INTRODUCTION
The exhibition celebrates the fortunate return to the Galleria Borghese of Giovan Francesco Penni’s Allegory of Good Hope, acquired on May 14, 2025 (lot 21) at the Pandolfini auction in Florence. Its provenance confirms a significant and illustrious connection with the Borghese collection.
This small, rounded panel, which reappeared on the art market in 2005, was originally part of Cardinal Scipione’s collection and is documented in an inventory from the third decade of the seventeenth century (Corradini 1998), described as: “Un quadro del ritratto d’una donna in piede con un fiore in mano tondo di sopra cornice negra, alto 1 ¼ largo 3/4. Raffael in tavola.” In this and subsequent inventories, it is paired with another work, also attributed to Raphael, of identical size and format: “Un quadro tondo di sopra con la Madonna, il Figliolo, e san Giovannino, alto 1 1/3 largo ¾ cornice negra. Raffael in tavola.” The latter description, however, is clearly mistaken; the painting actually depicts a standing female figure nursing two children, intended as a personification of Charity, or Latona. Following the late eighteenth-century sale, the two paintings left the collection for England.
For this exhibition, the pair is reunited and displayed alongside the contemporary and remarkable tondo Adoration of the Child with Saint Joseph and Saint John from the Abbey of the Most Holy Trinity in Cava de’ Tirreni (first half of the second decade of the sixteenth century), one of the few works securely attributed to Giovan Francesco Penni.
The public will thus be offered an in-depth look at a little-known painter with a limited yet significant body of work, who was active in Raphael’s workshop. The three works are on display in Room IX of the Museum, positioned alongside and in dialogue with those of the Master of Urbino. They also stand in relation to the works of Penni’s fellow pupil and associate, Giulio Romano, and those of Perin del Vaga, who worked from the same models—as evidenced by the comparison between his Nativity from the Borghese Collection and the Cava tondo. Finally, a reference is included to Leonardo Grazia da Pistoia, a pupil of ‘il Fattore’.