St Gregory the Great

Formerly attributed to Caravaggio, but in the 19th century it was changed in favour of an attribution to Stern (a Flemish artist). Recently the painting was reassigned to an anonymous Italian imitator of Saraceni who was perhaps copying a lost work by the Venetian master.

This painting can be identified with an entry in an unpublished inventory (dated 1802) of the Giustiniani collection, where it is listed as a work of Caravaggio (Vodret 1994). This attribution was maintained in the early Torlonia inventories until 1855, when it was changed in favour of an attribution to Stern (Vodret 1994). Longhi gave the picture to Saraceni, dating it to the second decade of the seventeenth century on account of its similarities to Saraceni's work in the Roman churches of San Lorenzo in Lucina and Santa Maria dell'Anima (Longhi, 1943). Ottani Cavina (1968) and Nicolson (1990), however, reassigned the painting to an anonymous Italian imitator of Saraceni who was perhaps copying a lost work by the Venetian master.

The canvas is extraordinary for its compositional originality, the intensity of the pictorial material, the rapid execution and the vivacity of chromatic range. All these qualities point to Saraceni, one of the first followers of Caravaggio. Yet at the moment, despite its tight Caravaggesque observation, the painting does not seem to be attributable with certainty to the Venetian master, on account of stylistic differences between it and certifiable works of the painter like the Madonna and Child with Saint Anne (also in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome). Nor is the name of the Flemish artist Stern sustainable at this time, though such an attribution is partially justifiable on the basis of the lucid optical rendering of the details.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 12 minutes): Gregorian chants