A privately-owned portrait believed to be by Caravaggio goes on display Saturday (23 November) in a “momentous” Rome exhibition for the first time since knowledge of it was first made public 60 years ago.
Dated to the early 1600s, the portrait of Maffeo Barberini, the son of a Florentine nobleman who was coronated as Pope Urban VIII in 1623, shows the future head of the Catholic church wearing a black biretta and green sleeveless cassock as he clutches a folded letter and stares intently to one side.
The painting will be on show until 23 February 2025 at the Palazzo Barberini, which acquired its name when Maffeo Barberini bought the residence from the cardinal Alessandro Sforza in 1625 and now forms part of the state-run Gallerie Nazionali di Arte Antica. It will be displayed in the palazzo’s landscapes hall.
Caravaggio's Portrait of Monsignor Maffeo Barberini (early 1600s) on display at the Palazzo Barberini Courtesy Gallerie Nazionali di Arte Antica
“This work is fundamental because you can count the number of portraits by Caravaggio on the fingers of one hand,” Thomas Clement Salomon, director of the Gallerie Nazionali di Arte Antica, tells The Art Newspaper. “Showing this work 60 years after experts first attributed the work to Caravaggio is something incredible.”
The painting was acquired by its current owners, an unnamed Florentine family, in the 1960s. Knowledge of the painting was first made public in 1963 when Roberto Longhi, one of Italy’s most distinguished art historians, first wrote about it in an art journal. Half a dozen experts—including Keith Christiansen, a former chair of the department of European paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Sebastian Schütze, an art historian at the University of Vienna—have since confirmed Longhi's attribution.
Detail of Caravaggio's Portrait of Monsignor Maffeo Barberini (early 1600s) Courtesy Gallerie Nazionali di Arte Antica
Clement Salomon says 17th-century documentary evidence indicated that the Baroque artist had been commissioned to paint Barberini. He adds that, prior to the new exhibition, further diagnostic analysis had confirmed the work’s provenance “beyond any doubt”.
Scholars have long been divided about whether another privately-owned portrait of Barberini that is displayed at Florence’s Palazzo Corsini is attributable to Caravaggio.
The collection of the Gallerie Nazionali di Arte Antica includes a number of iconic works by Caravaggio, including Giuditta e Oloferne (1599) and Narciso (1597-99). At a press conference on Friday, Massimo Osanna, the culture ministry’s general museums director, said the work’s public display was a “momentous event”, adding: “Barberini is coming home”.
The portrait is expected to return to its private owners after the exhibition.