ANTONIO ALLEGRI called CORREGGIO

c. 1489 - Correggio - 1534

Head of Christ

Oil on panel

40 x 34 cm

PROVENANCE

André Borie, France d.1973;

by inheritance, sold through Christie’s, Geneva;

Purchased by private treaty by the present owner.

LITERATURE

L. F. Schianchi (ed.), Correggio, exh. cat., Skira Milan 2008, cat. III.6, p. 307-8;

A. Gnann, “Correggio”, in The Burlington Magazine, April 2009, p. 261

EXHIBITIONS

Correggio, Galleria Nazionale, Parma, 20 September 2008 - 25 January 2009

The painting was the focus of a Convegno held in Parma, 28th November 2008, and Dr Nicholas Turner and Dr Claudio Falcucci, with Fanny Cerri and Claudia Maura, participated with studies that will be included in the forthcoming publication of the Convegno. It emerges that the picture’s technique has much in common with other works by Correggio, and that there are numerous pentiments that are visible through reflectography and X-rays. Apart from the priming ground that shows a quite granular texture, the artist used broad strokes of shading in charcoal around the features of the face, a technique that is close to what is visible in the unfinished Allegory of Virtue in the Galleria Doria Pamphili in Rome. This is the same technique that is found in many drawings, where the artist worked over sketched forms in sanguine with white lead and black charcoal or ink with broad strokes that set out the design. The white shirt and red collar are painted with vigorous brushstrokes that are quite obvious when seen from close to, while the flesh tones are done with many levels of glazing, which give it a much smoother effect, modulated only by the grains of white lead of the preparation. This process gives the impression that the facial features are on a slightly different plane from the hair and the crown of thorns, and it seems to have originated in the oil medium introduced in the early Cinquecento from contemporary Flemish painting. Other Italian painters, too, including Raphael, adopted the technique; but it is also prominent in other works by Correggio, as in the face of the Virgin in the Madonna della Scodella, or the face of St Jerome in the altarpiece, also in the Galleria Nazionale in Parma.

Quite early on in his career Correggio was attracted to the idea of painting the head of Christ on its own with no competing subject matter; this is the case with the head and shoulders version of the Young Christ, dating from early in the second decade of the fifteenth century, now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. ( Samuel H. Kress Collection). There His face follows his leftward glance and is slightly turned, while His hair cascades onto His shoulders in soft ringlets, an anticipation of the extraordinarily intense features of the St John the Baptist in the Madonna with Saint Francis that was painted a little later, during the first half of 1515, for the high altar of the most important church in Correggio, dedicated to St Francis of Assisi. We have to go forward to Correggio’s maturity, in other words the 1520s, to encounter his Ecce Homo now in the National Gallery in London, a work that Cecil Gould and Di Giampaolo and Muzzi concur in dating to the end of that decade, while David Ekserdjian favours a date for its completion of around 1526-27. This is a highly effective image of the Saviour, one that attracts the eye and involves the spectator emotionally, through His uplifting presence, emanating from the midst of His profound pain and sorrow, and by means of highly refined brushwork and the range of colours that the artist has chosen.

The painting that is published here would seem to be not distant in time from the date of the Ecce Homo. The representation of Christ is once again shown with great immediacy, almost as if it was a sculpted bust, showing Him only to the head and shoulders. There are numerous similarities with the face here and in the National Gallery painting, so much so that the two panels must be near in date, and it suggests that this work is very close in conception to the other. In this work the head of Redeemer is upright and not inclined in the expression of pain, and the eyes have an expression of severity, no longer conveying the languor and suffering that characterizes His face in the National Gallery panel. This painting does however show the same sensual lips and the straight accent of the nose that divides the face and separates the soft shadows of the eye socket and the cheek, and the same refined brushwork is used to convey the downy golden moustache hairs that are barely hinted at. These are the same accents of light on the hair and the forked beard that seems to continue in the cone of shadow that emphasizes the hollow of the throat. The robe cast over His shoulder, like the pale blue tunic that fades to almost pure white in those points that are highlighted, ends with a short soft fringe that is identical to the one at the end of the thong in the Ecce Homo Christ, painted in a very similar manner. Finally there are close parallels in the complex weaving of the great Crown of Thorns in each of the works, and the same use of little rivulets of blood or red accents that the artist used with economy, as if he hesitated to defile the beauty of His face.

The small size of this panel suggest that its original purpose was that of an image for contemplation and private devotion, such as we encounter in Correggio’s work during the 1530s and 1540s. Among these a work, dated by Ekserdjian to after 1530, is another Head of Christ (also known as St Veronica’s Veil) which has been acquired by the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Compared with the work exhibited here, the Getty picture is a much less moving image of Christ, colder and more static in appearance, almost like an icon, posed frontally and showing only the head and just a hint of His shirt that is painted in an almost pure white with a tiny section of fringe at the edge of the collar, which touches the very edge of the panel. Here too, however, the subtlety of the brushwork is evident, in the rendering of the hair and the fleshtones, and it is characteristic of Correggio’s late but still supreme style. A further variation on the same theme was acquired, as an autograph work, by the Museo in Correggio in 1946.

