Sebastiano Luciani, called Sebastiano del Piombo and Assistant

J. Hartman;

Anonymous sale, London, Christie's South Kensington, 19 April 2000, lot 26 (as circle of Sebastiano Luciani, called Sebastiano del Piombo).

P. Baker-Bates, '"Uno Nuovo Modo di Colorire in Pietra": Technical Experimentation in the Art of Sebastiano del Piombo', in Almost Eternal: Painting on Stone and Material Innovation in Early Modern Europe, P. Baker-Bates and E.M. Calvillo (eds), Leiden 2018, pp. 60–61 and n. 48 (as not autograph, without having seen the picture firsthand);

C. Barbieri, 'Un inedito Ecce Homo di Sebastiano: fortuna iconografica di una contenuta Passione', in Valori Tattili, no. 19, 2022, p. 5, no. 6.

This Christ in Agony can be placed among the finest examples of a type developed by Sebastiano del Piombo. It is intensely expressive, compelling the viewer to empathise with the pathos of the moments leading up to Christ’s Passion. The composition exists in several iterations and variants: some are by Sebastiano, some with associates, and others seem later and are of varying quality. In this example, Christ's pained countenance, pitched between anguish and resignation, is certainly the work of the master. Set against a dark background with His hands loosely bound, He fills the composition. Unlike other versions, however, this Christ wears no crown of thorns and bears no wounds; the absence of such elements demands a closer engagement with Christ's humanity.

Sebastiano Luciani, whose sobriquet 'del Piombo' derives from his appointment in 1531 to the office of the Piombo (Keeper of the Papal Seals), was Venetian by birth. From Autumn 1511, he lived in Rome, brought there by the Sienese banker, Agostini Chigi (1466–1520). Here, he worked alongside other leading painters of the Roman High Renaissance, developing a distinctive visual idiom. One subject that he explored throughout his career was the Ecce Homo, or Christ in Agony. The popularity of the composition is evidenced in the numerous versions and copies known, some abbreviated to various extents.¹ The general dating of the versions, however, is somewhat uncertain. The full composition, known only from copies – such as that in the Pitti Palace, Florence (fig. 1) – most likely precedes the abbreviations in which Christ's expression becomes more agonised, as seen in the present example. The lost original of the full composition probably dates to the first half of the 1530s, placing the present work at the height of the artist’s career.

Of the extant versions of this composition, the present panel is the best example of Sebastiano’s vision. The masterful treatment of Christ’s face and hair are consistent with Sebastiano’s manner, and it is more highly finished than the comparable versions known. The hand and drapery, however, while stylistically close to Sebastiano, was likely completed by another painter who undoubtedly worked closely with the master. Although documentary evidence for a workshop is scant, one must assume that Sebastiano had assistants. Another possibility favoured by Piers Baker-Bates is that this picture was among those which remained unfinished at the artist's death and was finished posthumously by another artist.²

This painting compares closely to a version rediscovered by Costanza Barbieri in 2022 (fig. 2). That painting is considered by some, including Paul Joannides, to be unfinished. According to Joannides, Sebastiano seems to have laid in the shadows of Christ’s habit in broad swathes, but for unknown reasons, did not add a blue glaze or render several details, such as the texture of the rope that binds His hands. The present version, with its blue habit and meticulous detailing reveals Sebastiano’s final intentions. The painting which was included in the Raffaello in Vaticano exhibition in 1984 (fig. 3), which has proven untraceable since, is likely a copy after the present version. Its dimensions, 34 x 25.8 cm., are roughly the same and details such as the tassels which hang from Christ's collar correspond very closely.

Furthermore, two particular drawings reveal the development of this theme in Sebastiano's œuvre. The first, which relates to the full composition and may represent a pilgrim rather than Christ, was sold twice in these Rooms and has since entered a North American private collection (fig. 4). The figure's expression, as well as the treatment of his arm – the prominent angled right hand, reaching across the left arm – are particularly comparable. The second drawing (fig. 5), recently re-attributed to Sebastiano after many years of neglect, is strikingly similar in the treatment of the hair, as well as the emotional intensity of Christ's tortured expression in the present picture. It is possible that this is a fragment of a cartoon. The compressed form follows a logical development; a shift away from narrative towards intense personal devotion.

