Giovanni Baglione
Italian, 1570-1644

The Ecstasy of St. Francis, 1601

Oil on canvas
61 1/8 x 46 in. (155.3 x 116.8 cm)
Bequest of Suzette Morton Davidson, 2002.378

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

Milan, Palazzo Reale, April – June 1951, Mostra del Caravaggio e dei Caravaggeschi, cat. 51.

Utrecht, Centraal Museum, June 15–August 3, 1952, and Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, August 10–September 28 1952, Carravaggio en de Nederlanden, cat. 6, ill.

Cleveland Museum of Art, October 27, 1971–January 2, 1972, Caravaggio and his Followers, cat. 3, ill.

Publication History

Domenico Montelatici,, Villa Borghese fuori di Porta Pinciana, (Rome, 1700), p. 216.

Roberto Longhi, “Baglione,” Encyclopedia Italiana 5 (1930-8), p. 851-853.

Michele de Benedetti, “Un Caravaggio già della Borghese ritrovato,” Emporium (July 1949), pp. 3-14.

Carla Guglielmi, “Intorno all’opera pittorica di Giovanni Baglione,” Bolletino d’Arte vol (1954), pp. 313-314.

Valentino Martinelli, “L’Amor divino ‘tutto ignudo’ di Giovanni Baglione e la cronologia dell’intermezzo caravaggesco.” Arte Antica e Moderna 5 (Jan./Mar. 1959), pp. 82-90.

Roberto Longhi, “Giovanni Baglione e il quadro del processo,” Paragone 163 (1963), pp. 23- 31.

Pamela Askew, “The Angelic Consolation of St. Francis of Assisi in Post-Tridentine Italian Painting,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 32 (1969), pp. 280-306.

Howard Higgard, Caravaggio, New York, 1985, pp. 58–60.

Renate Möller, Der römische Maler Giovanni Baglione : Leben und Werk unter besonderer Berücksichtigung seiner stilgeschichtlichen Stellung zwischen Manierismus und Barock, Frankfurt, 1991, pp. 50–53, 99–100, no. 13.

Roberto Cannatà, and Maria Lucrezia Vicini, La Galleria di Palazzo Spada: Genesi e storia di una collezione, Rome, 1994.

Stefania Macioce, Giovanni Baglione, 1566-1644 : pittore e biografo di artisti, Rome, 2002, pp. XX–XXI.

Maria Guilia Aurigemma, “Del cavalier Baglione,” Storia dell’arte 80 (1994), pp. 23-53.

Beverly Louise Brown, The Genius of Rome, exh. cat., Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2001, p. 270, fig. 98.

Larry J. Feinberg, “The Ecstasy of Saint Francis,” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 30, 1, Chicago, 2004, pp. 56-57 (color ill.).

Ownership History

Possibly Ciriaco Mattei, Rome, and heirs to 1631 [Francesca Cappelletti and Laura Testa, Il trattenimento di virtuosi: Le collezioni settecentesche di quadri nei Palazzi Mattei di Roma, Rome, 1994, pp. 169 (no. 136), 174 (no. 18), 184 (no. 74), and 199 (no. 79)]. Possibly Cardinal Bernardino Spada, Rome, to 1636 [see February 1636 inventory cited by Aurigemma, 1994]. Borghese Collection, Rome by 1650, probably until 1804 [Benedetti 1949, p. 4]. Cardinal Joseph Fesch, Rome [Benedetti, 1949, p. 4]; donated by him to the city of Lyon, France for a charity auction in 1836 [Benedetti 1949, p. 4]. M. Breval of Fontaine St. Martin, near Lyon [note in 1909 Louvre photo archive]. Henry Charles Ponsonby Moore, 10th Earl of Drogheda, London and Dublin, to 1947 [purchase document from Agnew, March 1959]; sold by Earl of Drogheda through Agnew’s, London, to Michele de Benedetti, Rome, in June 1947; consigned by Benedetti to Agnew’s, 1959 [purchase document from Agnew, March 1959]; sold by Agnew’s to Mrs. Suzette Morton Zurcher (died 2002) (later Davidson), Santa Barbara and Chicago, March 1959; bequest of Suzette Morton Davidson to the Art Institute, 2002.