(Lanciano circa 1515–1565 Venice)
Christ and the Adulteress,
oil on canvas, 101.5 x 155 cm, framed

Provenance:
Mariano Patrizi Montoro, Rome, 1654;
Costanzo Patrizi, Rome, 1689–1739;
Francesco Patrizi Naro, Rome, 1814;
thence by descent, until 2011;
sale, Dorotheum, Vienna, 13 April 2011, lot 488;
where purchased by the present owner

Documentation:
Roman State Archives, 30 Notai capitolini uff. 10, notaio L. Michelangelus, vol. 212, inventory of the paintings of Mariano Patrizi (1654): ‘Un altro con un Christo e l’Adultera Legata le mani con cornice tocca d’oro’;
Vatican Secret Archives, Patrizi Montoro archive, B 69, inventory of the paintings of Costanzo Patrizi (1689): ‘Un altro con un Christo e l’Adultera Legata le mane con cornice tocca d’oro M. P.’;
Vatican Secret Archives, Patrizi Montoro archive, B 86, inventory of the fideicommissum of Costanzo Patrizi (1739): ‘Un quadro in misura d’Imperatore per traverso rappresentante l’Adultera pittura ordinaria con cornice fondo negro filettato d’oro’, 4’;
Vatican Secret Archives, Patrizi Montoro archive, B 436, general inventory of the paintings of Francesco Patrizi Naro (1814): ‘Un quadro per traverso rappresentante la Donna Adultera di autore incerto, franchi 321’

Literature:
A. M. Pedrocchi, Le stanze del tesoriere. La quadreria Patrizi: cultura senese nella storia del collezionismo romano del Seicento, Milan 2000, n. 128, p. 258 (as Polidoro da Lanciano and workshop);
V. Mancini, Polidoro da Lanciano, Lanciano 2001, p. 143 (as a seventeenth century copy)

The present painting was documented as early as 1654 in the inventory of the Patrizi Collection: ‘quadro con un Christo e l’Adultera legata le mani con cornice tocca d’oro.’ In addition to this, it is listed in several inventories, compiled in 1689, 1739, and 1814. The collection was initiated in the early seventeenth century by Costanzo Patrizi (1590–1624), Treasurer of Pope Paul V Borghese. The collection’s expansion took place under Marchese Mariano Patrizi (1599–1654), in whose posthumous inventory the present painting is mentioned for the first time. The painting belongs to a group of iconographically related works, which suggests the existence of a prototype, probably an invention by Titian. Following debates about their attributions, the versions in the Szépmüvészeti Múzeum in Budapest (Inv. 51808, 163 x 202 cm) and in the Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo in Brescia (on deposit from the church of Sant’Afra, 146 x 196 cm), have unanimously been attributed to Polidoro da Lanciano and are regarded as the best of the paintings in terms of quality (for a summary of the discussion see V. Mancini, Polidoro da Lanciano, Lanciano 2001, pp. 135–136, pp. 140–141). These attributions are based on an earlier proposal made by Bernard Berenson (see B. Berenson, The Italian Painters of the Renaissance: with Indices of Their Works, New York 1894, p. 117). 

In Budapest there is a further variant of the present theme (Inv. 1054, 104 x 136 cm) that was made at some point between the two versions mentioned above. A later version is preserved in London (Walpole Gallery). Ballarin believes that the second picture in Budapest (Inv. 1054) relies on a lost composition by Polidoro, whereas Mancini has tentatively identified it as an autograph work due to its deplorable condition (op. cit. Mancini, 2001, p. 143). In his monograph on Polidoro, Mancini classifies the present painting with its Patrizi provenance as one of the seventeenth-century copies after the Budapest painting, he does this without having seen the original work. The high quality of the present painting, however, has prompted Paul Joannides, after examining both compositions, to consider the Patrizi painting as the original autograph version on which the Budapest painting is based (written communication, January 2011). An old copy of the present composition is documented through a reproduction in the Fototeca Fiocco in the Fondazione Cini, Venice, without indicating the provenance.