local artists, as is revealed by letters and account books conserved in the archives.

Giovanni Francesco Romanelli was one of the most important interpreters of Pietro da Cortona’s style of painting. He spread Cortona’s manner in Europe and transformed the Roman Baroque into a clear and elegant style that was also inspired by the works of Francesco Albani and Domenico Zampieri, called Domenichino. He worked for the Barberini family and was also extraordinarily successful in France, where he decorated the apartments of Anne of Austria in the wing of the old Louvre palace.

Significantly the present painting retains its original frame decorated with garlands of oak leaves, a heraldic symbol of the Chigi family.