Raphael
NG2919 
The Procession to Calvary

Tom Henry, 2024

Extracted from:
Carol Plazzotta and Tom Henry, The Sixteenth Century Italian Paintings: Volume IV, Raphael (London: The National Gallery, 2022).

c. 1504–5

Oil on wood, 24.4 × 85.5 cm

Support¹

The support is a single panel, probably poplar, with a horizontal grain. It has a convex warp as seen from the front. The panel is in excellent condition apart from some worm damage. It measures 24.4 × 85.5 cm and is 1.2 cm thick. It has certainly been cut on both lateral edges, and probably at top and bottom as well: the paint layers continue up to the edges on all sides. Some pieces of metal visible in the X‐radiographs are probably the remains of old fixings of some kind (fig. 1).

The following labels are visible (left to right) on the reverse of the panel; these are discussed below under ‘Previous owners’.

• 1. ‘Predella Christ Bearing his Cross. Raphael. Formerly centrepiece of predella of picture (altar piece) painted by Raphael for the nuns of S. Antonio at Perugia. Originally in the Orleans Gallery, afterwards at Leigh Court. Purchased at the sale of the Leigh Court collection in 1884. 560 gs.’
• 2. A printed and handwritten label from the Royal Academy Winter Exhibition, 1870, identifying the picture as then in the collection of ‘Sir W. Miles Bt, Leigh Court’.
• 3. Label in an old hand in pen and ink: ‘55’.
• 4. A National Gallery stencil: ‘NG2919’.
• 5. A National Gallery number in white chalk: ‘2919’.
• 6. A printed and handwritten label from the New Gallery Exhibition of Early Italian Art, 1893–4, as lent by ‘Lord Windsor, Hewell Grange, Redditch’, no. ‘125‐1’.

Ground and priming

The gesso ground is composed of gypsum (calcium sulphate dihydrate identified by X‐ray diffraction), probably bound in glue. This was covered with a thin off‐white priming containing lead white, a little lead‐tin yellow and colourless powdered glass (manganese‐containing soda‐lime type) in an oil medium (from FTIR microscopy).

Underdrawing²

Raphael made detailed preparatory cartoons for the scenes in the predella.³ In the case of the Procession to Calvary, the underdrawing is visible to the naked eye in places where the paint layers are thin or faded, most notably in the faded pink lakes of the man on the white horse, but a more complete view was gained with infrared reflectography (fig. 2). The panel was bisected horizontally and vertically with very fine ruled lines, either as a guide to placing the cartoon or as part of the artist’s general design process. The outlines of most of the figures were transferred onto the priming layer with a pricked cartoon. The pounced dots, many of which are still visible in the infrared images, were then joined up using a liquid drawing material. There is some hatching to indicate shadows and other further elaboration in freehand drawing, for example in the man in yellow who is leading Christ with a rope. No changes have been made between underdrawing and painting in the central group of Christ and the soldiers, but in the group of figures around the Virgin the female figure at the far left of the panel was added in freehand drawing (there is no pouncing) (fig. 3). This suggests she may not have been included in the preparatory cartoon, or at least not in the form now in the painting.⁴

Some of the straight lines in the composition such as the Cross and the pike held by the soldier at the left were pounced and underdrawn, but these also have ruled incised lines, seemingly in the paint and therefore probably made to neaten up the edges (fig. 4). The perfect circles of the haloes of Christ, the Virgin and the woman in blue and yellow were incised using compasses.

Materials and technique

Analysis with gas chromatography–mass spectrometry identified the medium as walnut oil with some pine resin in the translucent dark green armband of the second mounted figure. FTIR microscopy of six other samples from different areas of the painting also suggested a drying oil medium, but it is not possible to establish the type of oil with this technique.⁵

Christ’s dull slightly purple‐blue robe was painted principally in azurite mixed with some red lake and variable amounts of lead white (fig. 5); this mixture often becomes duller and darker with time. The brighter blues in the other figures contain ultramarine, which has maintained its brilliance except for some slight blanching. The sky and distant landscape are also ultramarine, on an underpaint containing azurite.

The Virgin’s cloak has an underpaint containing lead white, azurite and a little vermilion, further modelled with a dark purple‐grey composed of a rather dull purplish‐red lake, lead white, colourless powdered glass and a significant amount of black.

Saint John’s pale pink cloak has a cream underpaint, which contains lead white, colourless powdered glass and a transparent yellow in which aluminium, calcium and sulphur were detected; a very similar material was seen in the Ansidei Madonna (NG1171), where it was possible to confirm that this was a degraded brazilwood lake pigment (fig. 6).⁶ Further modelling was then carried out with a red lake pigment that was probably prepared with a different dyestuff, most likely to be kermes since, while faded, it still retains some pink colour; this seems to be mixed with a small amount of vermilion in addition. The cloaks of Simon of Cyrene and the left‐hand horseman are probably painted in the same way; they too appear very faded.

The pale yellow in the blue and yellow cangiante tunic worn by the foot soldier dragging Christ has been identified as lead‐tin yellow mixed with lead white (fig. 7), while the golden‐yellow robe of the mounted horseman leading the procession is a lead‐tin yellow combined with a strongly coloured yellow earth rich in iron oxide and colourless powdered glass. The same type of yellow earth is also found in the dull greenish‐yellow foreground, where the mixture also contains some azurite, lead‐tin yellow and again colourless powdered glass. The light yellow at the horizon was painted using lead‐tin yellow; there is a streak of pink visible in the sky just behind the church seen above the back of the brown horse, made by mixing in some red lead (the lead soap agglomerates typically formed by this pigment on ageing are visible with a microscope).

