The Princely Collections contain numerous portraits of family members and famous figures. Nonetheless, one regularly comes across anonymous sitters and unknown artists, obscure circumstances of acquisition or inexplicable reasons for a work being present in the Liechtenstein family holdings. The “Portrait of Gasparo Marcaccioni” is one such work.
Although the portrait has been in family ownership for generations, until only recently neither the painter nor the sitter had been securely identified. It is first mentioned as No. 282 in the first printed gallery catalogue of the Collections by Vincenzio Fanti issued in 1767, where it is described as a “portrait of a man unfurling a scroll upon which is drawn a diagram” and attributed to Erasmus Quellinus. Regarded as a “pictor ductus” (a learned painter), Quellinus was active in Antwerp and collaborated with Peter Paul Rubens.
Although the authorship of this painting was repeatedly questioned in the literature – latterly being ascribed to a Neapolitan master – until recently its description in the historical card index remained as a “half-length likeness of a man with a diagram” attributed to Quellinus, with the sitter interpreted as a mathematician on account of the drawing and numerals. Nonetheless, the drawing and legend “(NV)MERIS NATVRA GVBERNAT” on the unfurled scroll clearly identify him as Gasparo Marcaccioni. The portrait is mentioned in Giovanni Pietro Bellori’s “Le vite de' pittori, scultori et architetti moderni” – an important art-historical source – as a work by the Roman painter Carlo Maratti. Bellori includes it in the artist’s biography in the section dealing with his portraits, and even describes the scroll held by Marcaccioni in detail, noting that it depicts “li primi tre numeri pari dall’1 al 2, dal 2 al 4, dal 4 all’8; cosí li numeri dispari dall’1 al 3, dal 3 al 9, dal 9 al 27” (“the first three even numbers from 1 to 2, from 2 to 4, from 4 to 8; likewise the uneven numbers from 1 to 3, from 3 to 9, from 9 to 27”). Below this is the motto “NVMERIS NATVRA GVBERNAT” (Nature rules by numbers) – presumably an allusion to Marcaccioni’s profession as bookkeeper and minister to Cardinal Antonio Barberini.
A second version of this portrait has been preserved by descent from Marcaccioni in the Nappi Cancellieri Collection. However, in this work the inscription described by Bellori is missing. The link between the two works has not yet been satisfactorily explained. In an essay in the Burlington Magazine in 2012, Xavier F. Salomon examined the portrait from the Italian collection, its provenance and the family history of the Marcaccioni. While relatively little is known about the sitter, it can be presumed that he knew the artist through his employer, who was a patron of Maratti. Transactions related to commissions from the cardinal to the artist would have been conducted via his bookkeeper. In his turn a close friend of Maratti, Bellori was also part of the circle of Marcaccioni, who thus kept company with the artistic and cultural elite in Rome.
Why a portrait of Marcaccioni ended up in the Princely Collections is not yet clear. It must have been in the ownership of the Princes of Liechtenstein by the eighteenth century, since it bears the so-called wardship seal in the lower left-hand corner. This was applied to the paintings in the entailed gallery in 1733 at the behest of Prince Joseph Wenzel I in his role as ward of Prince Johann Nepomuk Karl I during the latter’s minority, and provides an important clue as to the provenance of the painting. Since very little art was acquired while Johann Nepomuk Karl was still his uncle’s ward, it may be assumed that the portrait by Maratti had already been added to the collection by one of his predecessors, either Johann Adam Andreas I or Anton Florian I. Both had contact with Maratti, who was one of the most famous and successful Roman painters of the age. Johann Adam Andreas commissioned a history painting from him, for which Anton Florian, who at the time was the resident imperial ambassador to the Holy See in Rome, acted as intermediary. Part of the correspondence relating to this acquisition has been preserved in the Princely Archives. The two cousins exchanged several letters discussing the commission and Maratti’s remuneration.
On 1 September 1691 Johann Adam Andreas also wrote to the Bolognese artist Marcantonio Franceschini, from whom he had commissioned paintings to decorate the prince’s new Viennese palaces, regarding one of the works he had ordered. The subject for this was to be chosen by Franceschini himself. Appended to the letter was a list of the paintings already commissioned from other artists, presumably for guidance and as an aid to choosing a motif that would be compatible with the overall design. It also mentions that Maratti’s history painting had already been ordered and its subject determined: “Carlo Morati, una Persabea”. This was a painting depicting Bathsheba bathing that was long believed to have been lost but was rediscovered in the holdings of the Wien Museum in 2016.
As a work commissioned by Prince Johann Adam Andreas I, the latter painting was also described in detail by Bellori. However, it was discarded from the collection in 1920. Prince Johann II put it up for sale at the Glückselig auction house, where it was acquired by the furniture manufacturer Max Schmidt. After his death in 1935 Schmidt bequeathed the work as part of the furnishings of Schloss Pötzleinsdorf to the City of Vienna, which incorporated them into the holdings of the Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien, as the Wien Museum was formerly known.
To date no mention of Maratti’s “Portrait of Gasparo Marcaccioni” has been found in the Princely Archives, and thus the circumstances in which this work came into the Princely Collections remain unexplained for the time being.