# Bust of Cardinal Scipione Borghese, first version > Gian Lorenzo Bernini - 1632 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/gian-lorenzo-bernini/bernini-bust-of-cardinal-scipione-borghese/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-19 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Gian Lorenzo Bernini - **Date:** 1632 - **Medium:** Carrara marble - **Dimensions:** Height 77.2 cm. The second version, inv. CCLXVI, is given by the museum at 78 cm. - **Object type:** Sculpture - **Period:** Italian Baroque, seventeenth century - **Current location:** Galleria Borghese, Rome - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary In 1632 Bernini carved a marble bust of Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the patron who had made him. As the work was being finished a fault opened in the stone and ran across the sitter's forehead. Bernini carved the whole thing again from a fresh block. Both busts survive, both are autograph, both are in the Galleria Borghese, and they are within a centimetre of each other in height.The detail that no summary carries is what the cardinal did next. He put the DAMAGED bust in the Room of the Emperors, among the busts of the Caesars, and the flawless replacement upstairs in the villa gallery. The object with the fault got the better room. Two further facts are almost never printed: the replacement block was flawed as well, and the commission was placed not by Scipione but by the reigning pope, Urban VIII.Both busts were sold at auction. On 28 March to 9 April 1892 the firm of Giacomini and Capobianchi held the first sale of Borghese works that had been EXCLUDED from the family entail, and the pair went as lot 341 to the Italian state. They then sat in the Accademia in Venice until 1908. This is the sharpest version case in the archive: two objects made by the same hand in the same year of the same man, told apart by a fissure running up a brow and a Roman numeral painted in red on a socle. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **1632-1633** Cardinal Scipione Borghese, Villa Borghese Pinciana, Rome `[documented]` (commission and first ownership) Carved in 1632 and in the cardinal's collection in that year. The Galleria Borghese states the portrait was commissioned to Bernini by Pope Urban VIII, not by the sitter. Scipione himself paid Bernini 500 scudi in December 1632 (Vatican Secret Archive, Borghese Archive, Registro dei Mandati, fol. 252, no. 491, published by Hibbard, 1961); the Estense archive separately reports a papal recompense of 500 zecchini and a diamond worth 150 scudi. The cardinal displayed this bust, the first version with the crack across the forehead, in the Room of the Emperors among the busts of the Caesars, and the flawless second version in the gallery on the first floor. He died in 1633. - **1633-1892** The Borghese family, Rome `[documented]` (descent within the family, outside the entail) The bust remained in the Villa Borghese Pinciana and passed down the Borghese line. It was recorded in the Room of the Moor in the 1762 inventory and in Room 9, the Portrait Room, in the nineteenth century. Crucially, it was among the Borghese works EXCLUDED from the fideicommissum, the entail that protected the rest of the collection from dispersal. No individual family owner in this stretch is named in the sources consulted. - **1892-1908** The Italian state; the pair held at the Accademia, Venice `[documented]` (sale at auction and purchase by the state) Both busts were sold as lot 341 at Giacomini and Capobianchi, Rome, 28 March to 9 April 1892, at the first sale of the Borghese works excluded from the fideicommissum, and were bought by the Italian state. They were then conserved at the Accademia in Venice until 1908. This link corrects the widespread claim that the busts have never been on the market and that they entered the state collections with the rest of the Borghese material in 1902; that 1902 transaction, the acquisition of the fideicommissary collection with the villa and park for 3.6 million lire, is a different one ten years later. - **1908-present** The Italian state; Galleria Borghese, Rome `[documented]` (return