The most unusual pigment used in the painting is a warm dark grey, the particles of which have a distinctive metallic lustre when viewed under a microscope (fig. 8). It occurs in the shadows of Simon of Cyrene’s hose and in the darker areas of the white horse. While it was not possible to take a sample to confirm its identity, the very strong absorption in the infrared images is typical of bismuth metal powder, distinguishing it from the other most probable alternative, stibnite (antimony sulphide).⁷

Colourless powdered glass (manganese‐containing soda lime type) has been used as an additive not only in the priming, but also quite extensively in the paint layers. It has been confirmed in the underpaint of Saint John’s red cloak with lead white and red lake; in the greenish yellow foreground with lead white, lead‐tin yellow, yellow earth and azurite; and in the orange yellow of the tunic of the man on the brown horse, mixed with yellow earth and lead‐tin yellow.⁸

The haloes of Christ and the figure group at the left are gilded (fig. 9). There are also traces of gold on Saint John’s robe, on the cuffs and the border at the bottom, and on the hood of the halberdier dressed in yellow and red (fig. 10). It is not clear whether shell gold or mordant gilding was employed.

Condition and conservation

As stated above the picture has been cut on its lateral edges. It was the central part of the predella that stood below an altarpiece in the church of S. Antonio da Padova, Perugia. When described in 1661 and again when sold in 1663, the predella was said to comprise five small panels (‘cinque quadretti di Devotione’) and each of these was given separate measurements.⁹ Raphael’s altarpiece, now known as the Colonna Altarpiece for reasons explained under ‘Previous owners’ below, consisted of a central panel depicting the Virgin and Child enthroned with the Young Saint John the Baptist flanked by Saints (Saints Peter, Paul, Catherine and another female martyr, probably Dorothea); above this was a lunette representing God the Father blessing with Two Angels (both these panels are now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, fig. 11). The predella comprised the Procession to Calvary (centre), flanked on the left by the Agony in the Garden (fig. 12) and on the right by the Pietà (fig. 13). Two smaller panels of Franciscan saints completed the ensemble (Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Anthony of Padua; fig. 14 and fig. 15).

The main panel of the altarpiece measures 169.2 × 168.2 cm: about 15 cm wider than the presumed length of the predella, based on the copy made in 1663 by Claudio Inglesi, discussed below, which is on a single plank 153.5 cm wide, including two unpainted strips, 3 cm and 4 cm wide respectively. The total width of the three surviving predella panels as they are now is just over 143 cm; assuming gaps of 3 and 4 cm between them as in the copy, this leaves 3.5 cm unaccounted for, which could have been lost from the edges of the panels when they were trimmed in the past.

The dimensions of the Procession to Calvary were given as two Perugian feet (pedes) and five Perugian inches (uncias) in 1661 and 1663. These measurements are difficult to reconcile with the published values of the Perugian piede/oncia, respectively 36.3 and 3.025 cm.¹⁰ In 1689 the panel was measured using the Roman palmo (which equated to 22.3 cm) as ‘alta p.mi uno e larga p.mi tre e mezzo’, that is, 22.3 × 78.05 cm, which accords reasonably well with the actual dimensions of the panel: 24.4 × 85.5 cm.¹¹ It was assigned a separate inventory number on this occasion, so was certainly a separate scene at this time.

As mentioned above, the 1663 copy by Inglesi has all three scenes on a single long plank, as was quite common for predella panels; the two unpainted strips (respectively 3 and 4 cm wide) between the scenes would have been hidden by the carved moulding of the frame (fig. 16). This could be taken to suggest that the three predella panels were also originally painted on one plank, as was common practice, and that they were later divided to make them saleable as separate items. The two saints now in Dulwich (fig. 14 and fig. 15) were placed separately as the plinths below two gilded columns either side of the altarpiece and would never have been part of the predella. The only argument against this conclusion is the unexpected discovery on the Pietà (fig. 13) of a partial underdrawing of a single standing figure, which was made when the plank was turned through 90 degrees from its finished orientation.¹² If made on a long plank, this drawing would have been at the bottom of it, causing practical difficulties that might argue that it was a separate panel. On the other hand, the observation of barbes of gesso and a thin strip of unpainted wood on the right of the panel in New York and the left of the panel in Boston also needs to be taken into account.¹³ It should be noted when assessing the evidence of the description of 1661 that this was made when the picture was still in its frame and the description of five predella/pilaster elements would have been made without reference to what happened behind the visible gilded mouldings, that is, whether the panel was continuous or not. The 1663 description seems to have been made with reference to the 1661 visitation, and the same point therefore applies.

Gustav Friedrich Waagen commented that the picture was ‘rather injured by cleaning’ when he saw it in 1838.¹⁴ The picture was cleaned and restored by Tony Reeve in 1992–5 (there is no record of any other treatment since it was acquired by the National Gallery in 1913). The paint film is in good condition with only a few scattered paint losses. The shadows of the figures painted with ultramarine blue have become blanched, for example in Simon of Cyrene’s tunic and the cap of the bearded soldier to the right of Christ. There is significant fading of the red lake in the cloaks of Saint John the Evangelist, Simon of Cyrene and the man on the white horse. The red lake in the highlights on the robe of the female figure at the far left seems to have faded and the original intention must have been a pink and green cangiante effect. Generally, the paint has also become more transparent, especially noticeable in these areas and in the thinly painted flesh, so that the underdrawing is more visible than intended. There may also be some wearing in the final thin verdigris glazes on the green draperies. Together these observations go some way towards explaining Waagen’s comment, even if most of the alterations were not caused by cleaning.

