(Alessandria 1585–1635)
The Taking of Christ,
oil on panel, 53.1 x 89.6 cm, framed

Provenance:
sale, Sotheby’s, New York, 17 January 1992, lot 193 (as Circle of Nicolas Tournier);
where acquired by the present owner

Literature:
G. Papi, Brevi note al Vermiglio caravaggesco, in: Paragone. Arte, 29 (599), 2000, p. 33 and pl. 24 (as Giuseppe Vermiglio);
G. Papi, Manfredi. La cattura di Cristo, Turin 2004, p. 16 and pl. 6 (as Giuseppe Vermiglio);
G. Papi, in: G. Papi (ed.), Orazio Borgianni. Un genio inquieto nella Roma di Caravaggio, exhibition catalogue, Milan 2019, p. 31 and fig. 16, p. 29 (as Giuseppe Vermiglio)

The present painting represents the episode recorded in the Gospels when Judas, having betrayed Christ, approaches to kiss him, thereby revealing his identity to the soldiers who will arrest him. It is a subject that was often represented by painters in Rome during the first decades of the seventeenth century, under the influence of the innovations of Caravaggio.

The artist of the present Taking of Christ, Giuseppe Vermiglio, spent many years in the Rome, from the beginning of the seventeenth century until the start of the third decade: here he elaborated a pictorial language steeped in the style of realism which characterised the period. The work that most typifies the style of his early years, and is his only dated painting, is his altarpiece with The Incredulity of Saint Thomas, signed and dated 1612, made for the church of San Tommaso dei Cenci at Rome where it still remains.

Even after his return to Northern Italy, where he was prevalently active in Piedmont and Lombardy, Vermiglio frequently reiterated subjects undertaken by Caravaggio, as is the case with the present painting. The artist surely knew, perhaps even directly, the Taking of Christ by Caravaggio currently in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin (inv. L.14702) but at the time still in Rome, conserved in the house of the Mattei family who commissioned it from Caravaggio. In the present painting on panel, the references to this work by Caravaggio are especially evident in the pose of Christ, seen at an angle with his arms down, his hands clasped together, and in the positioning of the man on the right holding a lantern which is of the exact same shape in both paintings. The features of this figure in the Dublin painting have been identified as a self-portrait of the artist, and it is plausible that in the present painting they are also a portrait of Caravaggio, intended as a tribute to the Lombard master.

There are also close analogies between the present painting and the Taking of Christ by Bartolomeo Manfredi which was rediscovered in 2004 (see Papi 2004 in literature) and is currently conserved in the National Gallery of Western Art, Tokyo (inv. P.2015-0001). Indeed, the painting under discussion represents a similar group of soldiers wearing armour to the left, and at the far right of the scene, the same bearded soldier with his face half hidden by his helmet.

Additional influences are also apparent in the present painting: the bright colours of the robes of the protagonists seem to point to a knowledge of Spanish painting, and particularly of El Greco, while the fluid, painterly application of the impasto is close to the experiments conducted at the time by the Roman painter, Orazio Borgianni (1574-1616). Gianni Papi has pointed out how the present Taking of Christ is an especially significant work in the development of Giuseppe Vermiglio, because here ‘interpreta Caravaggio avvalendosi delle sperimentazioni borgiannesche’ [‘he interprets Caravaggio making use of the experimentation of Borigianni’] (see Papi 2019 in literature, p. 31). Indeed, Borigianni had managed to instigate an original, personal pictorial language, as exemplified by the large work representing the Christian Martyrs in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan, achieved during the first decades of the seventeenth century, when the pursuit of realism in painting was at its apogee, and during which time he knew Caravaggio personally. Over the years spanning the end of the sixteenth century and the start of the seventeenth, Borgianni had lived in Spain where he received many prestigious commissions for Madrid, Toledo and Saragozza and in 1603 he was among the founding signatories of the Madrid Academy of Painting.

Technical analysis by Gianluca Poldi:

The work is painted with an impressive freedom, particularly in the depiction of clothes. In Judas’ tunic, for example, and in other details, raking light photographs and IR reflectography mark the first structure of the brushstrokes which are different to the final ones, indicating that there was no precise drawing to fix a composition. IRR images made with scanning device (1-1.7 microns) show that only a few lines can be considered as underdrawing, apparent along some figures, such as the forearm of the man with the halberd on the left, or in Christ’s nose.

Some changes occur, as again IRR reveals: the most interesting is perhaps the rope above Christ’s head, that now ends vertically behind the heads of Jesus and Judas, but originally passed in front of Christ’s forehead. Some areas were changed after initial painting, such as the right hand of the more external soldier on the left, which was originally smaller; the right arm and hand of the soldier capturing Christ, partially painted over his chest and neck; the mantle of Judas was lower; the hand holding the lantern painted, in part, over the black background; some corrections in the red robe of the man holding the lantern (whose features appear similar to Caravaggio’s portrait) and in his nose; as well as in the left eye and eyebrow of the young apostle, right.

All these details indicate this painting to be a reinvention of a composition that derived from Caravaggio.
The painting technique is close to certain late sixteenth century practices, suggesting this work was painted in the first years of the seventeenth century, soon after Caravaggio’s Taking of Christ was painted.

A brownish ground was applied before painting, so thin that it becomes largely transparent to IR radiation. Pigments, studied by means of non-invasive spectroscopies, include: azurite and lead white in the Christ’s cloak; verdigris in the green clothes, with some amount of ochre and lead-based yellow; lead-tin yellow the lights of Judas’ mantle while ochre and earths are used in the half lights and shadows; the lantern is a peculiar mixture of lead-based yellow and particles of vermillion and of orange-brown earths; vermillion is employed in the most brilliant reds while a carmine red lake constitutes the reds of the robe of the man with the lantern and of Christ, and part of the apostle’s mantle on the right, together with vermillion. The flesh tones are made of mixtures of ochre and vermillion with lead white, with some green grains in the shadows, but in the apostle’s skin also some particles of light lead-based yellow, green earth and red lake are added.