to the Villa Pinciana and permanent display) Returned to the Villa Pinciana in 1908. Conservation treatments recorded in 1911 by M. Eugenio and in 1997 by C.B.C. Coop. a.r.l. Exhibited in Rome in 1930 at the Istituto di Studi Romani, at the Galleria Borghese in 1998, at Palazzo Venezia in 1999 and at the Galleria Borghese again in 2017-2018. Now displayed in Room 14, the Lanfranco Loggia. ## Auction results Hammer and buyer's premium are stated separately. Where a source conflates them this record says so. - **** , - AN EARLIER VERSION OF THIS RECORD STATED THAT NEITHER BUST HAD EVER BEEN AT AUCTION. THAT WAS WRONG AND IT IS CORRECTED HERE. Both busts were sold in a Rome saleroom in 1892 with a lot number, because they lay outside the Borghese entail. The correction was found by re-reading the museum's own catalogue entry, which carries the sale in a single clause. The second and third rows below are for a DIFFERENT Bernini marble, the Bust of Pope Paul V of 1621, which portrays this sitter's uncle; they are given because they are the best-documented modern market history of an autograph Bernini portrait bust. - **1892-03-28** Giacomini and Capobianchi, Rome, - Estimate: not published - Hammer: not published in the sources consulted - With premium: not published in the sources consulted - Lot 341, the pair of Bernini busts of Cardinal Scipione Borghese, in the first sale of the Borghese works excluded from the fideicommissum, held 28 March to 9 April 1892. Bought by the Italian state. The museum publishes the house, the dates and the lot number and no figure, which is the normal condition of a nineteenth-century Roman sale; there is no reason to assume a buyer's premium existed. This is the only recorded market transaction for either bust. - **2014-09** Auction in Bratislava, house not named in the source consulted, - Estimate: EUR 24,000 - Hammer: EUR 24,000 - With premium: not published in the source consulted - A DIFFERENT OBJECT: Bernini's Bust of Pope Paul V, 1621, consigned misattributed by the heirs of the Slovak painter Ernest Zmetak, unsold at an estimate of 47,000 euros in 2013 and sold here at its pre-sale estimate to an unnamed Slovak art dealer. Johann Kraftner, director of the Liechtenstein collections, states that he was offered the bust and courteously declined because its provenance was inconclusive. That is the most instructive refusal in this record: an institution with the money and the expertise passed on a genuine Bernini for exactly the reason this archive exists. - **2015-06-19** Private sale arranged by Sotheby's, Private treaty; no auction, lot Not applicable - Estimate: Not published - Hammer: Not applicable; no auction took place - With premium: NO PRICE WAS PUBLISHED AT THE ACQUISITION. USD 33,000,000 is later press reporting (Artnet, 27 July 2015) and is not corroborated by the Getty or by Sotheby's. - The History Blog's account of the acquisition, dated 19 June 2015 and read in full at rung 1 on 2026-09-05, says of the Getty in as many words that 'We don't know what they paid for it', while confirming everything else the record carries: the Getty was contacted by Sotheby's to arrange a private sale, the bust was carved in 1621, and it was one of a pair commissioned by Cardinal Scipione Borghese - the sitter of the object this record is actually about. So the sequence is: acquisition announced 19 June 2015 with no figure; USD 33,000,000 appears in Artnet's reporting five weeks later. The figure is left on the record and is left labelled as reporting; what changes is that the record no longer implies it was disclosed at the time, which is the whole point of the row - it is there to show what a private sale does not publish. A LEAD ON THE OPEN QUESTION, and it is a lead only: the record flags that the reporting is internally inconsistent, giving 1893 in one sentence and 1917 in another for the Viennese purchase. The History Blog gives 1893 as the date of a PHOTOGRAPH by which the bust was known to art historians while it was in unknown private hands, which is a plausible origin for a date sliding from a photograph onto a purchase. That is not a resolution and must not be written up as one; it