Description and style

Also described as the ‘Road to Golgotha’,¹⁵ the ‘Via Dolorosa’,¹⁶ ‘Christ bearing the Cross’¹⁷ or the ‘Portacroce’,¹⁸ the subject depicted here is recorded in all four Gospels. The painting shows Christ carrying the Cross from left to right. He is being pulled along by one of five foot soldiers, while two mounted soldiers – one of whom appears to be riding bareback – lead the way. Simon of Cyrene helps Christ to bear the weight of the Cross, and the picture effectively represents the moment when Simon took over carrying the Cross (as related in Luke 23: 26). Behind (on the left of the panel), the Virgin Mary is supported by three female companions as Saint John the Evangelist looks on with concern. On the right an expanse of water and a few buildings can be seen in the middle ground, while the background seen beyond the horsemen shows buildings silhouetted on a ridge (and is reminiscent of how Perugia sits above the Tiber valley).

The Procession to Calvary was chosen to form the centrepiece of a predella with two other scenes from the Passion: the Agony in the Garden, which preceded the events on Mount Calvary, and the Pietà, which followed the Crucifixion. As such the predella was designed to encourage devotion to and meditation on Christ’s suffering.¹⁹ The disposition of the figures in the foreground has attracted comment, with Joseph Archer Crowe and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle describing the picture as taking ‘the form of an antique frieze’.²⁰ It is unusual and employs a different, simplified, approach to the more spatially complex predellas of both the Mond Crucifixion and Ansidei Madonna, and was perhaps tailored to the particular devotional/meditational requirements of the patrons. As with the vivid hues of the predella (and the main panel), Raphael may have wished to ensure maximum legibility in the picture’s original location.

The stylistic influences on the picture have attracted some discussion, not least because of how they have prompted considerable debate concerning the picture’s date. The scholarly literature has frequently extended from the particular (this picture) to the more general (discussing the perceived influences on the altarpiece as a whole of Pintoricchio [about 1454–1513], Luca Signorelli [1440/50–1523] and Fra Bartolommeo [1472?–1517], none of whose influence can be readily detected in this picture alone). If one limits comment to the present work, the rearing white horse and the twisting pose of the horseman in yellow have been linked to knowledge of the unfinished fresco of the Battle of Anghiari by Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), which was commissioned in 1503.²¹ Raphael shows clear awareness of Leonardo’s drawings for this composition from about 1505, for example on a sheet in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (WA1846.176), which includes drawings made in preparation for his fresco in the church of S. Severo, Perugia.²² The group of the Virgin supported by the three Marys has also been connected to Filippino Lippi’s (about 1457–1504) Deposition for the high altar of SS. Annunziata in Florence, which was also begun around 1503. (Filippino had fully designed the composition before he died in April 1504 leaving the picture incomplete; Perugino was hired to complete it in August 1505.²³) These connections to works in Florence may imply that the predella scene was painted following Raphael’s first extended stay in the city, a point made by Roger Fry (1866–1934) with reference to the soldier who pulls Christ along being ‘entirely Pollajuolesque’.²⁴ The pose and even the type of Christ in the Procession to Calvary were, however, inspired by Justus of Ghent’s (active about 1460–80) Communion of the Apostles (fig. 17), which was painted in Urbino in 1473–4.²⁵ An association with Martin Schongauer’s (about 1450/3–1491) engraving of the Procession to Calvary has been proposed but is not compelling.²⁶ A link has also been made with Five Lanquesnets and an Oriental on Horseback of about 1495 by Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528). Although the figural connection is slight, the comparison (including the turbaned horseman) is suggestive of Raphael’s known interest in Dürer’s engravings from an early date.²⁷

Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) added the picture to his Lives of the Artists in the second edition of 1568. He identified the figures in the principal panels of the altarpiece, and criticised the conservative decision of the patrons to show the infant Christ clothed. He drew particular attention to the National Gallery picture by observing that it showed ‘Christ … bearing the Cross, where there are some soldiers dragging him along with most beautiful movements’, adding that this ‘work is truly marvellous and devout; and it is held in great veneration by those nuns, and much extolled by all painters.’²⁸ This description of the altarpiece assigns a major role in the representational decisions to the picture’s female patrons, and this has frequently attracted further comment.²⁹

Patron and original location

The picture was part of the predella of an altarpiece that was painted by Raphael for the church of S. Antonio da Padova (Saint Anthony of Padua) in Perugia. This convent of female Observant Franciscan tertiaries was established in 1388, and mainly comprised noblewomen, sometimes of very high social standing. The convent was on what is now the Corso Garibaldi and it has been redeveloped over the centuries. The original church was split in two, as was not uncommon for cloistered communities, with an inner church for the nuns who lived in clausura, and an outer church that functioned for public worship. The latter was recorded from 1455 and the former from 1478. Early descriptions of this arrangement record a grill between the two sections of the church, and the part reserved for the nuns was sometimes referred to as an inner choir (which relates the function of the inner church to the way a Franciscan choir would often be set behind a high altar, frequently with a double‐sided altarpiece with a public‐facing front and a rear designed to be seen by members of the community gathered in the choir).³⁰ In S. Antonio, the high altarpiece of the outer church was a 1467–8 polyptych by Piero della Francesca (1412–1492) (fig. 18), while Raphael’s altarpiece stood back‐to‐back with this picture, albeit with a dividing wall, on the principal altar of the inner church. The lighting of both pictures is consistent with the location and light falling from the windows along the side of the church in what is now Via Benedetta: from the right in Raphael’s case and from the left in Piero’s.

