The incredible story of Federico Barocci's rediscovered fragment

The story of the fragment of Federico Barocci ’s altarpiece removed in 1982 and tracked down a few days ago by Marche art dealer Giancarlo Ciaroni has something incredible. It is a fragment with a child’s head that, on March 16, 1982, unknown assailants had cut out from the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, Federico Barocci’s large canvas placed in the Chapel of St. Sebastian in Urbino Cathedral. The work was made in 1558 on a commission from the scientist Benedetto Bonaventura, who had requested it in 1557 from a Federico Barocci then in his early twenties: it is therefore one of the Urbino artist’s earliest known works.

The child removed in 1982 is supposed to be the son of the commissioner, Antonio Bonaventura. Since the year of the theft, all trace of him had been lost. It was thanks to Ciaroni’s intuition if the fragment was found: the art dealer, scrolling through the lots of the auction that will take place next May 31 in Genoa at the Wannenes House, managed to spot the fragment that had been attributed to an unknown 17th-century painter and would have gone to auction with an estimate of between 500 and 800 euros (after identification, it was instead given a value of about 300.000 euros). The gallery owner therefore alerted the Carabinieri of the Nuclei Tutela Patrimonio Culturale of Ancona (responsible for the location from which the work came), who alerted their colleagues in Genoa (where the auction would take place): the fragment was therefore seized.

Not even the auction house experts had therefore been able to figure out which hand had painted the child. However, Ciaroni told Il Sole 24 Ore, “looking closely at the portrait one struggles to find Barocci’s classic stylistic signature, because the painter in the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian is very close to Venetian painting. The fragment in fact at first glance makes one almost think of Tintoretto.” It is difficult, however, to know what vicissitudes the Baroque child went through before ending up at auction in Genoa: the work came from a bankruptcy proceeding of a Brescian company, as the head of Wannenes’ ancient paintings department, Antonio Gesino, always explained to Il Sole 24 Ore, but before arriving there it certainly went around other owners, and it is practically certain that the last owner, given the low value with which the work was about to be auctioned, did not know its provenance.

Confirmation that it is indeed the “missing piece” of Barocci’s altarpiece came from art historian Massimo Pulini, a scholar of seventeenth-century Marche. It is now expected that the work will return to Urbino to be integrated with the rest of the altarpiece. In the meantime we can enjoy this beautiful story of knowledge, civic sense, love of the subject, intuition and quick action.

Image: the fragment of Federico Barocci’s Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian (1558; oil on canvas, 40 x 42 cm).

Sources: ADN Kronos - Corriere Romagna - Il Sole 24 Ore

The incredible story of Federico Barocci's rediscovered fragment

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