Collection of commissario Pietro Maria Gentile (1589/1590-1662) in Genoa ;

Sold by the Gentile family between 1811 and 1818 ;

Anonymous sale; London, Phillips, 3 May 1823, n° 73 (described as: "Rubens. Our Saviour (sic) curing one possessed of an evil spirit, a sketch for the famous picture in the church of the Annunciation (sic) at Genoa – this celebrated study was in the possession of the Gentile family at Genoa") ;

Collection Marie Berthe Cabany before 1874 ;

Collection Raoul Cabany, Paris, 1874 ;

Hence by descent to the current owners, a private collection in western France

Rubens a Genova, Gênes, Palazzo Ducale, 6 October 2022-5 February 2023, catalogue by Nils Büttner and d’Anna Orlando, Electa, Milan, 2022, pp. 368 to 373

Description des beautés de Gênes et de ses environs, Genoa, 1768, p. 33;

G. Brusco, Description des beautés de Gênes et de ses environs, Genoa, 1773, p. 47: «Une ébauche du tableau de St Ignace par Rubens, dont l’original est aux jésuites»;

C. G. Ratti, Instruzione di quanto può vedersi di più bello de Gênes, 1780, p. 121: «S. Ignazio operante miracoli, sbozzo della tavola d’altare che vedesi nella chiesa di S. Ambrogio, del Rubens»;

Description des beautés de Génes et de ses environs, Genoa, 1781, pp. 35-36: «Une Ebauche du tableau de S. Ignace par Rubens, dont l’Original est aux jésuites» ;

Description des beautés de Génes et de ses environs, Genoa, 1788, p. 59 : au «Troisiem Sallon», «Un Ebauche du tableau de S. Ignace par Rubens, dont l’Original est aux Jésuites» ;

W. Buchanan, Memoirs of Paintings With A Chronological History of The Importation of Pictures by the Great Masters Into England Since the French Revolution, London, 1824, II, p. 103, pp. 129-130, p.140, letters from James Irvine to William Buchanan ;

John Smith, A catalogue raisonné of the works of the most eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French painters, IX, London, 1842, p. 337 ;

Max Rooses, L'Œuvre de PP Rubens. Histoire et description de ses tableaux et dessins, Antwerp 1886-1892, II, 1888, p. 293;

Hans Vlieghe, Corpus Rubenianum Jacob Burchard, Part VIII Saints, 1972-1973, II, n°116-a p.80;

P. Boccardo, Un avveduto collezionista di pittura del Seicento: Pietro Maria Gentile. Un inventario, un Reni inedito e alcune precisazioni su altre opere e sull’esito di una quadreria genovese, in Studi di Storia dell’Arte in onore di Denis Mahon, a cura di M. G. Bernardini, S. Danesi Squarzina, C. Strinati, Milan 2000, pp. 212-213 ;

P. Boccardo, C. Di Fabio, Pietro Maria I Gentile (ante 1590 – post 1652), in L’Età di Rubens. Dimore, committenti e collezionisti genovesi, Genoa exhibition catalogue edited by P. Boccardo and A. Orlando, Milan 2004, p. 379

G. Martin, review of the exhibition, Rubens a Genova in “The Burlington Magazine” 164, December 2022, pp. 1276-1277;

A. Orlando, “Tre Rubens genovesi. Nuovi dati di provenienza per il modellato Pallavicino-Gentile, il San Sebastiano Spinola e la Sacra conversazione Balbi”, in Itinerari rubensiani: la centralità dell’immagine del sacro, atti del convegno, University of Genoa, 19-20 January 2023, in c.d.s. (Genoa 2024);

A. Orlando, “Committenze illustri dei Pallavicino di Genova a Rubens e Van Dyck” in I Pallavicino di Genova. Una stirpe obertenga patrizia genovese nella storia d’Europa e del Mediterraneo, a cura di A. Lercari, in c.d.s (Genoa 2024)

Our painting is the modello1 (a preparatory oil sketch made for presentation) sent by Rubens from Antwerp to Genoa to be approved by Pietro Maria Gentile, the commissioner of the large altarpiece for the church of the Chiesa del Gesù in Genoa, where it is still to be found.

Throughout his life, Rubens maintained a particularly close relationship with the city of Genoa and its great patrician and merchant families, who were among his main patrons2. Antwerp and Genoa were two ports with trading links. Both cities, after years of war, had returned to peace, reaching the height of their prosperity, each becoming an artistic centre and place of intense exchange and multiple inspirations. During his trip to Italy as court painter to Vincenzo I Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, Rubens spent time in the Ligurian capital on several occasions between 1600 and 1607. As in the other peninsular cities he visited, he copied and recorded works by both old and contemporary masters3 and visited palaces and art collections. This provided him with the opportunity to forge direct and sometimes very close relationships with the city's richest and most influential aristocrats, which led to commissions to paint portraits and religious pictures4. His monumental Circumcision (1605), financed by Marcello Pallavicino, took pride of place on the high altar of the Chiesa del Gesù, alongside altarpieces by Cambiaso (1575), Barrocci (1596), Vouet (1622) and Guido Reni.