names where to look. ## Exhibitions - Title not given in the museum's exhibition list, Istituto di Studi Romani, Rome, 1930 - Title not given in the museum's exhibition list, Galleria Borghese, Rome, 1998 - Title not given in the museum's exhibition list, Palazzo Venezia, Rome, 1999 - Title not given in the museum's exhibition list, Galleria Borghese, Rome, 2017-2018 ## Literature - 1682, Filippo Baldinucci, Vita del Cavaliere Gio. Lorenzo Bernino, pp. 18-20. The account of the crack described as a hair, and the fifteen nights. NOT CONSULTED IN THE ORIGINAL for this record; cited via the Galleria Borghese catalogue and the scholarly summary. - 1713, Domenico Bernini, Vita del Cavalier Gio. Lorenzo Bernino, p. 11. The three-day version and the account in which the cardinal asks for the bust to be shown to the pope. NOT CONSULTED IN THE ORIGINAL. - 1900, Stanislao Fraschetti, Il Bernini, p. 106ff, publishing the Estense archive report of the papal commission and the payment of 500 zecchini and a diamond worth 150 scudi. Cited by the Galleria Borghese; NOT CONSULTED IN THE ORIGINAL. - 1961, Howard Hibbard, 'Un nuovo documento sul ritratto di Scipione Borghese del Bernini', pp. 101, 105. Publishes the December 1632 Borghese payment of 500 scudi and is the source of the museum's provenance line. NOT CONSULTED IN THE ORIGINAL. - 1998, Michael Hill, 'Cardinal Dying: Bernini's Bust of Scipione Borghese', Australian Journal of Art 14, pp. 9-24. Listed in the Morgan Library's bibliography for the preparatory drawing. NOT CONSULTED; this is the first thing a researcher should read next. ## Open questions - Are the 500 scudi paid by Scipione Borghese in December 1632 and the 500 zecchini plus a diamond reported in the Estense archive one payment described twice, or two payments from two payers? The first is a Borghese household mandate; the second describes a papal recompense. Nothing consulted reconciles them, and the difference matters because it decides who actually paid for the object. - If Urban VIII commissioned the bust, why? A reigning Barberini pope commissioning a portrait of the previous pope's nephew, in the last year of that nephew's life, is a political act, and no source consulted explains it. - What did the Italian state pay for the two busts at the Giacomini and Capobianchi sale of 28 March to 9 April 1892? The lot number, 341, is published; the price is not. - Why were these two busts excluded from the Borghese fideicommissum when so much else was inside it? Exclusion is what put them in a saleroom, and the sources consulted do not explain the classification. - Why were both busts held at the Accademia in Venice until 1908, and under what arrangement? Sixteen years in another city is unexplained in the museum's own provenance note. - Has either bust been examined technically? No published report of surface analysis, ultraviolet examination or three-dimensional scanning of either marble was found. For an object whose identity question turns on two fissures, the absence of a published condition study on the cracks themselves is a real gap. - How many preparatory drawings were made? The Galleria Borghese describes the Morgan sheet as the only survivor of many; nothing establishes how many. - What became of the diamond worth 150 scudi reported as part of Bernini's recompense? ## Sources - [1] Galleria Borghese, online collection catalogue, entry for Bust of Scipione Borghese, inventory CCLXV. The museum's own record, re-read verbatim for this correction: 1632, Carrara marble, height 77.2 cm; 'commissioned to Gian Lorenzo Bernini by Pope Urban VIII'; the payment of 500 scudi in December 1632 with its Vatican archive citation via Hibbard 1961; the crack described by Baldinucci as a hair; fifteen nights per Baldinucci against three days per Domenico; the Room of the Emperors; 'purchased by the Italian state in 1892 on the occasion of the first sale of the Borghese works that were excluded from the fideicommissum (Giacomini & Capobianchi, Rome, 28 March - 9 April 1892, no. 341)'; 'It was then conserved at the Accademia in Venice until 1908, when it returned to Villa Pinciana'; the room history to Room 14, Lanfranco Loggia; the