The Portrait of Beatrice Cenci

Who was Beatrice Cenci and why is her portrait one of the most copied? ANTIQUES ROADSHOW takes a look at one of the most famous trials of the sixteenth-century.

This portrait of Beatrice Cenci attributed to Guido Reni hangs in the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica at Palazzo Barberini in Rome. (Wikimedia Commons)

Aug 8, 2016

BY Dylan Hayley Leavitt

“It was the O.J. Simpson trial of the day,” paintings expert Alan Fausel said regarding the story of Beatrice Cenci at the 2001 ANTIQUES ROADSHOW appraisal event in San Diego. The owner of a painting that bore resemblance to a 17th-century portrait of Cenci attributed to artist Guido Reni learned that the piece’s subject matter was legendary.

“This is probably one of the most famous paintings in the world…[and] it’s one of the most copied paintings ever,” Fausel said. The guest’s 19th-century fake Reni portrait of Cenci, purchased for $2,500, was given an auction estimate of $3,000 to $4,000 in 2001 and an auction estimate of $1,000 to $1,500 in 2016.

The fact that even a copy of the Reni painting holds some value reflects the ongoing fascination with Cenci's story. In the portrait, Reni depicts Beatrice Cenci dressed as a Sybil on the eve of her execution for plotting the murder of her wealthy and cruel father Francesco in 1599. Beatrice had been the victim of relentless sexual abuse by her father who also acted violently against the rest of the family. Having been pushed to her limits, Beatrice conspired with her family to have Francesco murdered. The Cencis were swiftly found guilty and despite the horrific domestic circumstances that drove them to violence, they were each sentenced to public execution and the youngest son to become a galley slave. This injustice against the Cencis has continued to haunt Rome's history and has inspired many artworks including paintings and sculpture. It is said, for example, that Caravaggio's gruesome painting of the beheading of Holefernes was inspired by the execution of Beatrice as the artist was present for the event itself.

In the 19th century, there was a resurgence of interest in the story of Beatrice Cenci. European tourists who visited Rome were captivated by the tale of the tragic heroine and inspired authors like Mary and Percy Bysshe Shelley, Alexandre Dumas, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Stendahl. Seeing the portrait of Cenci at the Palazzo Colonna was a virtual necessity to prove that one had visited Rome, and many copies of the painting were sold to American and European tourists as keepsakes, similar to how tourists experience da Vinci’s Mona Lisa today.

While the original portrait has been widely accepted to be painted by Reni and to portray Beatrice Cenci, there are dissenters who believe that the woman portrayed is an unidentified Sybil, the piece potentially painted by a student of Reni or another one of his contemporaries. "The discussion exists," Fausel said, “[and it] is probably correct, but this is so cemented in the history, it is akin to the controversy about Shakespeare not writing his plays.” Some historians claim that Reni was not even in Rome during the time of Cenci’s execution, evidence that corroborates the theory that the painting can only be attributed to Reni provisionally.

Independent of whether the subject matter has been properly identified, one thing holds true: the sitter in the painting can be seen to represent the story of Beatrice Cenci, with the subject’s haunting eyes, beauty, and dismay emanating from the canvas.

Appraisal: 19th-Century Copy of Reni Painting & Frame

Transcript

GUEST: My wife fell in love with that, uh, picture because of the haunting eyes of the subject. And she was told that it was the painting of a Moroccan girl.

APPRAISER: Okay.

GUEST: And because it was so beautiful and the setting so unusual, we had to have it, so she bought it.

APPRAISER: Yeah. This is probably one of the most famous paintings in the world.

GUEST: Is that so?

APPRAISER: It's one of the most copied paintings ever.

GUEST: Really?

APPRAISER: Um, this is a copy of a famous painting that's in Rome. It's a painting that supposedly is painted by Guido Reni around 1640 in Rome of an unfortunate woman by the name of Beatrice Cenci. And Beatrice Cenci was a young woman who got caught up in a problem with her family. And it, and it ended up with incest and murder and violence and mayhem. It was the O.J. Simpson trial of the day.

GUEST: Oh, my.

APPRAISER: And this was supposedly painted by Guido Reni the night before she was to be executed.

GUEST: Is that right?

APPRAISER: Hm. And it's, there's a great legend. The painting is still today in Rome. And in the 19th century, the author Shelley wrote a poem called "The Cenci" describing all of this. And people read it, it was a, it was a, a very popular poem in, in the 19th century. When Americans and Europeans would go to Europe, and they would go to Rome, this was the first place they would stop.

GUEST: Is that right?

APPRAISER: Because they remembered Shelley's poem, they remembered the story of the Cenci, and they'd go see this poor, unfortunate, um, young woman and her painting. Now, the Romans, being smart-- the young Roman painters-- would make copies of this painting to sell to the tourists who come by. And this would be like a, a postcard or a, a, a souvenir that you would take back from Rome back to the United States. And you think about it today, this is a little large to put on the 747.

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: But, in those days, you would go for months with huge pieces of furniture and luggage and whatnot. You'd take all this back. Now, this painting probably came back without a frame. One of the great things about this is this frame. The frame is, is a lot of value. This is an American frame from the mid-century, the mid-19th century. The whole piece, I, I know you paid, what, about $2,500 for it?

GUEST: That's correct. That's about what they're worth. They sell for about those. This one may be a little bit more with the, this nice frame. Probably about $3,000, $4,000 for, for...

GUEST: I see.

APPRAISER: I- I've sold them before. But again, it's something we see all the time, I, and it's nice to be able to, to see what it, and tell people what, what it is exactly, so they know that it's, um, a, a, a real copy of an old master and, and not an original.

GUEST: That's wonderful, well, thank you very much.

APPRAISER: Well, thank you, thanks for coming.