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Lot Essay
The attribution derives from that given to another version of the composition that was formerly in the Giustiniani collection, before passing into the Prussian and subsequently German royal collection; it has been missing since 1945. That work is recorded as by Carracci in the 1621 posthumous inventory of Cardinal Benedetto Giustiniani (1554-1621) under no. 192: 'Un quadro piccolo con una testa di Xro N.S. coronato di spine che tiene una canna in mano depinto in tela alt. pal. 2 larg. pal. 1½ di mano di Annibale Caracci [sic] con sua cornice nera' as well as in that of his brother, the Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani (1564-1637) of 1638, under no. 50 (with the same description).
Sold en bloc with the Giustiniani collection to King Frederick Wilhelm of Prussia in 1812, the painting's attribution was subsequently forgotten, a lapse compounded by its incorrect description there as formerly from the Solly collection. With the publication of the Giustiniani inventories (L. Salerno, 'The Picture Gallery of Vicenzo Giustiniani III', The Burlington Magazine, 1960, pp. 135-148; and S. Danesi Squarzina, 'The Collection of Cardinal Benedetto Giustiniani. Part I', idem, 1997, pp. 766-91), its correct provenance was re-established and the painting was reattributed to Annibale on the basis of old photographs by Gerd Bartoschek ('I dipinti della collezione Giustiniani nel castelli prussiani', Caravaggio e i Giustiniani, Rome, 2001, pp. 154-5 and 157, fig. 6).
Bartoschek's attribution was supported by Alessandro Brogi (Ludovico Carracci, Bologna, 2001, I, p. 254, under no. R12), who wrote of the Giustiniani picture: 'Dalla foto recentemente riprodotta [in Bartoschek, loc. cit.] sembra di poter confermare, per il dipinto tedesco, l'antica attribuzione ad Annibale, sui primi anni novanta del Cinquecento.' Brogi's comments were published under his entry to another version of the composition that he regarded as a later copy either of the Giustiniani painting or of a lost prototype of which both were versions.
The present version was in the collection of the banker Jeremiah Harman (c. 1764-1844). Harman, a patron of the young Charles Eastlake, is perhaps best remembered for his 1798 acquisition (in the name of his bank) through Laborde de Mereville of the celebrated Italian pictures from the Orléans collection, which he in turn sold to Michael Bryan, representing the Duke of Bridgewater, the Earl of Carlisle and Earl Gower.
Sold en bloc with the Giustiniani collection to King Frederick Wilhelm of Prussia in 1812, the painting's attribution was subsequently forgotten, a lapse compounded by its incorrect description there as formerly from the Solly collection. With the publication of the Giustiniani inventories (L. Salerno, 'The Picture Gallery of Vicenzo Giustiniani III', The Burlington Magazine, 1960, pp. 135-148; and S. Danesi Squarzina, 'The Collection of Cardinal Benedetto Giustiniani. Part I', idem, 1997, pp. 766-91), its correct provenance was re-established and the painting was reattributed to Annibale on the basis of old photographs by Gerd Bartoschek ('I dipinti della collezione Giustiniani nel castelli prussiani', Caravaggio e i Giustiniani, Rome, 2001, pp. 154-5 and 157, fig. 6).
Bartoschek's attribution was supported by Alessandro Brogi (Ludovico Carracci, Bologna, 2001, I, p. 254, under no. R12), who wrote of the Giustiniani picture: 'Dalla foto recentemente riprodotta [in Bartoschek, loc. cit.] sembra di poter confermare, per il dipinto tedesco, l'antica attribuzione ad Annibale, sui primi anni novanta del Cinquecento.' Brogi's comments were published under his entry to another version of the composition that he regarded as a later copy either of the Giustiniani painting or of a lost prototype of which both were versions.
The present version was in the collection of the banker Jeremiah Harman (c. 1764-1844). Harman, a patron of the young Charles Eastlake, is perhaps best remembered for his 1798 acquisition (in the name of his bank) through Laborde de Mereville of the celebrated Italian pictures from the Orléans collection, which he in turn sold to Michael Bryan, representing the Duke of Bridgewater, the Earl of Carlisle and Earl Gower.