Anton Raphael Mengs Ústi nad Labem, Bohemia (Czech Republic) 1728 - 1779 Rome

Madrid, Museo del Prado, Antonio Rafael Mengs 1728-1779, 1929, no. 15;
Madrid, Museo del Prado, Antonio Rafael Mengs 1728-1779, 1980, no. 50.

Inventory of the estate of Anton Rafael Mengs, 1779;
N. Azara, Opere di Antonio Raffaello Mengs, primo Pittore del Re cattolico Carlo III, Rome 1787, edited by Carlo Fea, p. XVIII, no. XLV;
F.J. Sánchez-Cantón, exhibition catalogue, Antonio Rafael Mengs 1728-1799, Madrid, Museo del Prado, 1929, p. 10, no. 15;
Catalogue of the Museo Provincial de Zaragoza, 1964, p. 68;
D. Honisch, Anton Raphael Mengs und die Bildform des Frühklassizismus, Recklinghausen 1965, p. 114, no. 201;
X. de Salas, "Inventarios de Obras de Arte: Cuadros de José Nicolás de Azara, Marqués de Nibbiano en Huesca", in Arte Español, vol. XXV, 1963-67, p. 124;
M. Agueda, in Antonio Rafael Mengs 1728-1779, exhibition catalogue, Madrid, Museo del Prado, 1980, pp. 124-25, no. 50;
S. Roettgen, Anton Raphael Mengs, vol. I, Munich 1999, pp. 395-96, cat. no. 302, reproduced p. 396.

This sketch was painted by Mengs in preparation for his fresco decoration on the main ceiling in the Church of Saint Eusebius, Rome, which remains in situ today (see Fig. 1). The sketch can be dated to circa 1756-57, on account of a letter from the artist’s mentor Johann Joachim Winckelmann to Wille, in which he observes that the fresco was largely completed by the time of his writing in December 1757. According to Mengs’ own testament it was not fully revealed until the scaffolding was taken down in the summer of 1759, prior to the Church’s official re-opening the following year, on 29 November 1760.

The sketch is almost certainly identifiable with a painting described in an inventory of the artist’s estate, drawn up following his death in 1779¹ in which it is valued at 10 scudi. The overall mise-en-scène is closely reflected in the artist’s final work, which reveals only a small number of minor changes, most notably in the inclusion of additional cherubs in the upper tier of the scene, the increased distance between the principal figure group and the angels playing music below, and the omission in the final work of the area of green drapery of the angel holding the white scroll to the lower right of Saint Eusebius, which in the sketch is projected beyond the perimeter of the painted ceiling. The free and rapid handling of the sketch, as well as the compositional proximity to the ceiling, clearly point to its function as the principal bozzetto for the artist’s final work.

Another sketch (oil on canvas, 72.4 by 36.8 cm.) relating to the commission is today in the City Art Gallery, Manchester. Unlike the present work however, the Manchester sketch reveals significant compositional changes to the final work and in all probability represents the artist’s initial idea which is likely to have been employed as the presentation piece (or modello) to the commissioner, the Abbott of the Church of Saint Eusebius, a notion further supported by its greater level of finish than the present sketch. Although the composition is broadly conceived along similar lines to the present work, the figures are arranged along two strong horizontal axes which create an unsatisfactory interrelation with the oval shape of the ceiling, a factor which may have resulted in the idea being rejected by the artist’s patron.

Mengs’ commission for the Celestine monks of Saint Eusebius appears to have enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime as today. It was heralded by the sculptor Canova and Mengs’ fellow collaborator, James Byres, as among the artist’s most accomplished works. 

The present work was acquired by the Spanish diplomat, and later Ambassador at the Roman Court, José Nicolas de Azaga, Marchese di Nibbiano (1730-1804). He acquired a number of important works by Mengs and sat to the artist on at least one occasion; his portrait is today in the collection of the heirs of Doña Asunción de Azara in Madrid.²

1 See Roettgen, under Literature, p. 564, under f. 483r, no. 38.
2 Idem, vol. I, pp. 262-63, cat. no. 193, reproduced p. 263.