Attributed to Charles-François Poërson

This circular canvas attributed to the French painter Charles-François Poërson was most likely commissioned in the early eighteenth-century by the Roman Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni (1667-1740). One of the most important patrons and collectors of his day, Ottoboni, the grandnephew of Pope Alexander VIII, served as Vice-Chancellor of the papal curia. A leading cultural figure who championed contemporary painters, musicians, writers, and even practitioners of the puppetry arts, Ottoboni, in the words of Francis Haskell, was “the most adventurous patron of the time.”¹Ottoboni employed fifteen of the most important artists working in eighteenth-century Rome—in addition to Poërson, they included Sebastiano Conca, Giuseppe Ghezzi, and Francesco Trevisani—to produce a series of tondi, or circular paintings, depicting the Madonna, Christ, and Apostles. Each artist executed one tondo, with the exception of Trevisani, who painted both Christ (present whereabouts unknown) and Saint Peter (Rome, Pinacoteca Vaticana, inv. no. 782).²

In 1713, Ottobani loaned the sixteen works to an exhibition, organized to celebrate the translation of the Holy House of Nazareth to Loreto, in the cloister of the Church of San Salvatore in Lauro. An archival document recording the installation lists a “S. Giacomo minore” by “S.r Cav.r Person,” which probably refers to this painting.³ Ottoboni’s posthumous 1743 inventory also includes the work, described as by “Carlo Fran.co Person.”⁴ Poërson shows Saint James the Minor with the instrument of his martyrdom, a fuller’s staff, a clublike tool used in the process of finishing cloth.

Poërson spent the latter part of his career in Rome, where, beginning in 1704, he served as the Director of the Académie de France. Both an artist and an advocate for the French artistic community in Rome, Poërson maintained a friendship with Ottoboni. On one occasion in 1709, the painter visited the cardinal in his official palace of the Cancelleria, where, Poërson recalled, “j’y restai si tard que le nuit vint” contemplating the collection.⁵

Of the sixteen paintings that comprised the series, seven others are known. Three are in the Pinacoteca Vaticana: Luigi Garzi’s Saint Simon (inv. no. 782), Giovanni Antonio Creccolini’s Saint Jude, also known as Thaddeus (inv. no. 772), and Trevisani’s Saint Peter (inv. no. 782). Four were sold at auction in Paris in 2006: Giovanni Paolo Melchiori’s Saint James the Major, Giuseppe Ghezzi’s Saint Philip, Giuseppe Passeri’s Saint Matthew, and Girolamo Pesci’s Saint Barnabas.⁶

¹ F. Haskell, Patrons and Painters: A Study in the Relations Between Italian Art and Society in the Age of the Baroque, London 1963, pp. 163-164.

² A third tondo by Trevisani, Saint Joseph with the Flowering Rod (London, Christie’s, 9 July 2008, lot 159) has also tentatively been associated with the series.

³ Museo di Roma, Ms. Ghezzi, “Quadri delle case de Principi (cioè dei principali cittadini) in Roma,” fols. 193-194, cited in C. Pietrangeli, “Alla ricerca di una serie di dipinti ottoboniani,” in Strenna dei Romanisti 41 (1980), pp. 399-400.

⁴ Archivio di Stato di Roma, R.C.A. 604, “Nota de Quadri, et altri mobili Ritrovati nell’Eredita Della ch. Mem. del fù Card. P. Ottoboni Spettanti alla Primogenitura istituita Da Papa Alessandro VIII,” published in E.J. Olszewski, The Inventory of Paintings of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni (1667-1740), New York 2004, p. 90, cat. no. C-200 (for the series, see pp. 88-90, cat. nos. C-186-201).

⁵ “I stayed there so late that it became night.” A. de Montaiglon and J. Guiffrey, Correspondance des directeurs de l’Académie de France à Rome, 1660-1804, Paris 1887-1908, vol. 3, p. 203, no. 1361.

⁶ Paris, Christie’s, 21 June 2006, lots 28-31; subsequently with Fabio Massimo Megna, Rome.