The commission to Raphael is not recorded, but it was anticipated by a bequest to the convent in 1478 by Suor Anna, who had entered the convent as a widow after the death of her husband, Ludovico di Cristoforo. Her will left the nuns two houses, which were to be sold and the proceeds put towards an altarpiece to stand above the altar of the inner church.³¹ The subsequent stages that resulted in Raphael being contracted to paint the picture are unknown, but it is likely he received the commission in 1503 or at the latest 1504. One suggestion has been that the picture’s patron was Ilaria Baglioni (about 1438/40–after 1503), the firstborn daughter of the ruler of Perugia, Braccio Baglioni (1419–1479). She had entered the order before her eleventh birthday, and spent all of her adult life at its Perugian convent, frequently serving as the principal of S. Antonio (‘ministra generale’).³² Francesco Federico Mancini posed the question as to how Raphael came to the nuns’ attention, and suggests that the wider Baglioni family circle may have played a part.³³ At this point it is clearly significant that her sister, Alessandra degli Oddi (née Baglioni), was the patron of Raphael’s (possibly) earlier Coronation of the Virgin for S. Francesco al Prato, Perugia (now Vatican Museums).³⁴

The Procession to Calvary was once proposed as having been the central part of the predella of the Mond Crucifixion, but there are no grounds for this connection.³⁵

Attribution

The early sources (from Vasari onwards) are unanimous in attributing the altarpiece and its predella to Raphael. Around the time of the alienation of first the predella, and then the main panel, from the altarpiece’s original location in the church of S. Antonio, the attribution was occasionally passed over in silence. As Linda Wolk‐Simon observed, this seems to have been a deliberate attempt to obfuscate the picture’s importance when seeking permission to offer it for sale, and there is no hint that the attribution of the picture was ever, in fact, forgotten. In modern times, discussion of the altarpiece’s authorship has revolved around assessment of the quality of the main panel with its ‘unresolved and inherently incoherent style’ and ‘jarring inconsistencies’ between different areas of the picture (with the lunette being of the highest quality while the female saints in the main panel are frequently assigned to an associate).³⁶ There might be different levels of involvement across the painted areas – and possibly an extended genesis – but condition is also a major factor in explaining these discrepancies and no one doubts Raphael’s overall responsibility.

Doubts about the autograph status of the National Gallery picture in particular emerged in the nineteenth century and accelerated in the years after 1900. Crowe and Cavalcaselle attributed infelicities such as ‘the excess of stride in the Christ, or strained action in the executioner … to the hand of a disciple’.³⁷ Jean‐Paul Richter’s review of the Winter Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in 1902 thought it ‘absurd to attribute the execution of Lord Windsor’s picture to Raphael’ and ‘confided the execution of this predella panel to his friend and quondam studio‐companion’ Eusebio da San Giorgio (about 1470–about 1550).³⁸ This attribution was adopted by Georg Gronau in 1909.³⁹ Implicitly doubted by Claude Phillips and John Pope‐Hennessy,⁴⁰ the attribution to Raphael was defended by Luitpold Dussler and doubts have generally faded since.⁴¹

Dating

The Procession to Calvary has usually been dated with the rest of the Colonna Altarpiece and largely on stylistic grounds. What has not been consistent has been the analysis of the style of either the predella or the principal panels of the altarpiece. On occasion an extended genesis has been proposed, in part to account for the perceived stylistic discrepancies in the picture, but also to better accommodate the picture into Vasari’s narrative (where it is referred to not with Raphael’s first works in Perugia but instead after a first Florentine visit, a necessary sojourn in Urbino and then a return back to Perugia where it was grouped together with the S. Severo fresco, later dated 1505, and the origins of the Baglioni Entombment commission, eventually signed and dated 1507).⁴²

Two pieces of evidence need to be evaluated. The first is a single isolated record of a date on the main panel. Writing in 1859 Waagen stated that the picture was dated 1505: ‘mit 1505 bezeichneten’, which should be taken as having a date written or inscribed on it.⁴³ John Shearman has speculated that Waagen might have followed a date that was written on the frame.⁴⁴ This can surely be excluded as the picture left Perugia without its frame, which was repurposed to hold a copy of the original in 1678. A date could still have been visible on the painting (for instance on a hem of the drapery) when Waagen saw it in Naples in the first half of the nineteenth century.⁴⁵ It might be argued that cleaning and damage removed the date that Waagen saw, but it is perhaps more likely that what he saw had been added by a restorer and was later removed.⁴⁶

The second piece of evidence is occasional reference in the scholarly literature to a Memoriale written by nuns at the church of S. Maria di Monteluce, Perugia, in which Raphael is described as a suitable master to receive an altarpiece commission for their church because of works by the artist that were known to the patrons (and it has been argued that the altarpiece for S. Antonio da Padua was one of these works).⁴⁷ This document was misdated by Vincenzo Golzio and others to September/December 1503, but can in fact be dated 29 December 1505; in other words, while the Memoriale could refer to this painting, it does not help to establish an early date for the picture’s execution.⁴⁸

If a date was ever visible on the picture’s original frame it might seem curious that no early source refers to it, but this should be put in context. Of the five altarpieces by Raphael that could be seen in Perugia, two are dated: the Baglioni Entombment (signed and dated 1507) and the Ansidei Madonna (1505). Neither of these dates are recorded until the nineteenth century. An altarpiece attributed to Francesco Tifernate (about 1485/7–after 1506), which must date from 1504 at the earliest, also includes borrowings from the New York altarpiece.⁴⁹

