Domenico Beccafumi Cortine in Valdibiana Montaperti 1484 - 1551 Siena

Acquired in Florence by George Nassau Clavering-Cowper, 3rd Earl Cowper (1738-1789);
Thence by descent to George Augustus Clavering-Cowper, 4th Earl Cowper (1776-1799);
Thence by descent to Peter Leopold Louis Francis Nassau Clavering-Cowper, 5th Earl Cowper (1778-1837), at Panshanger, Hertfordshire;
Thence by descent to George Augustus Frederick Cowper, 6th Earl Cowper (1806-1856);
Thence by descent to Francis Thomas De Grey Cowper, 7th Earl Cowper and 7th Baron Lucas (1834-1905);
Thence by descent to his widow Katrine Cecilia Compton Cowper, Countess Cowper (1845-1913);
Thence by inheritance to Ethel, Lady Desborough (1867-1952), granddaughter of the 6th Earl;
Thence by descent to her daughter Monica, the Hon. Lady Salmond (1893-1978), Henfield (Sussex);
By whom sold, London, Christie’s, 7 July 1972, lot 51, for 13,000 guineas to ‘Hudson’;
By whom sold ('The Property of a Gentleman'), London, Christie's, 16 December 1998, lot 45, where acquired by the present owner.

J.A. Crowe & G.B. Cavalcaselle, A New History of Painting in Italy, vol. III, London 1864, p. 468, footnote 1;
B. Berenson, Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance, London & New York, 1st ed. 1896, p. 133, 2nd ed. 1909, p. 145;
A. Graves, A Century of Loan Exhibitions 1813-1912, London 1913, vol. I, p. 40 (as Fra Bartolommeo);
H. Trotta-Treyden, Das Leben und die Werke des Seneser Malers Domenico Beccafumi genannt Mecarino, Universität Königsberg, Berlin, 1913, p. 52;
J.A. Crowe & G.B. Cavalcaselle, A History of Painting in Italy, vol. VI, London 1914, p. 87, footnote 1;
J. Judey, Domenico Beccafumi, Berlin 1932, p. 125;
M. Gibellino-Krasceninnicowa, Il Beccafumi, Florence 1933, p. 212;
U. Baldini, in Mostra del Pontormo e del Primo Manierismo Fiorentino, exhibition catalogue, Florence, Palazzo Strozzi, 24 March - 15 July 1956, pp. 145-6, cat. no. 179, reproduced plate CXVIII;
D. Sanminiatelli, "The Pontormo Exhibition in Florence", in The Burlington Magazine, vol. XCVIII, June 1956, p. 241, reproduced fig. 31;
D. Sanminiatelli, Domenico Beccafumi, Milan 1967, p. 81, cat. no. 10, reproduced fig. 10;
B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Central Italian and North Italian Schools, New York 1968, vol. I, p. 35;
G. Briganti & E. Baccheschi, L'opera completa del Beccafumi, Milan 1977, p. 87, cat. no. 18, reproduced;
H.G. Belsey, The Life and Collection of George, 3rd Earl Cowper (1738-89), unpublished dissertation, Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham, 1981, p. 192, Appendix I B3, p. 222, Appendix II C;
F. Sricchia Santoro, "Beccafumi e Siena", in Domenico Beccafumi e il suo tempo, exhibition catalogue, Siena, Pinacoteca Nazionale, 16 June - 16 September 1990, a detail reproduced on p. 31, fig. 8;
R. Bartalini, in Domenico Beccafumi e il suo tempo (op. cit.), p. 122, under cat. no. 12;
A. Angelini, in Domenico Beccafumi e il suo tempo (ibid.), p. 136, under cat. no. 15;
P. Torriti, Beccafumi, Milan 1998, p. 81, cat. no. P18, reproduced.

This painting is characteristic of the Sienese mannerist painter Domenico Beccafumi's idiosyncratic style. His paintings are immediately recognisable for their colourful palette, the sfumato or ‘blurred’ effect of his painting technique, and for the mannerist distortions of his figures. As a young man Beccafumi almost certainly travelled to Rome, where he saw the works of Michelangelo and Raphael, the latter having a lasting influence on his work. Beccafumi was also evidently inspired by the work of the Florentine painter Fra Bartolommeo, to whom a number of his own paintings were formerly attributed (including this one). This particular panel has been dated for stylistic reasons to circa 1516-17, that is to the youthful phase of Beccafumi’s artistic career. The painting can be most closely compared to his tondo showing The Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich,¹ in which the Madonna has a similar physiognomy and an equally elongated neck, the John the Baptist is seated in a pose that mirrors that of Christ in the present panel, and in which the over-riding influence of Raphael is re-interpreted by Beccafumi in his singlar style and typically Sienese use of colour.

The painting was acquired in Italy by George Nassau Clavering-Cowper, 3rd Earl Cowper, during the third quarter of the 18th century. Lord Cowper left England for Italy in January 1757 in the company of Colonel John Chastellain, who recorded their journey in a diary. On 4 June 1759 they arrived in Verona and after visits to numerous Italian cities they entered Florence on New Year’s Day 1760. Lord Cowper settled in Florence and lived there until his death, despite having inheriting his Earldom and a considerable fortune in September 1764. He took an active part in cultural matters in the city, becoming an honorary member of the Florentine Academy in 1766. Cowper not only commissioned works from contemporary artists such as Zuccarelli and Hackert but he also amassed a notable collection of pictures, on which he was advised by Zoffany (who was in Florence between 1772 and 1778). Amongst these was Raphael’s Niccolini Madonna (National Gallery of Art, Washington) which is depicted in Zoffany’s Tribuna (Royal Collection, Windsor Castle) where the artist holds up the painting before Cowper himself.² This painting by Beccafumi was acquired by Cowper in Florence as was the case with Pontormo’s Scenes from the Life of Saint Joseph (National Gallery, London) and Fra Bartolommeo’s Rest on the Flight into Egypt (J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles). After Cowper’s death in 1789 the collection was shipped to England and is recorded in the 4th Lord Cowper’s residence in George Street in around 1810 (Hertfordshire Record Office, D/EP F/4228H, no. 16, as Fra Bartolomeo). The twenty-eight paintings listed in this inventory were to form the core of the collection at Panshanger in Hertfordshire, seat of the Cowpers which was rebuilt by the 5th Earl at the beginning of the 19th century.³ The collection passed by family inheritance to Ethel, Lady Desdorough, but was dispersed after her death in 1952.

1 See Torriti, under Literature, pp. 80-81, cat. no. P17, reproduced in colour.
2 Raphael's Niccolini Madonna (or Large Cowper Madonna), is reproduced in colour in K. Oberhuber, Raphael. The Paintings, Munich 1999, p. 74, fig. 67. For a fuller discussion on Cowper and Zoffany see H. Belsey, in J. Ingamells, A Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy 1701-1800, New Haven & London 1997, pp. 246-7.
3 Panshanger was demolished in the 1950s and the site where it once stood is now a golf course.