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To be sold at Uppsala Auktionskammare’s Important Sale Week 10 – 13 December 2024
Lot 703 Innocenzo Francucci, called Innocenzo da Imola (Italy ca. 1485-after 1548). Christ at the well in conversation with the Samaritan Woman, in the landscape his disciples are returning from the town. Oil on panel, 126 x 99 cm.
500.000 – 600.000 SEK
€ 43.000 – 52.000
Eugène Rose de Beauharnais (1781‑1824), Viceroy of Italy, and later 1st Duke of Leuchtenberg, and 1st Prince of Eichstätt.
Maximilian-Eugène-Auguste-Joseph-Napoléon de Beauharnais (1817‑1852), 3rd Duke of Leuchtenberg.
Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia, Duchess of Leuchtenberg (1819‑1876).
Nordiska Kompaniet, Stockholm, 1917.
The collection of attorney and District Chief Birger Svenonius (1870‑1952), Resarö.
Med. Dr Vera Oldfelt (1913‑2002), Stockholm.
Thence by descent to the present owner.
The Leuchtenberg Gallery, Munich, second hall, cat. no. 15, ca. 1814 until at least 1857 (during which time the collection was moved to the Mariinsky Palace, Saint Petersburg from 1839 to 1852).
Nordiska Kompaniet, Stockholm, 1917, cat. no. 18, as by Giovanni Francesco Penni, called Il Fattore.
Värmlands museum, Karlstad, ”Äldre mästares tavlor”, 6 November 1941 – 6 January 1942, cat. no. 4,
as by Giovanni Francesco Penni, called Il Fattore.
Johann Nepomuk Muxel, Catalogue des tableaux de la galerie de feu Son Altesse Royale monseigneur le Prince Eugène Duc de Leuchtenberg à Munich, 1825, p. 23, no. 15, as by Giovanni Francesco Penni, called Il Fattore.
Johann Nepomuk Muxel, Verzeichniss der Bildergallerie seiner königlichen Hoheit des Prinzen Eugen, Herzogs von Leuchtenberg, in München, 1834, p. 25, no. 15, as by Giovanni Francesco Penni, called Il Fattore.
Johann David Passavant, Galerie Leuchtenberg: gemälde sammlung Seiner Kaiserl. Hoheit des herzogs von Leuchtenberg in München. In umrissen gestochen von inspector J.N. Muxel, 1851, p. 11, no. 53, with engraved plate, as by Giovanni Francesco Penni, called Il Fattore.
Johann David Passavant, A collection of pictures forming the celebrated gallery of His Imperial Highness the Duke of Leuchtenberg, at Munich, 1852, p. 9, no. 53, with engraved plate, as by Giovanni Francesco Penni, called Il Fattore.
Johann Nepomuk Muxel, Catalogue des Tableaux de la galerie de feu son Altesse Royale le Prince Eugene duc de Leuchtenberg a Munich, 1857, p. 25, no. 15, as by Giovanni Francesco Penni, called Il Fattore.
Nordiska Kompaniet, Leuchtenbergska Tavelsamlingen, Stockholm, 1917, p. 35, cat. no. 18, as by Giovanni Francesco Penni, called Il Fattore.
Salomon Reinach, Répertoire de peintures du moyen age et de la renaissance (1280‑1580), 1918, vol. IV, p. 141, illustrated, as attributed to Penni.
Philip Pouncey, Drawings by Innocenzo da Imola, in: Master Drawings, VII, 1969, pp. 287‑288.
The present painting is a fine example of the refined, restrained style that Innocenzo da Imola developed through his training in Bologna and Florence and adoption of the prevailing classical idiom of Raphael. Its indebtedness to the latter explains the earlier attribution of the work to one of his pupils, Giovanni Francesco Penni, before it was correctly ascribed to Innocenzo by Philip Pouncey in 1969 (loc. cit.). The picture was once part of the distinguished collection of Eugène Rose de Beauharnais (1781‑1824), Napoleon Bonaparte’s adopted son, but it has not been seen in public for nearly a hundred years.