Knowledge of the Perugino/Filippino Lippi Deposition from the Cross now in the Accademia, Florence, was also taken as a terminus post quem by David Allan Brown,⁵⁰ but Cecil Gould’s earlier observation that ‘the resemblance [is] not otherwise great enough to justify comment’ is fair.⁵¹

From the starting point established in the preceding discussion, but principally on the basis of the style of the altarpiece, Konrad Oberhuber argued for a date 1501–2;⁵² this was implicitly accepted by Sylvia Ferino Pagden and Antonietta Zancan, who puzzlingly refer to the picture as Raphael’s first altarpiece (‘Prima pala d’altare di Raffaello’).⁵³ Mancini proposed the slightly later date of 1502–3,⁵⁴ while most other scholars have dated the altarpiece to about 1504–5.⁵⁵ In each case slightly different arguments are made that place more or less reliance upon perceived links to Pintoricchio, Signorelli, Fra Bartolommeo or Leonardo, while also trying to situate the picture in a chronology of dated but more often undated works by Raphael. The present writer’s views tend more to the later dating; in addition to parallels with figures in the S. Severo frescoes (1505), the treatment of space and light, and the sophistication of the (less damaged) cimasa panel of God the Father and Saints, seems unimaginable at an earlier date.

Drawings

No drawings are known for the Procession to Calvary, although the pouncing visible in the underdrawing on the panel establishes that a pricked cartoon originally existed. Two drawings survive for other parts of the picture: a pricked cartoon for the Agony in the Garden, now in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York (inv. I, 15),⁵⁶ and a drawing in which two of the houses and the church seen in the landscape of the main panel are studied on the verso of a sheet in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (WA1846.10). The recto of this sheet shows Saint Jerome with a View of Perugia in the background, in which, coincidentally, the church of S. Antonio da Padua is visible but difficult to identify.⁵⁷

Previous owners⁵⁸

Nuns of S. Antonio

The picture was recorded in its original location in the church of S. Antonio da Padua by local sources from the late sixteenth century until the last quarter of the seventeenth century. As discussed above, Vasari included the picture in the second edition of his Lives of the Artists (1568), with a description of the scenes in the predella and a comment on both the picture’s fame in artistic circles in Perugia, and the veneration in which it was held by the nuns, and by local painters.⁵⁹ Raffaello Sozi (b. 1515) referred to the picture as one of the best paintings in Perugia around 1591;⁶⁰ Cesare Crispolti the Elder (1563–1608) listed the picture alongside outstanding works of art in the city in about 1597, and in a second manuscript described it as being exquisitely beautiful (‘di bellezza esquisita’).⁶¹ It did not appear in the posthumous publication of his Perugia Augusta (1648), perhaps because of its location in a closed female order.⁶² The picture was next described in an episcopal visitation of 1661, led by Marcantonio Oddi (d. 1668), Bishop of Perugia (1659–68).⁶³ The visitation offers important comment on the picture’s original framing (see further below), as well as on the form and iconography of the panels in the Metropolitan,⁶⁴ but aside from confirming the central position and documented size of the Procession to Calvary it does not add significantly to our knowledge of the National Gallery painting. As discussed above (under ‘Condition and conservation’), the predella was described as five small panels (‘cinque quadretti’) and separate dimensions were given for each.

Queen Christina of Sweden

Two years later the nuns of S. Antonio sold the predella of the altarpiece to an agent of Queen Christina of Sweden (1626–1689). Well‐educated and predestined to succeed her father (which she did following a regency after his death in battle), Christina went on to convert to Catholicism, to renounce her crown in 1654, and to move to Brussels and then Rome where she established herself in the Palazzo Riario (which became known as the Palazzo della Regina) in the Via della Lungara from late 1655 until her death.⁶⁵ Famous for her tenacious intellect, she never married and contemporary comment noted her masculine traits, including her voice and her dress (especially footwear). She was a passionate collector, whose collection became famous across Europe (and across the centuries: her former ownership of the Procession to Calvary is very often referred to as the picture wound its way to Trafalgar Square). She had plans to create a museum devoted to Raphael and always had ambitions to add paintings by his hand to her collection, at one point writing that she would exchange all of her Northern European paintings ‘for two Raphaels’.⁶⁶

The opportunity to acquire her first Raphael materialised in 1663. The nuns of S. Antonio owed three hundred scudi to the local butcher and an additional two hundred scudi for grain, wine and oil. They petitioned the Bishop of Perugia for permission to sell the predella from the high altarpiece of the chiesa interna: this was one of only two occasions when the author of the picture was not mentioned in local documents (the pictures were just said to be ‘di buona mano’), presumably to attract the least possible attention to the alienation of part of Raphael’s altarpiece.⁶⁷ The predella was described as ‘cinque quadretti di Devotione’; see ‘Condition and conservation’ above for discussion of whether the scenes had been painted on separate panels or on a single long plank later cut into pieces when removed from the original frame.⁶⁸

The request for permission to sell was approved by the College of Cardinals in Rome in April and Queen Christina’s purchase, for 601 scudi, was recorded on 7 June 1663.⁶⁹ Aside from settling their vittels bill (500 scudi), 30 scudi were also to be spent on having a copy of the predella made and installed in the original frame by an otherwise unknown local painter, said to be of French origin, Claudio Inglesi (fig. 16), who was active in the third quarter of the seventeenth century. The panels with Saint Francis and Saint Anthony were not included in the copy suggesting that they were framed separately.

