Sebastiano del Piombo at Santa Maria della Pace & Alnwick

On a recent visit to Alnwick Castle in Northumberland I noticed among the artworks on display in the “Ante-Library“ three framed fragments of what obviously used to be wall paintings transferred to canvas.

They are described as: “The Visitation, part of a fresco by Sebastiano del Piombo.” The Alnwick Castle catalogue, published in 2004, explains that the fragments were “purchased by the Duke from the collector Rev. W. Davenport-Bromley in 1853.” The reigning Duke in those days was Algernon “the Good,” an avid art collector. Three years later he would acquire a large collection of paintings from the heirs of the Roman painter and art restorer Vincenzo Camuccini, which included such masterpieces as the Feast of the Gods by Bellini and Titian, now at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., as well as a version of the Madonna dei Garofani, recently acquired by The National Gallery in London as a genuine work of Raphael.

The Alnwick catalogue makes no mention of the original location of the fresco. For that we must turn to William Weaver Tomlinson’s Comprehensive Guide to Northumberland, first published in 1888, where the provenance of the Alnwick fragments is given as follows:

“The Salutation of the Virgin,” by Sebastian del Piombo—a fresco cut from the walls of the Church of Santa Maria della Pace at Rome by the French, and interesting from the fact that Michael Angelo drew the outlines out of jealousy, it is said, of Raffaelle. The figure of Joseph below formed part of the original picture.

The Alnwick Castle catalogue makes no attempt to explain the circumstances of the removal of the fresco. Some further details are contained in a description of the art collections at Alnwick Castle dating from the 1880s, bound in the volume Alnwick I at the Bailiffgate Museum in Alnwick. The following entry is relevant to our quest:

“The Salutation of the Virgin,” by Sebastian del Piombo, a picture the outlining of which is attributed to Michel Angelo. It was removed from the walls of Santa Maria della Pace by orders of the French government, and was afterwards purchased by Cardinal Fesch.

Let us follow up this important clue. Cardinal Joseph Fesch (1763-1839) the uncle of Napoleon Bonaparte, accumulated in his lifetime an immense art collection. Not a few of the works in his possession had been looted by French troops during the Napoleonic occupation of Rome in 1797 and the following years. In his later years the cardinal established himself at the Falconieri Palace in Rome, where his collection could be seen by selected visitors. Of these the Sebastiano’s Visitation was among the most admired.

In the second edition of collection of letters from Rome, published in 1822, Charlotte A. Eaton recalls a visit with Cardinal Fesch at the Falconieri Palace about five years earlier:

The painting that I admired the most in this collection, was the Salutation of Elizabeth, originally painted in fresco, on the wall of the church of Santa Maria della Pace, (in which are the Sybils of Raphael,) and taken off on canvas... It is now divided into three parts. It was designed by Michael Angelo Buonaroti, and painted by Sebastian del Piombo.

In the fifth edition, published in 1852, the author still recalls the impression this work made on her:

But this admirable painting (the Salutation of Elizabeth) designed by Michel Angelo, and painted by Sebastian del Piombo, to whose merits no description of mine can do justice, was successfully transferred from fresco to canvas, and was, as I have stated, in the possession of Cardinal Fesch up to his death. Where it is now and who is the fortunate possessor of this treasure, I know not.

A posthumous inventory of this collection was published in 1841 as Catalogue des tableaux composant la galerie de feu son eminence le Cardinal Fesch — our fresco is listed there as item 739:

Plusiers figures de femmes, de grandes proportions. Une d’entre elles tient un pannier. Ce groupe faisait partie d’une grande peinture représentant la visite à sainte Elisabeth; ouvrage exécuté sur mur par Sebastiano del Piombo. Ces admirables figures ont été transportées sur toile. Elles frappent merveilleusement le spectateur par le style large et savant de leur exécution.

An annotation to this entry in the Getty art provenance database refers to a subsequent sale of this item on 17 March 1845 without specifying further details; thus the circumstances of its acquisition by the Rev. W. Davenport-Bromley remain to be clarified.

In his Life of Sebastiano del Piombo Vasari states that at his death Sebastiano had been working on a wall painting at Santa Maria della Pace, which he describes as: “bellissima pittura, perciò che dove ha fatto la Nostra Donna che visita Santa Lisabetta, vi sono molte femmine ritratte dal vivo, che sono molto belle e fatte con somma grazia.”

The group of women facing right depicted in the first Alnwick fragment is further illustrated by a preparatory drawing in black chalk at the British Museum portrays this group in full length, allowing us to appreciate the monumental grandeur of Sebastiano’s lost masterpiece. Its overall composition is known from a painting at the Galleria Borghese, while an anonymous sixteenth-century engraving provides a glimpse of an earlier stage in the work’s composition.

Mauro Lucco in his exemplary survey of Sebastiano’s work, co-authored with Carlo Volpe (L’Opera completa di Sebastiano del Piombo, 1982) made an attempt at identifying the precise spot where the fresco used to be.



The three fragments were recently loaned to the National Gallery in London for the “Michelangelo & Sebastiano” exhibition (15 March to 25 June 2017). They are described as being in Sebastiano’s late style and dated to c. 1533-36.