Probably commissioned for a private chapel, the auction’s work depicts the meeting of Jesus and the Samaritan Woman at Jacob’s well near the city of Sychar, as recounted in the Gospel of St. John (4:4‑42). There is an understated symmetry in the composition which centres on Christ’s raised hand: the two protagonists balance each other in the foreground, with the background divided between the walled city on the right and the river landscape on the left. Linking the two scenes is a path which the Apostles, engaged in animated discussion, descend in small groups. The composition is lit by a calm, even light that unifies the various scenes and confers a sense of serenity on the proceedings. The walled city is both striking and rare within Innocenzo’s oeuvre. With a sharp perspectival recession, the artist presents a series of towers and classical buildings reached through a monumental arched entrance, all painted with great attention to detail. Stylistically, our painting can be compared to a number of Innocenzo’s altarpieces: see, for example, The Baptism of Christ (Arcivescovado, Milan, on deposit at the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan), in which one can observe the same clear light, delicate landscape, sobriety of posture and crisp rendering of clothing.
After probably studying under his father, a goldsmith, in his native Imola, Innocenzo moved to Bologna in 1506, where he may have trained with Francesco Francia ca. 1508, before entering the workshop of Mariotto Albertinello in Florence between 1510 and 1515. In 1517, he returned to Bologna, opening his own studio and completing numerous local commissions, which reveal his Bolognese training in colour and a Florentine sense of form and composition. To these influences he added the monumental Roman classicism of Raphael, evident, for example, in his frescoes of 1517‑22 for the chapel of the Sacristy of San Michele in Bosco, which show his knowledge of Raphael’s Ecstasy of St Cecilia, which was in Bologna from that time. Important works of his maturity include the commission in 1533 for the church of San Giacomo Maggiore (the altarpiece of the Virgin and Child with Saints and the frescoes representing the Assumption of the Virgin, Christ and St Paul, all in situ) and the decoration of the Palazzino della Viola in Bologna, after 1541, where for the first time he dealt with mythological subjects including Diana and Actaeon and Apollo and Marsyas.
The present artwork has a distinguished provenance: it is first recorded in the collection of Eugène Rose de Beauharnais (1781‑1824), Viceroy of Italy, and later 1st Duke of Leuchtenberg, and 1st Prince of Eichstätt. Of French noble descent, he was a statesman and military commander, serving during French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. Through the second marriage of his mother Joséphine de Beauharnais, Eugène became the stepson of Napoleon Bonaparte, who also adopted him in 1806, although he was excluded from succession to the French Empire. Two days after his adoption, he married Princess Augusta Amalia Ludovika Georgia of Bavaria (1788–1851), eldest daughter of Napoleon’s ally, King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria, who made him Duke of Leuchtenberg and Prince of Eichstätt in 1817. Eugène was Viceroy of the Kingdom of Italy under his stepfather, from 1805 to 1814, showing himself to be a capable politician and administrator. He also commanded the Army of Italy during the Napoleonic Wars, leading its forces in the ill-fated invasion of Russia. Following Napoleon’s abdication on 16 April 1814, Eugène failed to become King of Italy, whereupon he retired to Munich. Renouncing his political activity, he lived his last years there managing his estates and expanding his art collection until his death in 1824 aged 42. An insight into Eugène’s art collection is provided by the guide published for an exhibition in Munich in 1857 – by which time it had passed to the widow, Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia, eldest daughter of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, of Eugène’s youngest child, Prince Maximilian Josèphe Eugène Auguste Napoléon de Beauharnais. A brief survey of the catalogue shows the breadth of the collection: it includes works of various schools from the 15th to 19th centuries with an emphasis on Italian artists of the 16th and 17th centuries (particularly Emilian and North Italian) and Northern masters (including Flemish painters such as Rubens and van Dyck and a number of Dutch 17th-century landscapes). ■