The Cleveland Museum of Art

• Provenance
  1969-

  The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio

  by 1968-1969

  (P.&D. Colnaghi & Co., Ltd., London), sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art 1

  Probably 1880-by 1968

  Corsini Collection, Florence, to Colnaghi 1

  Probably 1812-1880

  Barberini-Colonna di Sciarra collection, Rome, by descent to the Corsini collection

  1645-1812

  Cardinal Francesco Barberini [1597 –1679] by inheritance within the Barberini family, Barberini Palace, Rome, by descent to the Barberini-Colonna di Sciarra collection 1

  Provenance Footnotes

  1 1 Colnaghi’s records do not indicate the date they acquired the painting from Princess Corsini, but it was likely by December 1968, when Roderic Thesiger of Colnaghi wrote to Sherman Lee about the painting.  

  2 1 When Prince Carlo Felice Barberini-Colonna di Sciarra, Duca di Castelvecchio, died in 1880, his collection was divided between his two daughters, Anna [1840-1911], who married Prince Tommaso Corsini, and Luisa [1844-1906], who married Tommaso’s younger brother, Pietro Francesco Corsini.  It was probably at this time that the paintings entered the Corsini collection in Florence.

  3 1 In 1812 the Barberini collection was split between the Barberini and Colonna di Sciarra branches of the family; after the 1728 marriage of Cornelia Barberini to Giulio Cesare Colonna di Sciarra, the family was known as Barberini-Colonna, or Colonna di Sciarra.   The Casa Barberini inventory of 1844 lists the painting, “Venuta dei Magi,” as by Reni (no. 464).  The “F92” inscribed in the lower left corner of the painting is the fidecommesso number: These painted numbers were assigned c. 1816 upon the establishment of a fidecommesso (entailment), which meant that the Barberini inheritance could not be broken up, but had to remain intact from generation to generation. 

  4 1 A receipt dated April 21, 1645, documenting the final payment of 34 scudi to Giuseppe Reni, the artist’s heir, records the acquisition of the painting by the Barberini family: “To Giuseppe Reni thirty-four scudi are [paid] for the remaining and whole payment of the price of a painting, done by Guido Reni, which represents the representation of the Magi, delivered to our said service [?] Guardarobba…this day, April 21, 1645” (Biblioteca Vaticana, Archivio Barberini, Armadio 42, Registro di Mandati 1642-1648, Cardinal Francesco Barberini Mandato No. 2666 (new series)).  Due to its unfinished state, the painting was not included in the official inventories of the Barberini collection until 1844, when it was listed as “Venuta dei Magi, Guido Reni, al. p.i 15, lar. P.i 12.” 
• Citations
  Lee, Sherman E. "Guido Reni, The Adoration of the Magi." The Bulletin of The Cleveland Museum of Art LVIII no. 10 (December, 1971):278-289. Reproduced: cover; p. 278, fig. 1

  Emiliani, Andrea. "Un Viaggio Sconosciuto di Francesco Gessi." Arte Antica e Moderna I (1958): 53-57.
  Attributed to Francesco Gessi. Mentioned: P. 57; reproduced: pl. 26b

  The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Catalogue of Paintings, Part 3: European Paintings of the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1982. Reproduced: p. 394; Mentioned: p. 395-396

  Lee, Sherman E. "The Year in Review for 1969." The Bulletin of The Cleveland Museum of Art LVII no. 1 (January, 1970):2-51. Reproduced: p. 2, fig. 149; Mentioned: p. 49, no. 149

  Butler, Joseph T. "The American Way with Art." The Connoisseur 175, no. 700 (June 1970): 158-163. Mentioned: P. 161

  Garboli, Cesare, Guido Reni, and Edi Baccheschi. L'opera completa di Guido Reni. Milano, Italy: Rizzoli, 1971. Reproduced: no. 202; Mentioned: p. 114-115

  Sherman Lee, “Guido Reni: The Adoration of the Magi,” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 53, no. 10 (Dec. 1971): 278-289.

  Lavin, Marilyn Aronberg. Seventeenth-Century Barberini Documents and Inventories of Art. New York, NY: New York University Press, 1975. Mentioned: p. 32, Doc. 270, p. 511, p. 535

  Biblioteca apostolica vaticana, and Marilyn Aronberg Lavin. Seventeenth-Century Barberini Documents and Inventories of Art. New York: New York University Press, 1975.

  The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 137 archive.org

  Pepper, D. Stephen. "A New Late Work by Guido Reni for Edinburgh and His Late Manner Re-Evaluated." The Burlington Magazine 121, no. 916 (1979): 418-25. Mentioned: P.424, n. 30 www.jstor.org

  Reni, Guido, and D. Stephen Pepper. Guido Reni: A Complete Catalogue of His Works with an Introductory Text. Oxford: Phaidon, 1984.

  Myers, Bernard S. Encyclopedia of World Art. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1987. Reproduced: vol. XVI, pl. XL,

  Salvy, Gérard-Julien. Guido Reni. Paris, France: Gallimard, 2001. Reproduced: p. 158, fig. 208

  Olszewski, Edward J. The Inventory of Paintings of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni (1667-1740). New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2004. Reproduced: p. 327, fig. 43

  Olszewski, Edward J. Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni (1667-1740) and the Vatican Tomb of Pope Alexander VIII. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2004.

  Malvasia, Carlo Cesare, Elizabeth Cropper and.Lorenzo Pericolo. Felsina Pittrice/ Lives of the Bolognese Painters: A Critical Edition and Annotated Translation. Washington [D.C.]: Published for the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts; London: Harvey Miller, 2012. Reproduced: p. 428, fig. 294

  Christiansen, Keith. "Le Creation tardive d'une collection de peintures baroques au Metropolitan Museum of Art." In Aux origines d'un goût: la peinture baroque aux États-Unis = Creating the taste for baroque painting in America. Anna Ottani Cavina, and Keith Christiansen, 61-73. [Paris?] : Paris Tableau, 2015. Mentioned: p. 64, 70

  Grassi, Marco. "The American View of the Forgotten Century of Italian Painting: Reminiscences of a Conservator and Art Dealer." In Buying Baroque: Italian Seventeenth-Century Paintings Come to America. Edited by Edgar Peters Bowron, 40-53. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Frick Collection, The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017. Mentioned: p. 49

  "Accessions of American and Canadian Museums." The Art Quarterly XXXIII, no. 3 (Autumn 1970): 318-338. Reproduced: P. 328; mentioned: P. 323
• Exhibition History
  Year in Review: 1969. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 27-February 22, 1970).
• Cite this Page
  {{cite web|title=Adoration of the Magi|url=false|author=Guido Reni|year=1642|access-date=20 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}