In 1608, our painter returned to Antwerp and settled there permanently. He immediately established himself as the city's greatest painters, an artist of international renown, receiving commissions from the leading European courts.

The commission from Pietro Maria Gentile

Pietro Maria Gentile (1589/90 - 1662) was still a young boy when Rubens first visited Genoa. Fatherless from an early age, he came to show a keen commercial sense, so much so that his uncle Geronimo Di Negro (Nicolo Pallavicino's associate) hired him, entrusting him with missions involving the markets of Madrid and Antwerp. He very quickly became prosperous and was soon able to buy several neighbouring properties, which he had demolished to build his seafront residence above the historic port. His palace, near Piazza del Caricamento5, directly overlooked the sea. It housed a rich collection that included masterpieces by Guido Reni, Guercino, Orazio Gentileschi (The Sacrifice of Isaac) among others. Twenty years after our painting, Gentile received two mythological paintings by Rubens depicting Hercules and Deianira and the Hercules in the Garden of the Hesperides, now in the Galleria Sabauda in Turin.

Pietro Maria Gentile married the daughter of Nicolo Pallavicino sometimes around the year 1612. Pallavicino was particularly close to artist Peter Paul Rubens, whom he met in Genoa during Ruben’s stay there and from whom he commissioned a large number of works, including his portrait. During the exhibition ‘Rubens a Genova’ which took place in Genoa in 2022-2023, the curator of the exhibition and Genoa historian Anna Orlando, who has worked on the relationship between the artist and Genovese collectors, revealed an archival document showing that Rubens had asked Nicolo Pallavicino to be godfather to his son ‘Nicolo’. Aged and in ill health, the godfather had one of his collaborators represent him at the christening ceremony by means of the mandate that was also on view at the exhibition. It was Nicolo Pallavicino who financed the construction of the church itself (located just a stone's throw from the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa) the Chiesa del Gesù where Rubens' The Miracles of Saint Ignatius can still be seen.

It was in 1619 that Pietro Maria Gentile commissioned the Antwerp master to paint the Miracles of Saint Ignatius for the Chiesa del Gesù, in the chapel of his father-in-law, who had died that year. The modello for the painting remained in his collection. At the time, Rubens was working on or had just finished a large altarpiece on the same subject for the house of the Jesuits in Antwerp, now kept in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. For the painting in Genoa, the artist completely reworked the composition.

In accordance with his usual practice, Rubens painted an initial sketch of the composition on an oak panel, possibly the one now in the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London6. He then took up his project again for this more finished modello executed on canvas. After its presentation in the recent Genoa exhibition of 2022, the painting was lightly cleaned. Since that time, Nils Büttner has re-examined the work and in an email dated 15 July 2024 wrote: “it was considered to be Ruben’s own work and was sent by Rubens as a modello. In fact, as our exhibition {the aforementioned 2022 exhibition in Genoa} has clearly shown, the quality of its execution is far superior to that of the Dulwich sketch. Like most of what emerged from Rubens' studio, not all parts of this painting are by his own hand, but “Rubens and studio” is an accurate description, as I believe I can recognise his hand in some parts”. Indeed, the way the light catches, the touches of sparkling gold on the chasuble, the highlights of white elsewhere, the modelling of certain impastos, the construction of the folds and the fluidity of the brushwork all bear witness to the vigour of his clearly recognisable touch.

The Iconography of the altarpiece

Located in Genoa since the 16th century, the Society of Jesus converted the old church of San Ambrogio along the lines of the Gesù church in Rome. Their wealthy benefactors called upon the finest artists of the time to decorate it, including Rubens for the high altar in 1606.

A key figure in the Counter-Reformation and the fight against the Protestants, Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) is credited with many miracles and with exorcising crowds during his Masses. The saint is depicted here standing before the altar, his arms outstretched in a sign of appeasement: he is the focal point of the composition, interceding between the people before him and heaven. The benefits of his prayer soon become apparent, and the viewer can here observe three miracles. In front of a balustrade, a woman who is possessed, her mouth wide open, her head thrown back, pulling at her long hair, is supported by a man seen from behind; another woman, hands clasped, begs for her to be healed. In the centre, a young woman protects her three terrified children with her arms; like an allegory of Charity, she is also an allusion to Saint Ignatius' role as intercessor in difficult births. In front of her, a mother stands in amazement and wonder at the resurrection of her son, who is lying on the funeral sheet and raising a hand. On the far right, an old washerwoman, whose arm had withered, regains the use of it and shows it by holding out a cloth.

