Francesco Trevisani

(Capodistria 1656–1746 Rome)
The penitent Magdalene,
signed with monogram lower center on a bookmark: F.T.,
oil on canvas, 99.5 x 73.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Galleria Breda, Milan;
Private European collection

The present painting relates to other known versions of this compositions of the penitent Magdalene, including one in an oval format that once belonged to Lucio Pascoli, Trevisani’s friend and biographer. There are some differences between this and the present work in respect of the position of the head and the more solid wooden cross as well as the shape. Pascoli describes how he desired to have a copy made of his oval Magdalene and as he could not find anyone of Trevisani’s ability to copy it faithfully he bought a copy of the composition to Trevisani to have him retouch it. It has been suggested that this is the present painting (see Trevisani’s career as a repertory painter in which the subject of the Magdalene is discussed in Karin Wolfe’s article (see K. Wolfe, Acquisitive Tourism: Francesco Trevisani’s Roman Studio and British Visitors, in: Roma Britannica. Art Patronage and Cultural Exchange in Eighteenth-Century Rome, ed. by D. Marshall/S. Russell/K. Wolfe, The British School at Rome, London 2011, 83-101).

Wolfe relates that Trevisani’s biographer Lione Pascoli describes the painter’s professional modus operandi in a passage of his manuscript biography of circa 1736, dedicated to Francesco Trevisani (1656-1746), which he later inexplicably crossed out, Lione Pascoli described the artist’s approach to his profession:
‘He has had very little luck with his pupils; either because they were not able to imitate him, or because he alone paints in a manner so refined, so delightful, and so enticingly that to this date few have been able to master his style in a manner worthy of his name. Even searching both within and outside his studio it is difficult to find someone who can pleasingly copy him; and I speak from experience as I desired to have a copy made of a beautiful painting of a Magdalene that I received from Trevisani many years ago, and as I couldn’t find anyone of his ability, I had to bring a copy I had had made of this Magdalene back to the painter to have him re-touch it. And certainly Trevisani excels in this very activity, because aside from correcting the pose and expression and coloring of the copy, from the innumerable versions that he painted of this same subject (measuring four palmi), you won’t find one that is exactly like another. And the same can be said about Madonnas and many other images, of which he keeps duplicates in canvas in more or less the same size.’ (see K. Wolfe, Ibid., 2011, p. 83)

According to Wolfe this passage helps explain the confusing nature of Trevisani’s oeuvre. Pascoli’s Trevisani Magdalene, which he describes in another passage of the Vite: ‘for me Trevisani painted a Magdalene in oval format of four palmi, which is one of the most beautiful he has ever made, even if they are all memorable and all dissimilar and all utterly graceful’ has been identified in a private collection. The penitent Magdalene here under discussion may be the picture that Pascoli had copied from his own Trevisani Magdalene: ‘I had to bring a copy I had had made of this Magdalene back to the painter to have him re-touch it’. And this is exactly the procedure of Trevisani’s workshop that Pascoli describes above, wherein Trevisani ‘re-touches’ pictures that have been laid out in his studio – or in this particular case by another painter outside his studio – to give the final ‘mano’ that then connote the works as a ‘Trevisani’.

Another version of this same subject is still today in the Scottish collection for which it was originally purchased (Clerk Collection, Penicuik House, described on the back ‘an original by Fran. Trevisani Rome 1739/bought by my son/ James Clerk’). The fact that the Penicuik picture is dated 1739 most probably only indicates the date that it was purchased in Rome. There is also another version, with the Magdalene glancing upwards but otherwise very similar, that is dated by the artist 1727.

Francesco Trevisani was one of the prominent painters working in Rome between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. His works were celebrated and sought after by collectors at the time. He was born in Capodistria, then part of the Republic of Venice. He was the son of Antonio Trevisani, an architect, by whom he was instructed in the rudiments of design. He studied in Venice under Antonio Zanchi before moving to Rome, where he remained until his death, in 1746. His brother, Angelo Trevisani remained a prominent painter in Venice. In Rome, he was supported by Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni.

He was strongly influenced by Carlo Maratta and worked alongside Giuseppe Chiari and Ludovico Gimignani. In Rome, he was favoured with the patronage of Cardinal Chigi who employed him in several considerable works, and recommended him to the protection of Pope Clement XI, who commissioned him to paint one of the prophets in San Giovanni in Laterano, and engaged him to decorate the cupola of the cathedral in Urbino. There he represented, in fresco, allegories of the four Quarters of the World, in which he displayed much invention and ingenuity. He was employed by the Duke of Modena and also painted in Brunswick, Madrid, Munich, Stockholm, and Vienna. He showed Carlo Maratta’s influence in the cartoons for the baptismal chapel in St. Peter’s Basilica, in the oval with Prophet Baruch in San Giovanni in Laterano, and in the Death of St. Joseph in Sant’Ignazio. Trevisani painted scenes from the Life of the Blessed Lucy of Narni in the church of Narni (1714–15). He became a member of the Academy of Arcadia in 1712.