The idea of painting the head of Christ crowned with thorns is to capture the meaning of St Veronica’s veil. She was the woman who, according to legend, took a linen cloth and wiped the sweat from the face of Christ as he toiled bearing the Cross to Calvary. This sudarium on which the image of Our Lord is miraculously imprinted is preserved as a holy relic in St Peter’s, although it is not often displayed, and other relics have also been claimed as original. Since 1616 , when Paul V banned the making of images from it, it has remained even more inaccessible than the Turin Shroud.

There is certainly an image kept in St Peter’s basilica which purports to be the same Veronica’s veil as was revered in the Middle Ages, although some accounts say that it was lost in the Sack of Rome in 1527. The Vatican image is stored in the chapel which lies behind the balcony in the south west pier which supports the dome. It is brought out each year on the 5th Sunday of Lent, Passion Sunday, but close examination has not been done for more than a century.

Making images inspired by the Veil was strongly encouraged in Rome, because they transmitted the sanctity of the relic and promoted devotion among the faithful. There is a long tradition of paintings inspired by Veronica’s veil from the Middle Ages onwards and the name itself, vera icon or true image, was an invitation to reproduce the real features of Christ in His Passion, an ideal subject for the Renaissance painter who was trying to achieve such a depiction of naturalistic features. It is a kind of trompe l’oeil, an illusion of reality and a religious icon at the same time. Artists like Zurbaran and Feti would paint it on an illusionistic cloth, but Correggio sought to create an image ‘for all time’ that conveyed the spirit of His suffering in an idiom that was was hyper realistic, but very emotionally charged, at the beginning of the sixteenth century. It remained a powerful icon that had a very lasting impact, through the centuries when the Jesuits and others were trying to create timeless pictures that would communicate the fundamental spiritual truths of the Faith. Guido’s celebrated Christ crowned with Thorns is the true successor to Correggio’s naturalistic depiction.

There are slight variations in the forms due to overlying brushstrokes, especially in the robe and the hair, which were reworked several times in order to cover the yellow ground - a characteristic also of the Head of Christ in the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The X-ray shows that the artist started out with a much larger outline of the head, and the red collar continues under the white shirt right down to the chest. Another major pentiment is in the placing of the eyes, which were originally higher and half-shut, emphasizing how Correggio concentrated so much on the expressive in his imagery.

The panel itself, a single piece of pine, has a layer of preparation on the reverse made of gesso coloured blackish-brown: this was a characteristic of many fourteenth and early fifteenth century panel workers, and was often put on both sides of the wood, designed to protect it from woodworm and from changes of humidity.

The picture is the most compelling and best-preserved painting of the subject by Correggio, with slightly more concession to naturalism than in the full-frontal interpretation in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, which is a much smaller panel (28.3 by 22.8 cm). Although it has been argued that this is a work formerly in the Arundel collection - and so perhaps acquired from the Mantua collection by Charles I - the dimensions of that work seem to have been quite a lot larger (see M. Jaffé, ‘Correggio’s Head of Christ and Arundel’s Taste for Emilian painting’ Apollo, Aug. 1990, p 15-20). The other, more damaged panel (9 1/2 by 7 inches) purchased by the Museo Civico of the painter’s home town, Correggio, is described by David Ekserdjian Correggio, 1997, p. 170 as ‘in extremely poor condition ... in its current state neither what remains of the original surface nor the banal sentimentality of Christ’s expression inspires confidence’

We cannot talk of a model for such an image, but Correggio’s features of Our Lord obviously have originated in a real face, and there is a consistency of features in his various interpretations of Him. Similar traits are encountered in the St John the Baptist in the Madonna and Child with Saints in Dresden, done for the church of San Francesco in the artist’s home town in 1515. This also has the same background, although the face of St John is silhouetted against stone columns, and the discoloured varnish gives the ground behind the Virgin and Child a yellowed aureole that was probably originally whiter. The face is also strongly reminiscent of the Ecce Homo in the National Gallery, London, which is not securely dated, although generally placed in the mid to later 1520s. The features in the present panel seem to be from the same face in the Coronation of the Virgin of which a fragment remains, in the Galleria Nazionale, Parma, which was painted in the mid-1520s, and for which there are a number of drawings (as well as the sinopia of the fresco itself). In the small painting of the Agony in the Garden (Apsley House, London) this contemplation of His features is taken to new heights of divine inspiration, with the spectator sharing the sense of angelic visitation.

We are grateful to the late Dr. Mario di Giampaolo for his help in cataloging this painting.