Alongside the numerous extant versions, documentary evidence attests to both the popularity of the image among the artist’s patrons and its wide dissemination across Europe. In addition to the oft-cited entry in a Vatican Palace inventory of January 1525 – ‘Quadri di pittura, che in uno [e] una testa di Cristo […] quali dono Bastiano pittore del mese di Gennaro 1524’ –³ there survives a particularly intriguing letter written almost sixty years later by Alessandro Casale, twice elected to the office of the apostolic nuncio in Spain under Philip II and Bishop of Vigevano from 1577 until his death in 1582. It is addressed to Juan de Zúñiga y Requesens, newly appointed Viceroy of Naples. Casale had sent him a number of paintings and sculptures from Rome, urging him to keep these in his house in Spain or in one of his churches. He described one painting as 'Una teste d'un Salvatore di quel buen fra Bastiano dal Piombo, […], cavata con tant'arte da quell'epla [sic] che Publio Lentulo scrisse al Senato Romano delle qualità del signore quando apparve in Judea che si puo quasi dire che sta ritratta al naturale'.⁴ In the apocryphal Letter of Lentulus to which Casale refers, Christ has hazelnut-coloured, curly hair, parted in the middle of his head and a beard, the same colour as his hair, which is parted in two at the chin.⁵ The painting Casale sent to Juan de Zúñiga y Requesens was very likely of the present type – if not this example. For Baker-Bates, this intriguing letter supports that this Christ in Agony – with its particularly Spanish halo – was completed in Spain. Indeed, at least five works depicting Christ's Passion painted by Sebastiano were commissioned in Rome and arrived in Spain within the artist's lifetime.⁶

We are grateful to Piers-Baker Bates, Paul Joannides and Costanza Barbieri for their assistance in cataloguing this lot and for endorsing the attribution from firsthand inspection.

¹ The following list details the extant versions and copies of the compositions. The first two items appear to be copies of the full composition; the remainder are, to varying extents, excerpts.

Paintings:

(1) After Sebastiano del Piombo; Palazzo Pitti, Florence, inv. no. 322.

(2) After Sebastiano del Piombo; Palazzo Barberini, Rome, inv. no. 1229.

(3) After Sebastiano del Piombo; Galleria Borghese, Rome, inv. no. 179.

(4) After Sebastiano del Piombo; Museo del Prado, Madrid, inv. no. P000347.

(5) After Sebastiano del Piombo; formerly[?] Credito Bergamasco, Bergamo, inv. no. CB00040 01.

(6) Follower of Sebastiano del Piombo; anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby's, 5 June 2009, lot 9.

(7) After Sebastiano del Piombo; Musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence, on loan from the Musée du Louvre, inv. no. 863.01.003.

(8) Sebastiano del Piombo; with Gianmarco Capuzzo Fine Art, London.

(9) After Sebastiano del Piombo (?); whereabouts unknown; F. Mancinelli, in Raffaello in Vaticano, C. Pirovano (ed.), Milan 1984, p. 310, no. 117.

(10) The present lot.

Related drawings:

(11) Sebastiano del Piombo; anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's, 2 July 1984, lot 10 and 'Property from the Collection of the British Rail Pension Fund', London, Sotheby's, 2 July 1990, lot 39.

(12) Sebastiano del Piombo; Musée Condé, Chantilly, inv. no. DE 135.

² See ‘Extracts from the Inventory of Sebastiano’s House’, in Hirst 1981, pp. 154–57.

³ ‘Paintings, including one depicting the head of Christ, […] presented as a gift by the painter Bastiano in January 1524’; quoted in: E. Müntz, ‘L’oreficeria a Roma durante il regno di Clemente VII (1523–1534)’, in Archivo storico dell’Arte, vol. I, Rome 1888, p. 71.

⁴ ‘A Head of our Saviour by that good Fra Bastiano del Piombo […] which is derived with such skill from that letter which Publius Lentulus wrote to the Roman senate regarding the appearance of Our Lord when he came to Judea that one could almost say that it was painted from life’; quoted in A. Bustamente, ‘Datos sobre el Gusto Español del siglo XVI’, Archivo Espanol d’Arte, vol. LXVIII, no. 271, Julio-Septiembre, 1995, p. 306, n. 9.

⁵ ‘He has hair the colour of hazelnut, falling even down to the ears, below the ears in ringlets and quite curly, resplendent and fanning out around the shoulders. He has hair parted in the middle of the head after the custom of the Nazarenes; a forehead smooth and most serene; a face without any wrinkle or blemish, which is enhanced by a moderate colour; the nose and mouth leave nothing to add or emend in any part. He has a beard full and thick the same colour as his hair, not long, but forked in the middle’; quoted in: V. Kirkham, ‘Laura Battiferra’s “Letter from Lentulus” and the Likeness of Christ in Renaissance Italy', I Tatti Studies, vol. XXII, no. 2, 2019, pp. 246–47.

⁶ P. Baker-Bates, ‘Sebastiano del Piombo: The Normative Sacred Image between Italy and Spain’, in Sacred Images and Normativity: Contested Forms in Early Modern Art, C. Franceschini (ed.), Turnhout 2021, p. 208.