Initially the 36 nuns retained their ‘tabula magna remanebit quae eisdem lucem subministrabit, atque pietatem’ (‘large panel, which will stay behind with the same Sisters, as it supplies them with light and piety’).⁷⁰ But soon they were once again in financial difficulty and were quick to identify the solution, aided, perhaps, by Ottavio Lancellotti’s description of the picture in his Scorta Sacra of 1671 as one of the ‘bellissime gioie’ (‘beautiful joys’) of Perugia, and as of ‘di prezzo inestimabile’ (‘inestimable value’) (not quite, as it turned out).⁷¹ In May 1677 the Bishop of Perugia, and subsequently the College of Cardinals, was approached to authorise the sale of the principal elements of the altarpiece (the lunette and main panel were described separately).⁷² Two local painters, Girolamo Ferri and Girolamo Fracassi (both active third quarter of the seventeenth century), were involved in appraising and valuing the picture,⁷³ and on 8 January 1678 Count Antonio Bigazzini (a native of Perugia, then resident in Rome, and possibly acting as an agent for his neighbours the Colonna family into whose hands the altarpiece had certainly passed by 1714, thereby acquiring the epithet by which it is still known today)⁷⁴ contracted with the nuns to purchase the altarpiece for 2,000 scudi (200 more than suggested by the two appraisers) and to furnish them with a copy within three months.⁷⁵ By a circuitous route (Perugia–Rome–Naples–Gaeta–Madrid–Paris–London–Paris–London–New York), the Colonna Altarpiece made its way to the Metropolitan Museum.⁷⁶

By the time the main panel joined the Procession to Calvary in Rome, the S. Antonio predella had been in the Queen of Sweden’s collection for 15 years. Its acquisition by Queen Christina was the first time it changed hands, and it went on to pass from one collection to another more often than any other painting by Raphael in the National Gallery, making its way through a total of 13 collections (in comparison to the Ansidei Madonna, which was purchased directly from the family that had owned the picture since it left Perugia in 1768). Until 1798 the Procession to Calvary always remained with the other four panels (two from the predella and two pilaster bases), appearing with them when listed among the possessions that passed on Queen Christina’s death in 1689 to Cardinal Decio Azzolino (1623–1689).⁷⁷ Azzolino was a former Secretary of State, leader of the so‐called ‘Squadrone Volante’ of cardinals who wanted to defend the papacy’s independence, and having been her confidant he was the principal sponsor behind Queen Christina becoming the third woman to be buried in St Peter’s.⁷⁸ Azzolino outlived the Queen by only a few weeks, and the collection passed at his death to his cousin the Marchese Pompeo Azzolino (d. 1696). In order to satisfy the late Queen’s creditors and legatees, Azzolino sold a large part of the collection to Don Livio Odescalchi, Duke of Bracciano (1653–1713) for 123,000 scudi in January 1692,⁷⁹ and it was subsequently recorded in his Palazzo at SS. Apostoli.⁸⁰ It was again recorded in posthumous inventories, when passing by inheritance to his nephew, Baldassare d’Erba Odescalchi, Duke of Bracciano (1683–1746).⁸¹ Baldassare soon entered into what became protracted negotiations to sell the collection of paintings to Philippe II, Duc d’Orléans (1674–1723), and in combination the collector and connoisseur Pierre Crozat (1665–1740)⁸² and the Francophile Cardinal Gualterio (1660–1728) were able to conclude the purchase for the Duc d’Orléans with the Odescalchi on 14 January 1721.⁸³

Orléans collection

The Procession to Calvary was shipped to Paris, where it was installed in the Palais‐Royal. It was described as being in the collection of Philippe II’s heir, Louis ‘le Pieux’, Duc d’Orléans (1703–1752), by Louis François Dubois de Saint‐Gelais in 1727.⁸⁴ It was still displayed with the four other panels in 1727, and was again described (and illustrated) in Crozat’s Recueil of 1729.⁸⁵ The panels passed by descent to Louis Philippe I, Duc d’Orléans (1725–1785), and on his death to Louis Philippe II (Philippe Égalité; 1747–1793). Despite attempts to limit his freedom of movement before he inherited, Philippe Égalité sold first his collection of gems soon after his father’s death, and then turned to the sale of his collection of paintings. The three main predella panels were described by l’Abbé de Fontenai and engraved in the lavish illustrated catalogue La Galerie du Palais Royal, which was published in instalments from 1786 by Jacques Couché (b. 1759).⁸⁶

In 1788 negotiations were initiated with a buyer or group of buyers in London, but these came to nought. In the summer of 1792 the French and Italian paintings were sold to the banker vicomte Édouard Walckiers (1758–1837), who was then resident in Paris, for 750,000 livres.⁸⁷ Walckiers sold the collection on to his cousin comte François‐Louis‐Joseph de Laborde‐Méréville (1761–1802), for 900,000 livres, and when the latter emigrated from Paris to London to avoid the intensification of the French Revolution that would shortly result in the Terror, the Orléans collection left Paris (there was talk of a later return, but this never occurred). Soon after his arrival he mortgaged the paintings to the banker Jeremiah Harman (1764–1844) for £40,000; after an interlude of five years (during which the paintings could have been reclaimed by Laborde‐Méréville) they were sold on to the art dealer Michael Bryan (1757–1821) for £43,500. Bryan was acting on behalf of a syndicate that consisted of Francis, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater (1736–1803), his nephew George Granville Leveson‐Gower, Earl Gower (1758–1833, later 2nd Marquess of Stafford and 1st Duke of Sutherland) and Frederick, 5th Earl of Carlisle (1748–1825).⁸⁸

