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拍品专文
Offered for the first time in over a decade, Mucius Scaevola before Lars Porsenna provides an excellent example of Ter Brugghen’s hitherto mysterious Italian-period work. A few scholars had previously expressed doubts about its authenticity, including myself in a footnote to an entry on the picture in the monograph on the artist that I completed for the late Leonard J. Slatkes (L. Slatkes and W. Franits, op. cit., p. 143 n. 2). However, in providing a fuller and more accurate understanding of Ter Brugghen’s output during his approximately seven-year stay in Rome (ca. 1607-1614), the Caravaggisti specialists Gianni Papi (G. Papi, loc. cit.), John Gash (J. Gash, loc. cit. ), and Tommaso Borgogelli (T. Borgogelli, loc. cit.) have all convincingly reattributed this canvas to the Dutch master himself, opinions with which I now wholeheartedly concur.
Mucius Scaevola before Lars Porsenna’s stylistic ties to other Italian-period Ter Brugghen paintings are quite clear. For example, the helmeted figures in profile in the background recall those of his Christ bound to the Column (private collection; fig. 1 ). Moreover, the lowered head of St. John the Baptist in Ter Brugghen’s eponymous painting of 1610—the earliest known work by the artist—echoes that of the figure standing at the far right of our canvas (private collection; fig. 2). And like these two pictures, it is also relatively smoothly painted. Borgogelli places our canvas around 1610-12 (T. Borgogelli, loc. cit.), but a date of 1612-14 seems more likely given the competently drawn figures (who largely lack the awkward anatomical details of the other two paintings) and Porsenna’s doublet with its claret-colored stripes, which anticipate the colorful clothing of Ter Brugghen’s Utrecht-period works.
Speaking of those latter Utrecht-period paintings, both compositionally and in the handling of the secondary figures, Mucius Scaevola before Porsenna relates to Ter Brugghen's Copenhagen Christ Crowned with Thorns (L. Slatkes and W. Franits, loc. cit., no. A13), signed and dated 1620, and the slightly earlier Le Havre Calling of St. Matthew (L. Slatkes and W. Franits, loc. cit., no. A33). The fluid rendering of the reflections on the armor confirms this, as does the profile, facial features, and the odd framing position of the hat of the standing figure to the extreme right. Ter Brugghen resorted to this figure to paint the one who appears straddling the stool in the Le Havre picture.
The singular beauty of Ter Brugghen’s canvas matches its subject, one rarely painted by seventeenth-century Dutch artists. The story of Mucius Scaevola's bravery appears in three important classical sources, Livy, The History of Rome, bk. 2, 12, Plutarch, Lives, bk. 6, 17, and Valerius Maximus, Factorum et Dictorum Memorabilium, bk. 3, 1. It is Valerius Maximus’s recounting of the story that most likely provided Ter Brugghen's iconographic point of departure; later in his career he would return to its influential text for his rendition of the New York Cimon and Pero (W. Franits, ‘”Roman Charity”: a newly discovered painting by Hendrick ter Brugghen’, The Burlington Magazine, CLXIII, 2021, pp. 806-811). During the siege of Rome by the Etruscans, Caius Mucius Scaevola killed King Porsenna's secretary in a failed assassination attempt. The king ordered the young Roman to be burned alive. Mucius courageously thrust his right hand into a fire without flinching, so impressing Porsenna that he freed him. When Porsenna learned that Mucius was only the first of 300 Romans selected by lot to assassinate him he lifted the siege and withdrew. Mucius was known thereafter as 'Scaevola', that is, the 'left-handed one'.
Lastly, what also makes Mucius Scaevola before Porsenna a particularly special painting is its potentially intriguing connection to an archival reference dating 1625 (see the Provenance section above). Although we cannot be absolutely certain that it references our picture or another version thereof, it is the earliest documented Ter Brugghen work to be sold publicly; four years before his death, in fact.
-Wayne Franits
Mucius Scaevola before Lars Porsenna’s stylistic ties to other Italian-period Ter Brugghen paintings are quite clear. For example, the helmeted figures in profile in the background recall those of his Christ bound to the Column (private collection; fig. 1 ). Moreover, the lowered head of St. John the Baptist in Ter Brugghen’s eponymous painting of 1610—the earliest known work by the artist—echoes that of the figure standing at the far right of our canvas (private collection; fig. 2). And like these two pictures, it is also relatively smoothly painted. Borgogelli places our canvas around 1610-12 (T. Borgogelli, loc. cit.), but a date of 1612-14 seems more likely given the competently drawn figures (who largely lack the awkward anatomical details of the other two paintings) and Porsenna’s doublet with its claret-colored stripes, which anticipate the colorful clothing of Ter Brugghen’s Utrecht-period works.
Speaking of those latter Utrecht-period paintings, both compositionally and in the handling of the secondary figures, Mucius Scaevola before Porsenna relates to Ter Brugghen's Copenhagen Christ Crowned with Thorns (L. Slatkes and W. Franits, loc. cit., no. A13), signed and dated 1620, and the slightly earlier Le Havre Calling of St. Matthew (L. Slatkes and W. Franits, loc. cit., no. A33). The fluid rendering of the reflections on the armor confirms this, as does the profile, facial features, and the odd framing position of the hat of the standing figure to the extreme right. Ter Brugghen resorted to this figure to paint the one who appears straddling the stool in the Le Havre picture.
The singular beauty of Ter Brugghen’s canvas matches its subject, one rarely painted by seventeenth-century Dutch artists. The story of Mucius Scaevola's bravery appears in three important classical sources, Livy, The History of Rome, bk. 2, 12, Plutarch, Lives, bk. 6, 17, and Valerius Maximus, Factorum et Dictorum Memorabilium, bk. 3, 1. It is Valerius Maximus’s recounting of the story that most likely provided Ter Brugghen's iconographic point of departure; later in his career he would return to its influential text for his rendition of the New York Cimon and Pero (W. Franits, ‘”Roman Charity”: a newly discovered painting by Hendrick ter Brugghen’, The Burlington Magazine, CLXIII, 2021, pp. 806-811). During the siege of Rome by the Etruscans, Caius Mucius Scaevola killed King Porsenna's secretary in a failed assassination attempt. The king ordered the young Roman to be burned alive. Mucius courageously thrust his right hand into a fire without flinching, so impressing Porsenna that he freed him. When Porsenna learned that Mucius was only the first of 300 Romans selected by lot to assassinate him he lifted the siege and withdrew. Mucius was known thereafter as 'Scaevola', that is, the 'left-handed one'.
Lastly, what also makes Mucius Scaevola before Porsenna a particularly special painting is its potentially intriguing connection to an archival reference dating 1625 (see the Provenance section above). Although we cannot be absolutely certain that it references our picture or another version thereof, it is the earliest documented Ter Brugghen work to be sold publicly; four years before his death, in fact.
-Wayne Franits