conservation record; and the four exhibitions. - [2] Galleria Borghese, online collection catalogue, entry for Bust of Scipione Borghese, inventory CCLXVI. The second version: 1632, marble, height 78 cm, squarer shoulders, more uniform polish, the horizontal fold between the last pair of buttons, the crack running from the lower right of the mozzetta through the centre to the upper left, and the pair's stay at the Accademia in Venice before returning to the Villa Pinciana in 1908. - [3] The Morgan Library and Museum, Drawings Online, Gianlorenzo Bernini, Portrait of Cardinal Borghese, IV, 176. Red chalk over graphite on laid paper, 253 x 184 mm, about 1632, catalogued as 'possibly a study for the marble in the Borghese Gallery'; the exhibition label on Bernini's portrait method; the Richardson verso inscription; the Richardson, Lawrence and Fairfax Murray provenance and the 1909 Morgan purchase; and the bibliography, which lists Michael Hill, 'Cardinal Dying: Bernini's Bust of Scipione Borghese', Australian Journal of Art 14 (1998), 9-24. Fetched via the in-app browser after the site returned a bot challenge. - [4] Metropolitan Museum of Art, collection record for Giuliano Finelli, Cardinal Scipione Borghese (1577-1633), accession 53.201, retrieved from the museum's public collection API. Marble, 1631-32, 81.9 x 78.4 x 40.6 cm, Purchase, Louisa Eldridge McBurney Gift, 1953, gallery 618, public-domain image status. - [5] Wikipedia, 'Two Busts of Cardinal Scipione Borghese'. TERTIARY, but it cites the two early lives by page (Baldinucci 1682, pp. 18-20; D. Bernini 1713, p. 11) and it is the source for the observation that BOTH biographies name Pope Paul V, who died in 1621, and that both accounts should therefore be treated with suspicion. Also the source for the Estense archive report of 8 January 1633 and for the Hibbard, Wittkower and Avery assessments. Flagged for replacement with Andrea Bacchi and Anna Coliva's Borghese catalogue and with the Hill article listed under source 3. - [7] Wikipedia, 'Giuliano Finelli'. TERTIARY. Used for Finelli's break with Bernini in 1629 over the Saint Helena commission awarded to Andrea Bolgi. Note that on the Apollo and Daphne foliage this source is hedged: Finelli 'is purported to have been slighted by failure to be recognized as the detail master' behind the group. This record follows that hedge. Flagged for replacement with Giovanni Battista Passeri's life of Finelli and with Jennifer Montagu on Roman baroque sculptural practice. - [8] Through Eternity Tours, 'Scipione Borghese: Cardinal and Collector'. TERTIARY. Used for the 1607 confiscation from the Cavaliere d'Arpino and its transfer to Scipione including the two early Caravaggios, and for the removal of Raphael's Deposition from San Francesco al Prato in Perugia on the night of 18 to 19 March 1608 and its subsequent declaration as the cardinal's private property. Flagged for replacement with the Galleria Borghese catalogue entries for those pictures. - [9] Artnet News, 27 July 2015, 'Slovakian Dealer Makes a Fortune with Resale of $33 Million Bernini Bust To Getty Museum'. The Bust of Pope Paul V: the 1893 auction, the Zmetak heirs' 2013 consignment at EUR 47,000 unsold, the September 2014 sale at EUR 24,000, the USD 33 m private sale to the Getty arranged by Sotheby's, and Johann Kraftner's refusal on provenance grounds. The article contains an internal inconsistency, giving 1893 for the Viennese purchase in one sentence and 1917 in another. Fetched via the in-app browser after the site returned HTTP 403 to a direct fetch. - [11] Wikimedia Commons file pages for the two Daderot photographs used as plates 1 and 2, wikitext read directly. Both are released cc-zero by the photographer with the underlying sculpture PD-old-100. The description text of the CCLXVI file wrongly repeats CCLXV; the filename is correct. The identification used in this record was made from the object itself, from the painted socle number and the position of the crack, not from the file metadata. - [12] thehistoryblog.com, web page cited for the Private sale arranged by Sotheby's sale of 2015-06-19. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.