North Italian School

late 16th Century, after Tiziano Vecelli, called Titian

Saint Peter Martyr

Footnotes

Provenance
The Collection of James Hugh Smith Barry, Marbury Hall, Northwich, Cheshire
By descent to Lord Barrymore
Sale, Sotheby's, London, 21 June 1933, lot 120 (sold by order of the trustees of the late Rt. Hon. Lord Barrymore)
Whence acquired by Mr Barber for £1,100
Private Collection, Sweden and thence by descent until it was acquired by the present owner in the early 1980s

Exhibited
Manchester, Manchester City Art Gallery, Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition, 1857

Literature
The Catalogue of Paintings, Statues, Busts &c. at Marbury Hall, The Seat of John Smith Barry, Esq. in the county of Chester, Warrington, 1819, no. 298, ('Martyrdom of Saint Thomas, from Titian')
G. F. Waagen, Galleries and cabinets of art in Great Britain, being an account of more than forty collections of paintings, drawings, sculptures, mss., &c. &c. visited in 1854 and 1856, and now for the first time described, London, 1857, vol. IV, p. 409: 'Titian (?)- A good school copy of his Peter Martyr on a small scale'
Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition, 1857, no. 297 ('School of Titian. St. Peter Martyr. (The late J. Smith Barry, 'An old copy on a reduced scale of Titian's celebrated altarpiece formerly in the Church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo at Venice')
G. Perini, Gli Scritti dei Carracci, Nuova Alfa Editoriale, Bologna, 1990, p. 47, note 46
G. Feigenbaum, 'When the subject was art: The Carracci as copyists', Atti del Colloquio; Congrès International d'Histoire de l'Art, Bologna, 1992, p. 301, note 16, ill. 1
A. Summerscale, Malvasia's Life of the Carracci, Pennsylvania , 2000, pp. 99-100, note 41
P. Meilman, Titian and the Altarpiece in Renaissance Venice, Cambridge, 2000, appendix 4, no. 1, 201


The original composition of Saint Peter Martyr by Titian in the Church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice, was destroyed in 1867 (there is currently an 18th century copy by Niccolo Cassana in situ). In a letter dated 10 June, 1987, regarding the present work, Dr. Stephen Pepper stated his 'strong conviction' that the present work is by Annibale Carracci. The Bolognese art historian, Carlo Cesare Malvasia (1616–1693) stated that a copy by Annibale was in the Gessi collection in the 17th century. The latest reference to this picture was by Luigi Crespi who stated that it was in the Ghisilleri Collection in Bologna, where it was recorded until 1767, two years before Smith Barry's journey to Italy. A copy of the Titian Saint Peter Martyr given to Annibale's cousin, Ludovico Carracci was also listed by Luigi Crespi in 1769 at Casa Bolognetti, and this may be the same picture. Alessandro Brogi also mentions a lost painting by Ludovico Carracci in Palazzo Taneri, Bologna, citing that Malvasia had earlier mentioned a copy by Annibale at the house of Senator Gessi (which was not in the inventory of Taneri in 1640) and suggests that both references may be to the same picture (Ludovico Carracci, 2001, Bol. I, pp. 69, 290). Both Bellori and Baldinucci confirm that Annibale travelled from the Parma area to join his brother, Agostino, in Venice. Malvasia also published a tattered undated letter from Agostino stating that Annibale had been wise to travel from Parma to Venice. Agostino is also thought to have been in Venice again in 1585 and was certainly there in 1587-8. Dr. Pepper suggested that the present work was painted about this time, within a range of 1587-89. Technical analysis dates the painting to the last quarter of the sixteenth century. It is also more likely to be the work of a painter from northern Italy, rather than one from Venice or the south, where canvases of a coarser weave were generally preferred.

Given the abundance of costly lapis-lazuli in the sky of the present work, it must almost certainly have been a commissioned work, rather than one produced by a painter who needed to control his expenses. Pepper argued that the 'special dramatic qualities of the figures' coupled with the findings of David Bull, the Chief Conservator of the National Gallery of Art, Washington that 'the material is close to the Washington landscape' (Annibale's Landscape with trees at the National Gallery) supported the case that excluded other seventeenth century hands. It is certainly clear that the author of the present work allowed something of his own personality and technique to dominate his interpretation of this composition, since a number of scholars have remarked that it has a 'solidity' not normally associated with the mature Titian, whose works generally have a looser effect. After studying this painting Nicholas Turner referred to the 'remarkable handling and poetic sense of colour' as well as the abundance of pentiments, the 'flowing brushstrokes and generally confident execution.'

David Bull has pointed out that the use of closely related 'earthy' tones for the portrayal of naked legs and feet, set against the earth of the landscape, is a typical feature of Annibale's paintings, and the effect of perspective obtained by the placement of feet at different levels in the landscape is a similar contrivance to that in Annibale's Christ and the Samaritan Woman at the Brera Museum in Milan. He also noted that the upright strokes of black paint on the earthy foreground of the Saint Peter Martyr, perhaps representing reeds originally are also commonly found in Annibale's works, and are applied with typical Annibale panache. There is also a close technical and stylistic relationship in the application of paint, and portrayal of leaves, to the bottom right of both paintings. Furthermore, the treatment of the four male faces in the Brera painting can be compared to that of the executioner's head in the present work; and the treatment of the pointing left hand of the male figure behind the Samaritan woman is very similar in execution to the left hand of Saint Peter himself. While studying this picture, Bull also pointed out that the distinctive use of heavy impasto to indicate the sections of the tree trunk affected by direct light is closely comparable on the tree trunks and boughs in this Saint Peter Martyr, in Annibale's Landscape with trees at the National Gallery in Washington. Further technical comparisons with Annibale have been made by Gail Feigenbaum, who has pointed out that the orange passages of the present painting, where the clouds surround the angels, relate closely, in colour and technique, to similar but otherwise highly unusual orange-coloured passages in Annibale's Crucifixion of 1583, at Bologna.

James Hugh Smith Barry (1746-1801) was a renowned eighteenth century collector to whom, in 1997, in their Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy (1701-1800), Ford and Ingamells devoted a generous two-column entry. Many of Barry's journeys through Italy during the years 1771-80, and several of his important acquisitions, are listed there. Although the precise date Barry obtained the present painting is unknown, it is likely that he acquired it in Bologna, on one of his journeys to Florence and Rome. He is also known to have travelled from Florence to Dresden in 1775, which route might similarly have led him through Bologna. Barry succeeded to Marbury Hall in 1787 when it was left to him by his uncle, Richard (see fig. 1). The interior featured a magnificent staircase and in the 19th Century a renowned collection of paintings and sculptures, including pieces by Raphael, Titian and Leonardo da Vinci. Before the fire of Christmas 1842 at Marbury Hall some pictures were destroyed and a good many others damaged and following that the majority of the pictures went through Agnew's hands (see Lady Charlotte Smith Barry, Notes on the Smith Barry family, privately printed, 1932).