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Lot Essay
Painted in 1609, this recently rediscovered Portrait of Cardinal Giacomo Sannesi is the only securely identified surviving portrait from Guido Reni's first Roman period (circa 1601-14). It can be connected with the payment recorded in the artist's account book on 17 November 1609, when Reni received eight and a half scudi for 'un ritratto fatto da Guido [Reni] et ritocato del Car[dina]le Sanesio' ('A portrait made by Guido Reni and retouched, of Cardinal Sannesi'; D.S. Pepper, op. cit., 1971, p. 315). The portrait was later listed by Malvasia among the dozen or so portraits by Reni then in Roman collections (C.C. Malvasia, op. cit., p. 47). When the painting appeared at auction in 2004, catalogued as 'Roman School', Erich Schleier identified the sitter through comparison with an early copy preserved in the town hall of Sannesi's native Belforte del Chienti, in the Marche, which bears the cardinal's arms (see L. Sickel, op. cit., pp. 6-14).
Giacomo Sannesi was elevated to the cardinalate in June 1604 by Clement VIII, through the support of his patron, Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini. Following Aldobrandini's loss of influence after the election of Paul V Borghese in 1605, Sannesi was sent to Orvieto, returning to Rome in 1607 on grounds of declining health. Though he never occupied the foremost rank of Roman political life, he had by 1609 formed one of the more discerning collections in the city, celebrated above all for its paintings by Caravaggio, including the rejected first version of the Conversion of Saul painted for the Cerasi Chapel (Odescalchi Balbi collection, Rome). That Reni, by then closely associated with Cardinal Scipione Borghese, should have painted a portrait of a cardinal tied to the rival Aldobrandini faction may therefore be understood, as Sickel has suggested, as an act of curial diplomacy (ibid.)
This portrait appears to have been regarded from an early date as Sannesi's official likeness, an importance confirmed by its inclusion, around 1690, in Cardinal Celestino Sfondrato's album of portraits of cardinals in the Vatican Library. Sfondrato selected portraits he evidently regarded as artistically distinguished; the same album also included a copy after Pulzone's Portrait of a Cardinal, traditionally identified as Giacomo Savelli (1522-1587), now in the National Gallery, London (inv. no. NG1048).
The date of 1609 places the present painting at a critical moment in Reni's Roman development, between his Paul Rebukes the Repentant Peter (Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, inv. no. 357) and Massacre of the Innocents of 1610-11 (Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna, inv. no. 439). Sannesi’s features and abundant black hair find their closest parallel in the head of Saint Paul in the Brera canvas (L. Sickel, op. cit., fig. 4). The modelling, sober palette, and compressed format reveal Reni still working in a language informed by both Caravaggio and Annibale Carracci.
It was precisely this proximity that, in time, obscured the painting's authorship: when it entered the collection of the Genevan patrician Jean de Sellon (1736-1810), most likely acquired during his Italian travels of the mid-1780s, it was given to Annibale Carracci, an attribution recorded in the late eighteenth-century inscription on the reverse. The earlier Cavalieri inventory of 1755, drawn up in Rome before the painting left Italy, had nevertheless preserved the correct authorship, describing 'un ritratto di un cardinale di Guido Reno' and valuing it at 100 scudi — one of the most valuable paintings in the entire collection (L. Sickel, loc. cit.).
We are grateful to Keith Christiansen for endorsing the attribution following first hand inspection (verbal communication, 16 April 2026), and to Daniele Benati (written communication, 5 May 2026) and Bastian Eclercy (written communication, 5 May 2026) for endorsing the attribution on the basis of photographs. We are further grateful to Eclercy for kindly providing additional literature.
Giacomo Sannesi was elevated to the cardinalate in June 1604 by Clement VIII, through the support of his patron, Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini. Following Aldobrandini's loss of influence after the election of Paul V Borghese in 1605, Sannesi was sent to Orvieto, returning to Rome in 1607 on grounds of declining health. Though he never occupied the foremost rank of Roman political life, he had by 1609 formed one of the more discerning collections in the city, celebrated above all for its paintings by Caravaggio, including the rejected first version of the Conversion of Saul painted for the Cerasi Chapel (Odescalchi Balbi collection, Rome). That Reni, by then closely associated with Cardinal Scipione Borghese, should have painted a portrait of a cardinal tied to the rival Aldobrandini faction may therefore be understood, as Sickel has suggested, as an act of curial diplomacy (ibid.)
This portrait appears to have been regarded from an early date as Sannesi's official likeness, an importance confirmed by its inclusion, around 1690, in Cardinal Celestino Sfondrato's album of portraits of cardinals in the Vatican Library. Sfondrato selected portraits he evidently regarded as artistically distinguished; the same album also included a copy after Pulzone's Portrait of a Cardinal, traditionally identified as Giacomo Savelli (1522-1587), now in the National Gallery, London (inv. no. NG1048).
The date of 1609 places the present painting at a critical moment in Reni's Roman development, between his Paul Rebukes the Repentant Peter (Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, inv. no. 357) and Massacre of the Innocents of 1610-11 (Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna, inv. no. 439). Sannesi’s features and abundant black hair find their closest parallel in the head of Saint Paul in the Brera canvas (L. Sickel, op. cit., fig. 4). The modelling, sober palette, and compressed format reveal Reni still working in a language informed by both Caravaggio and Annibale Carracci.
It was precisely this proximity that, in time, obscured the painting's authorship: when it entered the collection of the Genevan patrician Jean de Sellon (1736-1810), most likely acquired during his Italian travels of the mid-1780s, it was given to Annibale Carracci, an attribution recorded in the late eighteenth-century inscription on the reverse. The earlier Cavalieri inventory of 1755, drawn up in Rome before the painting left Italy, had nevertheless preserved the correct authorship, describing 'un ritratto di un cardinale di Guido Reno' and valuing it at 100 scudi — one of the most valuable paintings in the entire collection (L. Sickel, loc. cit.).
We are grateful to Keith Christiansen for endorsing the attribution following first hand inspection (verbal communication, 16 April 2026), and to Daniele Benati (written communication, 5 May 2026) and Bastian Eclercy (written communication, 5 May 2026) for endorsing the attribution on the basis of photographs. We are further grateful to Eclercy for kindly providing additional literature.