(Mazzo di Valtellina, Sondrio, circa 1512–1579 Rome)
The Pietà with two Angels,
signed center right (under Mary’s foot):
M.B. INVENTOR / MARCELLVS VENVSTA / .F.,
oil on panel, 123.5 x 89.5 cm, framed

Inscribed on the reverse: Orig.le de Michiel Angel Bonarrota and collection mark of Sebastián Gabriel de Borbón (with the initials S. and G. mounted by a crown)

Provenance:
possibly Collection of José de Madrazo y Agudo (1781-1859);
Collection of the Infante Sebastián Gabriel de Borbón y Braganza (1811-1875), Madrid;
by inheritance to his son Pedro de Alcántara de Borbón y Borbón, Duke of Dúrcal (1862-1892);
his sale, Hotel Drouot, Paris, 3 February 1890, lot 51 (as Marcello Venusti);
Collection of J. Schmidt-Paganini, Basel;
sale, Vogler Auktionen, Basel, Autumn auction 2007, lot 359 (as Marcello Venusti);
Private collection, Switzerland;
sale, Christie’s, New York, 15 April 2008, lot 10 (as Marcello Venusti);
where acquired by the present owner

Documentation:
Archivo General de Palacio, Palacio Real de Madrid, Historical section, 123, Galería de Pinturas del Serenísimo Señor Ynfante Don Sebastian Gabriel, 1835, no. 106: ‘Otro en tabla de 4 pies y 5 pulgadas de alto, por 3 pies y 3 pulgadas de ancho. La Virgen sentada, mirando al cielo y con los brazos aviertos, tiene al Señor muerto en su regazo y sostenido por dos ángeles. Restaurado por don Juan Rivera. Tiene marco tallado y dorado… Marcelus Venusta (firmado)’

Exhibited:
Trento, Museo Diocesano Tridentino, L’uomo del concilio, 4 April - 26 July 2009, no. 29;
Milan, Castello Sforzesco, D’après Michaelangelo, 30 September 2015 - 10 January 2016, cat. no. 74;
Forlì, Musei San Domenico, L’Eterno e il Tempo, tra Michelangelo e Caravaggio, 10 February -17 June 2018, no. 33

Literature:
K. Frey, Die Handzeichnungen des Michelagniolos Buonarroti, Berlin 1909-11, II, p. 59;
C. de Tolnay, Michelangelo’s Pietà: compositions for Vittoria Colonna, in: Princeton University Art Museum 1953, 2, 12, pp. 44-62, in part. p. 45f., note 3, no. 10, p. 53, fig. 10;
C. de Tolnay, Michelangelo. The Final Period, Princeton 1960, p. 267, no. 348, ill.;
G. W. Kamp, Marcello Venusti. Religiöse Kunst im Umfeld Michelangelos, Egelsbach 1993, p. 124, no. 34, ill. p. 257;
J. M. Ruiz Manero, Obras y noticias de Girolamo Muziano, Marcello Venusti y Scipione Pulzone en España, in: Archivo español de arte, 68, 1995, 272, pp. 372 and note 37;
M. Forcellino, Michelangelo, Vittoria Colonna e gli “spirituali”. Religiosità e vita artistica a Roma negli anni Quaranta, Rome 2009, p. 119–120, p. 154 mentioned under note 208;
R. Pancheri, in: L’uomo del concilio. Il cardinale Giovanni Morone tra Roma e Trento nell’età di Michelangelo, ed. by R. Pancheri/D. Primerano, exhibition catalogue, Trento 2009, pp. 214-215, no. 29;
A. Forcellino, La Pietà di Ragusa, in: Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. Classe di lettere e filosofia, 2010, 5, 2/1, p. 127, p. 382, fig. 36;
K. Herrmann Fiore, in: L’ ultimo Michelangelo. Disegni e rime attorno alla Pietà Rondanini, ed. by A. Rovetta, exhibition catalogue, Milan 2011, mentioned under no. 3.15, p.191, note 3;
S. Capelli, Le copie pittoriche della Pietà di Michelangelo per Vittoria Colonna: Marcello Venusti e i copisti anonimi. Attribuzioni e precisazioni, in: Studi Romani, 61, 2013, p. 131–135, no. 7, pl. XIV, fig. 2;
A. Rovetta, in: D’après Michelangelo, ed. by A. Alberti/A. Rovetta/C. Salsi, exhibition catalogue, Venice 2015, p. 289, p. 291, cat. 74;
Michelangelo a colori. Marcello Venusti, Lelio Orsi, Marco Pino, Jacopino del Conte, ed. by F. Parrilla, exhibition catalogue, Rome 2019, p. 94-95, fig. 3

We are grateful to Francesca Parrilla for confirming the attribution of the present painting on the basis of a digital photograph and for her help in cataloguing this lot.

