The Adoration of the Magi

(Innocenzo Tacconi)

This extraordinarily well-preserved canvas represents an episode from Saint Matthew (2:11) which tells how the three kings or wise men, Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar followed the star to Bethlehem and came to worship the Christ Child. Caspar, the eldest, bearing a gift of gold, kneels before the Child. Behind him stands Balthazar, a moor, holding an elaborate vessel containing myrrh, while Melchior, wearing a crown and holding a censer containing incense, indicates the comet which has guided them safely to the crib in Bethlehem. In the left background there is a group of notables and in the lower left foreground there are two Bassano inspired dogs, which, tradition has it, accompanied the wise men on their travels. The ruins of an ancient building form a backdrop to the stable sheltering the Holy Family and these probably represent the decay and decline of pagan temples before the impending spread of Christianity.

The elegance and harmony of the composition suggests the hand of a Bolognese artist whose formation was within the Carracci academy. The delicate tonality is not dissimilar from Domenichino’s. This is especially apparent in the polished, clear colouring which is carefully balanced to add solemnity to the figures, while the minutia and detailed decorations are finely observed. This attention to detail helps confirm an attribution to Innocenzo Tacconi.

Tacconi’s Adoration not only shows the heritage of Annibale’s studio, but also the artist’s distinct knowledge of Ferrarese and Venetian painting, especially the ideas formulated earlier in the century by Scarsellino and Jacopo Bassano. This is particularly noticeable not only in the background, but also in some of the secondary figures. The attention to illustrative detail is typical of Tacconi’s work and can also be observed in his Crucifixion with Saints Francis and Antony of Padua and Rinaldo and Armida. Emilio Negro has remarked on Tacconi’s tendency to emulate the style of Domenichino, rather than that of Annibale Carracci’s worked out compositions. This he suggests might mean that this jewel like Adoration was executed after Annibale’s death in 1609 when Tacconi would have been more open to alternative influences. Nevertheless, the two foreground figures of the kings are so close to similar figures by Annibale, indeed the foreground is so much more finely wrought than the remaining staffage, that it is hard to imagine that Annibale did not have some input into the design. The figure of the Virgin is based on the eponymous figure in the 1586-7 Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine (Naples, Museo di Capodimonte – fig. 1), while the meticulously observed drapery, elaborately pleated and folded, is entirely Annibalesque and Caspar is dressed in a richly embroidered robe inspired by that worn by Truth in Annibale’s celebrated 1584-5 Allegory of Truth and Time (London, Hampton Court – fig. 2). Finally, the typology of Melchior is almost identical to the crowned kneeling saint to the left of Tacconi’s Cappella della Manica Lunga altarpiece in the Quirinale, which is dated to 1597 (fig. 3).

It is hard to imagine quite why Tacconi would have harked back to compositions realised by his master twenty-five years earlier. It seems more probable that this Adoration of the Magi was painted rather earlier in his career, maybe under the direct eye of Annibale around 1597-1600.

Private collection, New York (erroneously attributed to the French School c. 1650).