(Wijk bij Duurstede circa 1592/93–1624 Utrecht)
A Doctor of the Church (Saint Augustine or Saint Ambrose?),
oil on canvas, 98 x 133 cm, framed

Provenance:
possibly collection of Pietro Cussida (died 1622), Rome;
possibly by descent to his son Gianfrancesco Cussida, Rome, 1622;
possibly by descent to his daughter, Laura Cussida, Rome (described in 1624 as ‘un Santo Agostino che legge tutti grandi con cornici d’oro’);
possibly given to her guardian, Nicolò Gavotti (d. 1674), Rome;
possibly by inheritance to Carlo Gavotti, Rome, 1674-1702;
possibly by descent to the heirs of Carlo Gavotti;
sale, Casa d’Aste Oppizzi, Piacenza, 13 December 1987, lot 257, illustrated (as Paolo Antonio Barbieri?);
art market, Bologna 1987;
Private European collection

Documented:
possibly Inventario dell’eredità dei beni della Bo.me. Ioannes Francisci Cusida a favore di Laura Cusida sua figlia sotto la tutela di Enrico Gavotti, 8 March 1624, Archivio Storico Capitolino, notaio Bernardino Pasquetti, sez. LXIII, vol. I, c. 85: ‘un Santo Agostino che legge tutti grandi con cornici d’oro’ (see C. Grilli, Il committente della cappella della Pietà in San Pietro in Montorio in Roma, in: Bollettino d’Arte, no. 79, 1994, p. 163, note 26)

Literature:
W. Franits, The Paintings of Dirck van Baburen ca. 1592/93–1624. Catalogue Raisonné, Amsterdam/Philadelphia 2013, pp. 103–104, cat. no. A11, illustrated p. 284, plate 11 (as Dirck van Baburen);
W. Franits, A new painting by Dirk Van Baburen, in: D. T. Cashion, H. Luttikhuizen, A. D. West (eds.), The primacy of the image in Northern European art, 1400–1700: essays in honor of Larry Silver, Leiden 2017, illustrated p. 465 (as Dirck van Baburen);
T. Borgogelli, Dottore della chiesa (Sant’Agostino?) in: E. Ghetti, D. Benati (eds.), Massimo Turchi. La collezione, Turin 2019, p. 172, cat. no. 98, illustrated p. 173 (as Dirck van Baburen);
G. Papi, Ancora sul Maestro del Samaritano, in: G. Papi, Un misto di grano e di pula. Scritti su Caravaggio e l’ambiente caravaggesco, Naples 2020, pp. 141–142, illustrated p. 144 (as Maestro del Samaritano)

We are grateful to Wayne Franits for reconfirming the attribution of the present painting.

Dirck van Baburen trained in Utrecht under Paulus Moreelse, a portraitist and history painter. In around 1612, he departed for Italy, where he resided mainly in Rome, working for prominent patrons, including the Spanish diplomat Pietro Cussida and Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani. Baburen was particularly influenced by the work of Caravaggio and his followers, such as Jusepe de Ribera and Bartolomeo Manfredi. In 1620 or 1621, he returned to Utrecht, where he died in 1624.

In his catalogue raisonné Franits suggested that the present painting may be the work mentioned in the 1624 inventory of Gianfrancesco Cussida’s collection ‘un Santo Agostino che legge tutti grandi con cornici d’oro’ [‘St. Augustine who reads, all large with gilt frames’]. Cussida’s father, Pedro, who had died in 1622, was Baburen’s principal patron in Rome. He had commissioned the artist to paint The capture of Christ with Saint Peter severing the ear of Malchus (now in the Fondazione Longhi, Florence) and the canvases for his chapel in San Pietro in Montorio, executed by Baburen around 1617 in collaboration with his colleague David de Haen. The collector formed a picture gallery in his residence in Via del Corso, which included works by Jusepe de Ribera, Giovanni Lanfranco, and many paintings on copper, probably by one of the Brueghel.

However, as Franits has suggested, the question of provenance remains open because of the ambiguous 1624 inventory entry which may instead refer to a series of paintings, possibly of Doctors of the Church, with Saint Augustine as the prominent figure. It is also possible that the bishop’s mitre on the far left in the present painting suggests that the composition may in fact depict Saint Ambrose, who is also often depicted reading.

Franits compares the present painting to a Philosopher in a private collection, believed to have been executed in the years around 1618–1619, perhaps also for the Cussida collection (this work has been recently acquired by the Yale University Art Gallery, inv. no. 2023.43.1). Tommaso Borgogelli also dates the present painting to around 1618–1619 (see literature) just before Baburen’s return to Utrecht during the period when he was very much influenced by the early works of Ribera such as Saint Jerome in the National Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (inv. no. 95/150) or The Mendicant in the Galleria Borghese, Rome (inv. no. 325). After returning to Utrecht, Baburen gradually moved away from Caravaggism towards a more luminous style of painting and his compositions became increasingly compact and refined.