Saint Sebastian Thrown into the Cloaca Maxima

Object Details

Title:

Saint Sebastian Thrown into the Cloaca Maxima

Artist/Maker:

Ludovico Carracci (Italian, 1555 - 1619)

Culture:

Italian

Date:

1612

Medium:

Oil on canvas

Object Number:

72.PA.14

Dimensions:

167 × 233 cm (65 3/4 × 91 3/4 in.)

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Saint Sebastian is more conventionally depicted bound to a tree or pillar and pierced by arrows, or having his wounds tended to by Irene. Having recovered from the attempted execution by arrows, Roman Emperor Diocletian ordered that he be beaten to death and disposed of in the sewer. The denial of burial demonstrated the utmost contempt for fundamental Christian rites.  Ludovico Carracci here chose to represent the moment when Roman soldiers dumped the saint’s limp body into the ancient sewage system, the Cloaca Maxima, thereby reducing a heroic martyr to a worthless corpse.

In 1612 Cardinal Maffeo Barberini commissioned this painting for a subterranean family chapel in the Church of Sant’Andrea della Valle in Rome. The church stood on the site where Saint Sebastian's body was recovered from a drain, the Euripus Agrippae. In a letter to his brother, Cardinal Barberini relayed his concerns that Carracci’s blunt naturalistic portrayal of the saint’s corpse was improper for its intended setting fearing that it would “not inspire much devotion”. Nevertheless, he appreciated the painting as a “good representation of brute force”, and opted not to display it in the chapel, but to keep it for his own private collection.

Sebastian is the patron saint of the plague-stricken, and was therefore a popular subject both in the artist’s hometown of Bologna, as well as in Rome, since both cities suffered devastating outbreaks of disease during the century previous. The relentless naturalism displayed in this painting, though shocking to Carracci’s patron, became a definitive feature of the newly-emerging seicento art.

Provenance
1612 - 1644

Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, later Pope Urban VIII, 1568 - 1644 (Rome, Italy), commissioned from the artist, 1612, for the Barberini chapel in Sant'Andrea della Valle, Rome, but never installed; by inheritance to his nephew, Taddeo Barberini, 1644.

1644 - 1647

Prince Taddeo Barberini of Palestrina, 1603 - 1647 (Rome, Italy), by inheritance to his second son, Maffeo Barberini, 1647.

1647 - 1685

Prince Maffeo Barberini of Palestrina, 1632 - 1685 (Rome, Italy), by inheritance to his second son, Urbano Barberini, 1685.

1685 - still in 1686

Prince Urbano Barberini of Palestrina, 1666 - 1722 (Rome, Italy)

- possibly in 1971

Private Collection (possibly Nando Perretti) [sold, Bonham's, London, 1971.]

possibly by 1971 - 1972

Nando Perretti [Perretti sale, Sotheby's, London, July 12, 1972, lot 91, to the J. Paul Getty Museum.]

Exhibitions
The Age of Caravaggio / Caravaggio e il suo tempo (February 5 to June 30, 1985)
  • The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), February 5 to April 14, 1985
  • Museo e Gallerie Nazionali di Capodimonte (Naples), May 12 to June 30, 1985
The Age of Correggio and the Carracci: Emilian Painting of the 16th and 17th Centuries (September 10, 1986 to May 24, 1987)
  • Pinacoteca Nazionale (Bologna), September 10 to November 10, 1986
  • National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.), December 19, 1986 to February 16, 1987
  • The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), March 26 to May 24, 1987
Ludovico Carracci (January 22 to April 10, 1994)
  • Kimbell Art Museum (Fort Worth), January 22 to April 10, 1994
Captured Emotions: Baroque Painting in Bologna, 1575-1725 (December 16, 2008 to May 3, 2009)
  • The J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center (Los Angeles), December 16, 2008 to May 3, 2009
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