Workshop of Paris Bordone

Galleria Estense, Modena, by 1797;

By whose administrators given to Luigi Cerretti (1738-1808), Parma, 1797;

After whose death given to Antonio Scarpa (1752-1832), Motta di Livenza;

Thence by descent to his son, Giovanni Scarpa (1804-1883), Motta di Livenza;

By whom donated to the Pinacoteca Scarpa, Motta di Livenza, 1834;

Its collection sale, Milan, Galleria Sambon, 14 November 1895, lot 58 (as Girolamo Romanino), for 1300 lire;

With Roland and Delbanco, London, 1939;

Private collection, Austria;

Anonymous sale, Kinsky, 26 April 2017, lot 422 (as Paris Bordone and Studio);

Where acquired by the present collector.

F. Zanotto, Illustrazioni critiche della Pinacoteca trivigiana, Treviso 1834, p. 29 (as a copy);

J.A. Crowe and G.B. Cavalcaselle, A History of Painting in North Italy, London 1871, vol. II, p. 491 (as a copy by Paris Bordone);

Descrizione della Pinacoteca del Signor Giovanni Scarpa, Oderzo 1878, p. 17, cat. no. 44 (as Girolamo Romanino);

A. Venturi, La R. Galleria Estense in Modena, Modena 1882, p. 396, cat. no. 15.-2 (as Girolamo Romanino);

G. Sambon, Catalogo della Pinacoteca Scarpa di Motta di Livenza, Milan 1895, p. 27, cat. no. 58, reproduced (as Girolamo Romanino);

G. Frizzoni, "La Pinacoteca Scarpa di Motta di Livenza," in Archivio storico dell'arte 1, no. 4 (1895), p. 420, reproduced p. 413, fig. 4 (as a copy by Paris Bordone);

L. Bailo and G. Biscaro, Della vita et delle opere di Paris Bordon, Treviso 1900, pp. 165-166, under cat. no. 94 (as a copy);

S. Reinach, Répertroire de Peintures du Moyen Age et de la Renaissance (1280-1580), vol. I, Paris 1905, p. 171, reproduced fig. 1 (as Girolamo Romanino);

J.A. Crowe and G.B. Cavalcaselle, A History of Painting in Northern Italy, T. Borenius (ed.), London 1912, vol. III, p. 386 (as a copy by Paris Bordone);

B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance, Oxford 1932, p. 432 (as a copy by Paris Bordone);

Monumenta Bergomensia, vol. IV, Bergamo 1983, Collezioni Private Bergamasche, cat. no. 1085;

V. Sgarbi, "Note su Paris Bordon," in Paris Bordone e il suo tempo, Atti del convegno internazionale di studi, Canova 1985, p. 171, reproduced figs. 1, 2 (as "Paris Bordone (?)");

S. Momesso, in Museo Borgogna, Milan 2003, p. 30;

F. Pedrocco, "La considdetta seconda ondata del Manierismo a Venezia," in Natura e Maniera tra Tiziano e Caravaggio, Le ceneri violette di Giorgione, exhibition catalogue, V. Sgarbi (ed.), Milan 2004, p. 278;

S. Momesso, La Collezione di Antonio Scarpa (1752-1832), Cittadella 2007, pp. 113-116, cat. no. 25, reproduced pp. 114, 115 (as a copy of Paris Bordone);

A. Donati, Paris Bordone, Catalogo ragionato, Soncino 2014, p. 290, cat. no. 69.1, reproduced (as a copy formerly attributed to Girolamo Romanino);

F. Malachin, Paris Bordone, Pittore divino, exhibition catalogue, S. Facchinetti and A. Galansino (eds.), Venice 2022, p. 162, under cat. no. I (as lost).

This work is a version of Paris Bordone’s Flight into Egypt in the Museo Civico Luigi Bailo, Treviso. Sometime after 1895, the present work was cut down to its current state, removing the figures from their original narrative context and thereby emphasizing the maternal connection between the Madonna and Child.

The present painting’s history of ownership may perhaps be traced to either Francesco I or Francesco II d’Este, Dukes of Modena, but this remains uncertain. By the late eighteenth century, the work had entered Modena’s Galleria Estense, after which it was acquired by the poet and rhetorician Luigi Cerretti, then serving as the President of Padua’s Accademia di Belle Arti. Following Ceretti's death in 1808, the painting entered the collection of the pioneering anatomist Antonio Scarpa, who bequeathed it to his son, Giovanni Scarpa. By 1834, he had given the work to the Pinacoteca Scarpa in Motta di Livienza. When that collection was dispersed at auction in 1895, the painting sold for 1300 lire to an unknown buyer. The painting was believed to have been lost for much of the twentieth century and it only resurfaced in 2017.