English collections

The collection caused a sensation when it was exhibited at Bryan’s gallery at 88 Pall Mall, London, from 26 December 1798 to 31 July 1799, and the Procession to Calvary appeared as no. 88.⁸⁹ It was bought by George Hibbert (1757–1837) for 150 guineas, and its subsequent history was separate from the rest of the predella.⁹⁰ Hibbert was a wealthy plantation owner in the West Indies, who notoriously argued against the efforts of William Wilberforce (1759–1833) to complete the abolition of slavery by insisting that his business relied on the workforce. He also collected paintings, sometimes in partnership with Sir Simon Haughton Clarke (1764–1832), whose wealth also depended on plantation ownership (and slavery) in Jamaica.⁹¹ Their early purchases appear to have been a speculative venture, and the picture was offered by its new owners at Christie’s, London, on 14 May 1802; two other paintings now in the National Gallery were also sold by Hibbert and Clarke on this occasion (Willem van Mieris’s A Woman and a Fish‐pedlar in a Kitchen [NG841] and Isack van Ostade’s A Winter Scene [NG848]).⁹²

The dealer John Woodburn (d. 1823; father of the four Woodburn brothers who then took on the family firm) acquired Raphael’s picture for £85 1s.⁹³ He evidently sold it on within a year of the purchase to another dealer, Evans (first name unknown), who offered it for sale first in 1803 and then in 1804.⁹⁴ On both occasions it was bought in. When and how it was acquired by Philip John Miles (1773–1845) is not clear. The reverse of the picture has an unexplained pen and ink label in an old hand, which records it as no. ‘55’. It was recorded in the Withdrawing Room of Miles’s house Leigh Court in 1822.⁹⁵ Miles was a Bristolian shipowner, sugar importer (and slave owner), as well as a banker, who was elected MP for Bristol in 1825. The picture was mentioned in this collection by Johann David Passavant in 1833, but he had not been allowed to see it in person.⁹⁶ It was seen by Gustav Friedrich Waagen and recorded in his Works of Art and Artists in England, and subsequently mentioned in his Treasures of Art in Great Britain of 1854.⁹⁷ It passed by descent to Sir William Miles, 1st Baronet (1797–1878), who was later described as ‘an earnest politician, an able magistrate, [and] an enlightened agriculturalist’.⁹⁸ He lent the picture to the Royal Academy, London, in 1870.⁹⁹ The painting was described after Sir William’s death by Crowe and Cavalcaselle,¹⁰⁰ prior to the whole collection being offered for sale at Christie, Mason and Woods in London on 28 June 1884 by the 2nd Baronet, Sir Philip John William Miles (1825–1888).¹⁰¹ It was purchased by Robert George Windsor‐Clive (1857–1923), Lord Windsor, for 560 guineas, and its provenance was recorded in a handwritten label on the reverse of the picture.¹⁰² Lord Windsor was a noble landowner and senior Conservative statesman, later created 1st Earl of Plymouth (a title formerly in his family), who kept the picture at the house he commissioned from George Frederick Bodley (1827–1907) at Hewell Grange in Worcestershire. He was also a Trustee of the National Gallery, 1900–23, and an early supporter of the National Trust. The picture was lent to the Exhibition of Early Italian Art at the New Gallery, London, in 1893–4,¹⁰³ and subsequently to the Royal Academy, London, in 1902 and the Umbrian Exhibition at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1910.¹⁰⁴ The picture was purchased from Windsor by the National Gallery for £4,000, with funds from the Temple West Fund, in 1913.¹⁰⁵ It seems likely that Windsor was aware of the regrets that the National Gallery had not purchased the painting at the Leigh Court sale; he may also have wanted to secure the picture for the nation in the context of Morgan’s exportation of the main panel. There was clearly some concern about the precedent that buying directly from a Trustee might create, and Agnew (presumably W. Lockett Agnew, 1858–1918) – who had valued the picture – was introduced as an intermediary.¹⁰⁶ While the best informed of the Trustees, John Postle Heseltine (1843–1929), wrote in support of the acquisition ‘on such generous terms’,¹⁰⁷ Lord Lansdowne (1845–1927), in his capacity as Chairman, only grudgingly consented and expressed reservations concerning ‘the drawing of some of the figures and of the horses’.¹⁰⁸

