ROMAN SCHOOL, 17TH CENTURY | THE PENITENT MARY MAGDALENE IN A CAVE WITH TWO PUTTI

Don Gaspar de Haro y Guzmán, Marques of Eliche and VII Marquis of the Carpio, Spanish Ambassador to Rome (1677-1682), Spanish Viceroy of Naples (1683-1687);

Private collection, by the mid-twentieth century;

Thence by descent in the family. 

Inventory of Don Gaspar Haro Y Guzmán, Naples, 1687, no. 1364 (as un altro Quadro di p.mi 1. e 1 1/2 con Cornice d'Ebano, e Stragalli Dorati con una Madalena nel Deserto dipinto in pietra lavagna);

M. Burke and P. Cherry, Collections of Paintings in Madrid, 1601-1755, Los Angeles 1997, part II, p. 822, no. 1364, and p. 829, note 11, reproduced fig. 71 (as Italian School, seventeenth century). 

Although the author of this panel has yet to be securely identified, the elaborate cipher and inventory on its reverse confirms that it once formed part of the eminent collection of Don Gaspar de Haro y Guzmán. Like his father, Luis Méndez de Haro y Guzmán, Don Gaspar was an avid collector and patron of many artists, including Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, Diego Velazquez, Peter Paul Rubens, Guido Reni, and Pietro da Cortona.  The present painting is not listed on the highly detailed inventory completed in 1682 upon Don Gaspar's move to Naples after the end of his ambassadorship in Rome. Rather, it is included in the more cursory inventory made upon his death in 1687 (see Literature), suggesting that he acquired it either towards the very end of his Roman sojourn or as the Viceroy in Naples.