Provenance

Probably commissioned by Gian Carlo Doria [d. 1625], Genoa.[1] Gonzalo de Ulloa, 9th Count of Adanero [1831-1882], Madrid; by inheritance to his brother, José María de Ulloa, 8th Marquis of Castro Serna [1839-1905], Madrid; by inheritance to his grandson, Álvaro de Ulloa, 11th count of Adanero [1889-1948], Madrid; by inheritance to his son Gonzalo de Ulloa, 12th count of Adanero [1925-1971 ], until at least 1965.[2] (Caylus Anticuario, Madrid), by c. 1990;[3] private collection, Boston; consigned to (Hall & Knight Ltd., New York and London); purchased 8 February 2002 by NGA.
[1] Procaccini painted more than sixty pictures for Doria, which are all recorded in three inventories discovered in the late 20th century by Dr. Giorgio Fulco in the Neapolitan archives of the Doria D'Angri (see Hugh Brigstocke, "Giulio Cesare Procaccini: Ses Attaches Genoises...," Revue de l'Art, 85 [1989]: 45-60). The inventory made between 1617-1621 included a work titled una madalena rapita da angeli del procasino (no. 436), valued at 150 scudi (see Viviana Farina, Giovan Carlo Doria, Florence, 2002: 205, no. 664). The last of the inventories, made after Doria's death in 1625 and before 1641, also describes a picture (no. 437) as La Madalena rapita dagli angeli del Procaccino, valued at 600 scudi, a relatively high figure (Farina, 206, no. 12). Based on subject (a rarity in Procaccini’s oeuvre) and value (suggestive of a large and important painting), it is very likely this was the NGA canvas. More recently Joan Bosch Ballbona has instead proposed the possibility that Pedro de Toledo, 5th marquis of Villafranca, might have commissioned or acquired the painting while serving as Spanish governor in Milan between 1615-1618, as he had commissioned from the artist a series of the Passion of Christ during this time; a painting with the title Magdalena or La Magdalena en un grupo de ángeles appeared in an inventory made between 1821-1823 for the collection of one of his descendants, Francisco de Borja Álvarez de Toledo, 12th marquis of Villafranca and 16th duke of Medina Sidonia [1763-1821]. (see “Sobre el quinto marqés de Villafranca, Camillo y Giulio Cesare Procaccini,”_ Locus Amoenus_ 14 [2016]: 102). As noted in the catalogue raisonné of the artist’s paintings, however, a picture with this subject was not listed among those Pedro de Toledo brought back with him to Madrid in 1618, while stylistically the painting is set apart from the Passion series (Hugh Brigstocke and Odette D’Albo, Giulio Cesare Procaccini: Life and Work, Turin, 2020: 360).
[2] See footnote 1 for reference to the painting’s entry in the catalogue raisonné. Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez included the painting in his 1965 dissertation as being with the Counts of Aderno. ( Pintura Italiana del S. XVII en España, Ph.D. dissertation, Madrid, 1965: 363). According to Enrique Gutiérrez de Calderón of Caylus (letter of 10 January 2002 to Philip Conisbee, in NGA curatorial files), Pérez Sánchez told him that he had known of the painting only by a photograph, taken in 1936, in the Archivo de Recuperación del Patrimonio Artístico (today in the Fototeca del Instituto del Patrimonio Cultural de España, no. 01346_D, Archivo Moreno, copy in NGA curatorial file).
The Adenero collection included a vast number of Spanish, Flemish, and Italian paintings. It was assembled during the second half of the 19th century by Gonzalo de Ulloa and passed down in the family. After his brother José María’s death, an inventory was made of the collection indicating the heirs who received each work; no. 1629 on the inventory is a painting whose size and subject seems to match the NGA canvas: “1629. Otro cuadro de la Escuela Italiana, cuyo asunto es ‘Una Matrona con dos niños’, ejecutado en lienzo, que mide dos metros doce centímetros por uno cuarenta y seis, en buen estado de conservación, señalado con el número seiscientos noventa y tres, Sala diecisiete; tasado en ciento veinticinco pesetas. [Álvaro de Ulloa]" (Another painting from the Italian School, depicting "A Matron with Two Children," executed on canvas—measuring two meters twelve centimeters by one meter forty-six, in good condition—marked number six hundred ninety-three, Room seventeen; valued at one hundred twenty-five pesetas. [Álvaro de Ulloa]”) See Pedro J. Martínez Plaza and Carmen Pérez-Seoane Mazzuchelli, “La colección Adanero – Castro Serna en Madrid. De la Restauración a la Guerra Civil,” _Locus Amoenus 19 (2021): 209 (entry 1629).
During the Spanish Civil War, the painting was seized, along with other works in the Adanero collection, by the Junta de Incautación y Protección del Patrimonio Artístico (Board of Seizure and Protection of Artistic Heritage), which was established by the Republican government. The painting was returned to Álvaro de Ulloa in June 1939, after the end of the civil war. See no. 76 on the list of paintings in the restitution file, “Expediente de devolución de Álvaro María de Ulloa y Fernández-Durán, conde de Adanero,” 23 June 1939, signature SDPAN - 130 – 22, in the Archivo de la Guerra, Instituto Patrimonio Cultural de España, Madrid (copy in NGA curatorial file).
[3] According to Nicholas H. J. Hall (letter of 19 December 2001 to Philip Consibee, NGA curatorial records), the painting had been purchased by the American owner at that time some ten years earlier from Caylus.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

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