Provenance

Painted as part of Raphael’s altarpiece for the church of the Franciscan convent of Sant’ Antonio di Padova in about 1504–5. Sold, along with the other panels from the predella, in 1663 to Queen Christina of Sweden (1626–1689) for 601 scudi. Bequeathed to Cardinal Decio Azzolino (1623–1689), Rome and then by inheritance to his cousin Marchese Pompeo Azzolino (d. 1696). Sold in January 1699 to Don Livio Odescalchi, Duke of Bracciano (1653–1713), and by inheritance to his nephew Baldassare d’Erba Odescalchi, Duke of Bracciano (1683–1746), by whom sold in January 1721 to Philippe II, Duc d’Orléans (1674–1723), Paris. By descent to his heir, Louis ‘le Pieux’, Duc d’Orléans (1703–1752), by 1727, when still displayed with the four other panels of the predella. By descent to Louis Philippe I, Duc d’Orléans (1725–1785), and on his death to Louis Philippe II (Philippe Égalité; 1747–1793). Sold in the summer of 1792 with a group of French and Italian paintings from the Orléans collection to vicomte Édouard Walckiers (1758–1837), Paris, for 750,000 livres. Sold by Walckiers to his cousin comte François‐Louis‐Joseph de Laborde‐Méréville (1761–1802), for 900,000 livres, who emigrated to London during the French Revolution. Mortgaged in 1797 as part of the Orléans collection to the banker Jeremiah Harman (1764–1844) for £40,000, and then sold in 1798 to the art dealer Michael Bryan (1757–1821), acting on behalf of a syndicate consisting of Francis, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater (1736–1803), his nephew George Granville Leveson‐Gower, Earl Gower (1758–1833), later 2nd Marquess of Stafford and 1st Duke of Sutherland, and Frederick, 5th Earl of Carlisle (1748–1825). Exhibited for sale at Bryan’s gallery at 88 Pall Mall from 26 December 1798 to 31 July 1799, where acquired by George Hibbert (1757–1837) and separated from the other predella panels. Sold by Hibbert at Christie’s, London, on 14 May 1802 to the dealer John Woodburn (d. 1823), from whom acquired by the art dealer Evans (first name unknown) who unsuccessfully offered it twice for sale at auction in 1803 and 1804. Recorded in the collection of Philip John Miles (1773–1845) in 1822 and by descent his son Sir William Miles, 1st Baronet (1797–1878). Sold as part of the Miles collection at Christie, Manson and Woods, London on 28 June 1884 by the 2nd Baronet, Sir Philip John William Miles (1825–1888), when acquired by Robert George Windsor‐Clive (1857–1923), Lord Windsor, from whom purchased, with funds from the Temple West Fund, in 1910 by the National Gallery.

Framing

The only early description to mention the picture’s frame was the episcopal visitation of Bishop Marcantonio Oddi. This stated that in 1661 the original altarpiece – which was probably, but not certainly, in its original frame – was gilded, had flanking columns, and that the predella was separate from the single saints (now in Dulwich), which stood below the columns.¹⁰⁹ In 1689 the Procession to Calvary was said to be unframed,¹¹⁰ but at some point in the next 20 years it was placed in a mordant gilded frame that was 12 cm wide.¹¹¹

Its framing is not referred to again until the painting was acquired for the National Gallery in 1913. Lord Windsor asked that if the Director wished to change the frame of the newly purchased picture, he would like to have the old one back as it had been made for him in Perugia.¹¹² It is not clear if this is the frame in which it is recorded in two photographs taken in 1923 and 1928, although these photographs seem to show a frame that had been cut and adapted to fit the painting.¹¹³

The current frame is an Italian sixteenth‐century cassetta‐style frame with a sgraffito frieze (F2919). It is usually said to have been made in the nineteenth century, but it seems to nevertheless be identical with a new frame supplied for the picture by Arthur Field (1879/80–1938) Ltd in May 1931 at a cost of £18.¹¹⁴ Upon delivery to the National Gallery Francis Draper made a glazing door for the frame, which suggests it may have been an old frame that was repurposed for the picture (Field claimed to have the largest collection of old frames in the world).¹¹⁵ In 1994 Louisa Davey made a new sight moulding, which follows more closely the contours of the panel, in order to reduce the shadows that fall on the picture.¹¹⁶

Copies

I Painted

• 1. Perugia, Galleria Nazionale, inv. 412, 24.3 × 153.5 cm. An exact 1:1 copy (fig. 16) was made by Claudio Inglesi in 1663 and placed into the altar‐frame after the original predella was removed.
• 2. Crowe and Cavalcaselle recorded ‘a fair old copy’ in the Palazzo Panciatichi, Florence.¹¹⁷
• 3. A copy in reverse, usually said to be Flemish, sixteenth century, was formerly in the Arthur Pollen collection and was sold at Sotheby’s, 10 July 1963, lot 38. It is presumed to be based on a print (possibly that by Nicholas de Larmessin, discussed under ‘Engravings’ below) and so should perhaps be redated to the eighteenth century. What seems to be the same picture was sold at Christie’s, London, 7 February 1990, lot 336 and is now the property of Roy Tucker, Maidstone.
• 4. Harold Nicholson (1886–1968), writing in The Spectator on 2 August 1946, described an occasion when two young scholars realised that the picture they were looking at in a restorer’s studio was a copy after the Procession to Calvary.¹¹⁸ The scholars were apparently Anthony Blunt (1907–1983) and Benedict Nicholson (1914–1978), and the picture has sometimes been identified as the preceding (reversed) copy. Against this identification it should be noted that the journey was described as proceeding from left to right, as it does in the original but not in the copy formerly in the Arthur Pollen collection.

II Drawn

• 1. Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, inv. 519E, pen and ink, 22.8 × 64.3 cm. This drawing of the whole composition in reverse may have been drawn after an engraving (possibly that by Nicholas de Larmessin, discussed under ‘Engravings’ below). Acquired with the Santarelli collection, and occasionally held to be original, it was recognised as a copy by Crowe and Cavalcaselle.¹¹⁹

Engravings

• 1. The composition was engraved in reverse by Nicholas de Larmessin (1632–1694). His engraving is now known from the later copy after it, which was published in Crozat 1729–42.¹²⁰
• 2. It was also engraved by Nicholas Couché fils and Liénard in Couché 1786.¹²¹
• 3. An unsigned line engraving was printed in Young’s catalogue of the Miles collection in 1822.¹²²

Exhibitions

London 1798–9 (88); London 1870 (59); London 1893–4 (242); London 1902 (14); London 1910 (50); Stockholm 1966 (no cat.); London 2002–3 (8); London 2004–5 (41); New York 2006 (1D).

Notes

The author is grateful to the following for their assistance in the preparation of this entry: Rachel Billinge, Mara Hofmann, Nicholas Penny, Carol Plazzotta and Marika Spring.