This painting relates, with some minor variants, to Michelangelo´s celebrated drawing of the Pietà in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (inv. no. 1.2.o/16). The drawing is mentioned by Vasari in his biography of Michelangelo in the 1568 edition of the Vite and he states that the drawing was sent as a present to Vittoria Colonna: ‘[…] e le disegnò Michelagnolo una Pietà in grembo alla Nostra Donna con due angioletti, mirabilissima’ [‘and Michelangelo drew for her an admirable Pietà in the lap of Our Lady with two young angels’] (see Vasari 1568, ed. 1966-1987, vol. VI, 1987, p. 112).

Marcello Venusti arrived in Rome during the 1540s following a sojourn in Mantua. He was highly regarded in the circle of the Farnese, especially for his ability to make painted replicas after the ‘inventions’ of Michelangelo, while introducing a personal element to each of his works. He had the ability to combine a range of influences, gained during his training, such as Raphaelesque references, a sentimentalism derived from Lombardy, as well as a quality of elegance derived from Perino del Vaga, while other stylistic qualities he added subsequently when he was in Rome, such as the monumentality of Michelangelo, which at times was received through the filter of Sebastiano del Piombo.

In this painting the Madonna is seated at the foot of the cross with her arms raised and her palms turned to the heavens in a gesture expressing profound pain. The body of Christ is supported in his mother’s lap and by two cherubs either side of her, supporting Christ’s arms, thereby creating a geometrically balanced composition. The soft passage of light and shade modelling Christ’s body giving the figure a sculptural quality. Behind the figures, the mountainous landscape with scattered towns and hamlets is an invention of Marcello Venusti’s imagination. On the left is a group of houses around a church at the foot of the mountains, while to the right a walled town with a characteristic gate is shown: such elements reoccur regularly in Venusti´s work.

The inscription ‘M.B. INVENTOR / MARCELLVS VENVSTA / .F.’ also recorded by the scholar Karl Frey in 1909, corroborates Venusti’s authorship.

Among the earlier painted replicas of Michelangelo’s Pietà, is the version in the Galleria Borghese, Rome, that has traditionally been attributed to Marcello Venusti, however recently this has been assigned to the Sienese painter, Marco Pino (1521-1583; see cat. 8 by M. S. Bolzoni, in: Michelangelo a Colori, 2019).

Provenance:
This painting is cited in the inventory of the Infante Don Sebastián Gabriel de Borbón y Braganza (1811-1875) and his mark, ‘SG’ beneath a crown, appears on the panel’s reverse. The dimensions given in the Infante’s inventory of 1835 accord with those of the present painting (see Ruiz Manero 1995, p. 372, note 37 for the inventory citation; Capelli 2013, p. 133). Following the advice of the painter and later director of the Museo del Prado, José de Madrazo (1781-1859), Sebastián Gabriel assembled an exceptional collection of paintings. Madrazo owned a Crucifixion by Venusti after Michelangelo’s famous drawing which is now in the British Museum, and it highly probable that the Spanish painter advised the Infante on the acquisition of the present painting. The Infante’s collection was broken up and sold at auction after his death, thereby one of the most important Spanish collections of the nineteenth century was dispersed.

Technical analysis by Gianluca Poldi:

The painting is executed on a thick panel with two horizontal thin crossbars.

Only a thin outline of accurate underdrawing can be seen by IR reflectography, despite the transparency of the paint film to IR radiation, and no changes have been detected. Venusti probably used a cartoon to transfer the composition precisely on to the white ground by means of pouncing or a carbon-copy method, retracing the outline of the figures and elements with an ink that is highly transparent to IR radiation, such as iron-gall ink. He appears subsequently to have accurately cancelled the first trace before colouring the panel.

Non-invasive spectroscopic analyses carried out on many points of the painting demonstrate the particularly rich palette used by Venusti and his unusual choices, such as the pigment mixtures. The palette includes a high-quality natural ultramarine (lapis lazuli) in the blue areas of the sky, in the most distant mountains and in the Virgin’s cloak. Azurite is used, on the contrary, mixed with some lead-based yellow, to obtain the bluish-green in the closer mountains and in the meadows, while in the green-brownish areas of the rocks and mountains some smalt blue was also used, and this has discoloured which is typical for this cobalt glass-based pigment in siccative oil.

Verdigris is employed in a glaze over the earths and ochre of the soil. A carmine-type red lake was used in the Virgin’s dress and in the right Angel. Some small touches of blue were put as glazes on the Virgin’s dress, with a specific technique.

The flesh tones are based on a mixture of lead white with vermillion and iron oxides, together with abundant black in the shadows, in a way that is reminiscent of the technique of Sebastiano del Piombo.

Numerous shades embellish the refined colour of this painting on panel, which are created by the alternation of impasto and glazing techniques, with only a few reliefs such as in the lights of the angel’s head in the centre of the belt on the Virgin’s breast.