Tracing the Provenance of the Lamentation over the Dead Christ by Peter Paul Rubens at the Galleria Borghese

Abstract

A series of previously overlooked, interrelated documents discovered in the Archivio Apostolico Vaticano, along with manuscripts in the Archivio Storico dell’Accademia di San Luca and the Istituto Nazionale di Archeologia e Storia dell’Arte in Palazzo Venezia, have now made clear the provenance of the Lamentation over the Dead Christ, which is housed at the Galleria Borghese and currently attributed to Peter Paul Rubens (Inv.-No. 411). While critics have long questioned the painting’s origins and the circumstances of its entry into the Borghese collection, a full-text analysis of these sources traces its more likely provenance from the Palazzo Altieri al Gesù in Rome through successive sales from Giovanni Gherardo De Rossi to Pietro Camuccini, and then to Prince Camillo II Borghese on 1 April 1826. This proposal of a reconstructed provenance path demonstrates how provenance data can provide a verifiable methodological foundation of the historical and critical interpretation of artworks. In this study, the findings offer a basis for evaluating the context of the painting’s patronage, which is possibly linked to the Altieri family history, and provide further material for discussion in the longstanding debate on its attribution.