Description

Francesco Boneri was one of the closest followers of Caravaggio, the groundbreaking and influential painter of the Italian Baroque period. Boneri may have assisted and modeled for Caravaggio during the elder painter’s last years in Rome, a personal connection suggested by his contemporary nickname, Cecco (a diminutive of Francesco) del Carravaggio. The Resurrection exaggerates the bold contrast of light and dark and the realistic treatment of sacred figures that were hallmarks of Caravaggio’s revolutionary style.

The only documented painting by Boneri, this work was commissioned in 1619 by the Tuscan ambassador to Rome, Piero Guicciardini, for his family’s chapel in Florence. For reasons lost to history, the painting was rejected, a not uncommon event in Rome’s rapidly evolving art scene. It was eventually sold to another important collector, Cardinal Scipione Borghese.

Provenance

Commissioned by Piero Guicciardini, Rome, 1619 [according to mandates relating to payments for the decoration of the family chapel in Santa Felicita in Florence, published in Corti 1989 p. 130]; rejected upon completion and sold in Rome [this and the following according to the Oct. 18, 1620 entry of chapel expense account, cited in published in Corti 1989 p. 137, “…et sono per essermi accollato la terza tavola già fatta per mano di Francesco del Caravaggio et dàtola via, non havendo hauto sodisfatione d’essa.” See also Papi 2001.]. Cardinal Scipione Borghese, Rome, about 1620 [Borghese inventory, published in Corradini 1998]. Giorgio Sangiorgi (1886-1965), Rome [this and the following according to the Brummer Gallery inventory cards, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York]; sold to the Brummer Gallery, New York, Aug. 19, 1931 as by Horatio Gentileschi for $2,400; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, Oct. 29, 1934 as by Horatio Gentileschi.