Christ before Caiaphas

Paolo da Caylina (Italian (Brescia), about 1485–about 1545)

Medium/TechniqueFresco transferred to canvas

Dimensions211.5 x 180.3 cm (83 1/4 x 71 in.)

Credit LineCharles Potter Kling Fund

Accession number45.5

On View

Not on view

ClassificationsPaintings

Collections

Europe

ProvenanceAbout 1535/1540, upper meeting hall of the confraternity of Santa Maria de Dom, church of SS Ippolito e Cassiano, Brescia, Italy (original commission) [see note 1]; 1897, frescoes removed and conserved by Giuseppe Steffanoni, Bergamo [see note 2]; 1898, still with Steffanoni. 1903, art market, Venice (?) [see note 3]. 1929, Antonio Carrer, Venice; 1929, sold by Carrer, through Piero Tozzi, to the Brummer Gallery, New York (stock no. P5843); May 31, 1929, sold by Brummer to William Randolph Hearst (b. 1863 - d. 1951), New York; August 13, 1941, sold by Hearst to the Brummer Gallery (stock no. N5203) 1945, sold by Brummer to the MFA for $15,000 [see note 4]. (Accession Date: January 11, 1945)

NOTES:
[1] This is one in a group of frescoes (MFA accession nos. 45.5 - 45.8, 45.768) that made up part of a cycle of the Passion of Christ in this room. In 1532, the church had been ceded to the confraternity; the members, in turn, commissioned the frescoes. The building is no longer extant; originally situated at the intersection of the Vicolo San Cassiano and the Via Tre Spade (present day Via Carlo Cataneo), it was demolished around 1900.

[2] The confraternity was suppressed in 1797, at which time the building was acquired by the city and the upper meeting hall was used as a school. During the second half of the nineteenth century, some of the frescoes were removed; these are today at the church of Santa Maria delle Consolazioni, Brescia, and the Svépmüvészeti Muzeum, Budapest. In 1897, the building was sold to the Società Telefonica di Brescia, the Brescia telephone company. Eleven remaining frescoes were taken down and sent to Bergamo for conservation. In 1898, six of these were selected by the Pinacoteca Tosio e Martinengo, Brescia. The remaining five must be those at the MFA. If additional scenes had completed the cycle, they have today been lost or destroyed. For more information, see Francesco de Leonardis, in Paolo da Caylina il Giovane, ed. Pier Virgilio Begni Redona (Brescia, 2003), cat. no. 50, pp. 165-174.

[3] According to Francesco de Leonardis (verbal communication, October, 2005), there is a letter of November, 1903, in the city archives of Brescia from the Soprintendenza (Superintendency of Venice) to the city of Brescia inquiring about the removal of the frescoes and suggesting that at that time they were on the Venetian art market. The response from the city of Brescia has not been located in the archives of the Regia Galleria di Venezia (the present day Accademia Gallery).

[4] MFA accession numbers 45.5 - 45.8 were purchased together for $15,000.