In the mid section of the painting, the saint is accompanied by four Jesuits standing to his right. Above are two flying cherubs, bearing a laurel wreath and a palm branch, symbols of victory and, for the first Christians, of martyrdom, an allusion to the missionary aspirations of the Society of Jesus and the glory of the order founded by Ignatius (who did not die a martyr's death).

There are significant variations between our modello and the large format final work. The position of the figures in the frieze in the foreground is similar. The only changes, on the right, are the position of the mother holding her child on the ground, with the child now lying the other way round, and the introduction of an imploring old man. The painter has also changed the colours of some of the clothes. In the final version, Ignatius of Loyola's body and face are turned towards heaven in ecstasy, and he no longer makes the gesture of blessing towards the group of lay people on the left. He is now accompanied by two clerics in white robes. Similarly, the architecture sketched out on our canvas has been precisely described and the curtain enlarged. These changes show that the artist had to adapt to the proportions of the altarpiece; he had to fill in certain spaces left empty by the enlargement of his original design.

The altarpiece, installed in 1620, brings together several important subjects: that of the forthcoming canonisation of Ignatius of Loyola (1622), and the importance of the Jesuits both in Antwerp and in Italy in spearheading the Counter-Reformation. Rubens created a new, militant iconography, incorporating classical references (Raphael, the Transfiguration, Veronese, Caravaggio) in the new Baroque style that was pioneering at the time. He combined realistic, almost trivial details (such as the dirty feet in the foreground) with the great tradition of the Renaissance, the groups of figures being united by a golden light that radiates throughout. His influence on the development of history painting proved decisive, both for the generation of Genoan Realist and Baroque artists (Fiasella, Strozzi, Puget) and later on for the Romantics. The swirling forms, the shimmering lights and the clothes already evoke the large formats paintings of Delacroix to come.

The Rediscovery

This ‘’modello de presentation‘’ remained in the family of Pietro Maria Gentile from 1619 to the beginning of the nineteenth century, and was passed on to his descendants, who kept it in the galleries of the Palazzo Gentile. Its presence can be traced back to the works on the city of Genoa and its treasures written by Giacomo Brusco and Carlo Giuseppe Ratti at the end of the eighteenth century (op. cit. above). In the 1788 edition of his book on Genoa, Ratti mentions its presence in the third salon. At the very beginning of the nineteenth century, the great English art dealer William Buchanan expressed an interest in this very sketch to James Irvine, an art broker present in Italy at the time. In his book Memoirs of Painting, published in 1824, Buchanan reveals correspondence concerning the Gentile collection on three occasions. In a letter to William Buchanan dated 25 October 1802, James Irvine explained the steps he had taken to try to purchase certain paintings from the Gentile collection, including the ‘finished sketch’ of Saint Ignatius, which he described as a ‘charming thing’. The work was presented at a Philips sale on 3 May 1823, lot 73. In 1875, the work was mentioned in an inventory, the statement of liquidation dated 24 January 1875 of the estate of Madame Marie Berthe Cabany, who had died on 27 November 1874. The work was left to her son Raoul Cabany and then passed on, by descent, to the current owner. 

This is a major rediscovery of a work that had disappeared from sight for over 200 years, remaining until now in the private collection of a French family for at least the past 150.

[1]  The Italian language has developed a number of concepts that are used for the general term of “sketch”: schizzo (first draft), bozzetto (the painter's working sketch), modello (model-maquette), ricordo (small-format version made after the painting has been completed).

[2] Again in 1622, Pierre Paul Rubens publishes the Palazzi di Genova, an album of prints illustrating the architecture of the sumptuous palaces of Genoa.  

[3] In Genoa, he would have seen the works of Caravaggio (the Judith and Holopherne from the Mattei collection) and the paintings by Carracci. It is here that he is introduced to Orazio Gentileschi.

[4] The Equestrian portrait of Giovanni Carlo Doria (Genoa, Galleria Nazionale di Palazzo Spinola).

[5] Today in the centre of the city, a few steps from the Cattedrale di San Lorenzo and La Chiesa del Gesù.

[6] 7 Julius S. Held, The oil sketches of Peter Paul Rubens, A critical Catalogue, 1980, The National Gallery of Art, Princeton University Press, volume 1, p.566-568, n°411, reproduced in volume 2, plate 400.