Pietro Berrettini, called Pietro da Cortona

Possibly commissioned by Fabrizio Paolucci (1556-1625) in Rome;
Recorded in the inventory of the collection of Abbot Giuseppe Paolucci, 8 March 1695;
Emil Delin, Swedish Consul in Rome, as a work from the first decades of the 18^th century, and exported as such from Rome to Sweden on 16 November 1962;
On loan from Delin's heirs to the church of Nora, Stockholm;
Anonymous sale ("The Property of a Family"), London, Christie's, 10 July 1998, lot 72, for £140,000, where acquired by the present owner.

Rome, Palazzo Venezia, Pietro da Cortona, 31 October 1997 - 10 February 1998, no. 10.

U.V. Fischer Pace, "Un'aggiunta all'opera giovanile di Pietro da Cortona," in Paragone, XXV, no. 289, March 1974, pp. 45-48, reproduced plate 14;
G. Briganti, Pietro da Cortona o della pittura barocca, Florence 1982, p. 346, no. 293 A3, reproduced fig. 293;
J.M. Merz, Pietro da Cortona. Der Aufstieg zum führenden Maler im barocken Rom, Tübingen 1991, p. 164, reproduced fig. 58;
L. Laureati, "Un'opera giovanile di Pietro da Cortona," in Paragone, XLIII, no. 503, January 1992, pp. 50-52, plate 62;
G. Papi, "Due opere giovanili di Pietro da Cortona e un committente imprevisto," in Paragone, XLVI, no. 541, March 1995, p. 33;
G. Papi, in "Andrea Commodi, Baccio Ciarpi, e Pietro da Cortona," in R. Contini (ed.), Pietro da Cortona per la sua terra, da allievo a Maestro, 1997, p. 25;
A. Lo Bianco, Pietro da Cortona, Milan 1997, exhibition catalogue, pp. 23, 59, 294-95, cat. no. 10, reproduced in color p. 295.

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. The canvas is lined and the surface is quite flat. The retouches which have been applied are discolored in many areas and are not as good as they could be. This painting is not in particularly good condition. However, given the scale of the work and the amount of restoration that exists, cleaning the painting is not necessarily advised but correction to the existing restorations would improve the picture well enough at a reasonable cost.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

This is one of Pietro da Cortona's earliest known works, datable to the years 1620-25. Its unusual subject is taken from the Golden Legend, the collection of hagiographies compiled by Jacopo da Voragine, and shows the Roman noblewoman Flavia Domitilla, niece to both the emperors Titus and Domitian, being veiled by the Blessed Clement, one of the earliest popes. Shown here in his customary beard and papal attire, Clement leans over to place a veil over Domitilla, a symbol of the consecration of her virginity to the Christian God, an act which would subsequently to lead to her martyrdom.

At this stage the young Cortona was working on the decoration of Palazzo Mattei in Rome with Pietro Paolo Bonzi under the patronage of Cardinal Asdrubale Mattei. The Mattei commission quickly established him as an important new artist in the city but his style was still developing and the present painting is still reliant on his teacher Baccio Ciarpi (1578-1644). The figure to the right of the composition is borrowed from Ciarpi's deacon in his Communion of Santa Lucia in the Church of Santa Lucia in Selci, Rome.¹ Both datable to the early 1620s, both compositions are set within classical buildings, and the light which falls on the softly-colored figures is focused mainly on the foreground. Similarly, the strong presence of the figure of Clement recalls the monumentality of Ciarpi's full-length Saint Ambrose, again in the church of Santa Lucia in Selci and from this same period.²

Though it was not rediscovered until 1974 (see Fischer Pace under Literature), the earliest mention of this Saint Domitilla Receiving the Veil from Pope Clement is in the inventory of the late Abbot Giuseppe Paolucci dated 8 March 1695.³ While the subject is listed there as Saint Domitilla and Saint Urban, the bearded man in the center of the design can be identified securely as Pope Clement I by two of his attributes: the cross of Lorraine held by the central figure in the background and the anchor visible upper right which recalls the anchor tied to his neck when he was martyred at sea. The recondite subject has lead Merz (see Literature) to propose that the work was probably commissioned by an Oratorian, that is a member of the community founded by Saint Philip Neri, or at least by someone closely connected to them. This suggestion is partly based on the depiction of Pope Clement, whose namesake Clement VIII was closely associated with the Oratorians and Saint Philip; indeed the two saints were depicted together in Cortona's Saint Philip Neri Cures Pope Clement VIII of Gout in the Uffizi, inv. no. 483.⁴ Moreover, Clement is shown several times in Cortona's fresco cycle in the Chiesa Nuova in Rome, where Philip Neri is buried. A likely candidate is one of Giuseppe Paolucci's forebears, Fabrizio Paolucci, who was very closely involved with the Oratorians and was also buried in the Chiesa Nuova. His death in 1625 represents a useful terminus ante quem which fits with the likely date of execution between 1620-25.




1. See Lo Bianco under Literature, pp. 285-86, cat. no. 4, reproduced in color.
2. Ibid, cat. no. 3, reproduced in color.
3. "Un quadro rappresentante S. Urbano e S. Domitilla con altre quattro figure di grandezza quasi naturale per altezza palmi 6 e lunghezza palmi 8 di Pietro da Cortona", quoted in Lo Bianco, ibid, p. 294 (see Literature).
4. Ibid, pp. 354-55, cat. no. 46, reproduced in color.