The lost Rembrandts
The lost rembrandts
This page contains additional material and images related to the story of the Rembrandt paintings in Chapter 8 of my book A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks.
In 2006 a reorganisation of the Sauli family archive in Genoa led to an amazing discovery. Among the papers were letters from 1665-7 between a wealthy member of the family, Francesco Maria Sauli, two shipping agents in Amsterdam named Benzi and Voet and a Genoese captain named Giovanni Lorenzo Viviano. At the time, Amsterdam was a hub of Genoese trade, with Genoese ships being built there and Genoese merchants based in Amsterdam exporting a wide range of goods to Spain and Italy. Benzi and Voet were major agents in this trade, specialising in books, atlases and paintings, and Viviano was in Amsterdam waiting for the completion of a new ship in which Sauli held a part-share. Sauli had decided to embellish the family chapel in Genoa, the Basilica of Santa Maria Assunta, with works from some of the greatest artists of the day – the French sculptor Pierre Puget, renowned Italian painters and, for a magnificent new altarpiece, none other than Rembrandt van Rijn. The story of this commission was a revelation because it was previously unknown – the paintings were lost when Captain Viviano’s ship was wrecked off the cost of Cornwall in October 1667 on its maiden voyage from Amsterdam to Italy.
When I began researching the Santo Cristo di Castello after first diving on the ‘Mullion Pin Wreck’ in 2018 I came across the publication of the letters by the Italian scholar Lauro Magnani in the Kroniek van het Rembrandthuis of 2007 (for a summary in English, see here). My search had been for anything on Viviano, who I knew had been captain of the ship from documentary evidence revealed soon after Peter McBride discovered the wreck in 1969. At the time of the first publication of the letters, the identification of Viviano’s ship – not mentioned by name in the letters – had not yet been made, and I realised that I was the first to make this connection with the Mullion Pin Wreck. Further research ultimately led to the chapter on the Santo Cristo di Castello in my book A History of the World in Twelve shipwrecks. Meanwhile, concurrent research by Italian scholars Renato Gianni Ridella and Luca Lo Basso added more detail on the history of the ship and led to the same conclusion, firming up the story even further. You can read Luca Lo Basso’s paper on his research in Il Tempio del Arti. Scritti per Lauro Magnani, published by the University of Genoa in 2022.
The two paintings were modelli – preparatory studies on a smaller scale that would have given Sauli a clear idea of the appearance of the final works. Appropriately for the church, one of the paintings was to show the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. Despite being modelli, the cost of the paintings revealed in the letters, over 1,000 guilders, and the months it took Rembrandt to complete them, suggests that they would have been major works of art in their own right. For me, knowledge that these paintings were on board gives a particular feel to diving at the site, which itself has a church-like aspect enclosed by the high walls of the surrounding cliffs, and to the artefacts that we have found, including church embellishments and one true work of art in its own right, a Corpus Christi sculpture. Certainly the association of the two lost Rembrandts with this wreck has been one of the most remarkable revelations of my career as an underwater archaeologist.
Click here for an article on this story by Dalya Alberge in the Sunday Telegraph on 6 January 2024.
Click on the images to enlarge:
The man who set the story in motion - Francesco Maria Sauli, pictured here towards the end of his life in 1698 by Gregorio de Ferrari (private collection).
A bill of lading from the two Genoese agents in Amsterdam responsible for the Rembrandt commission, Giovanni Battista Benzi and Giovanni Babriel Voet. This bill, never before published, is among the prize papers taken in 1667 from the Sacrificio d’Abramo, another richly-laden Genoese merchantman from Amsterdam that came to grief that year - not through shipwreck but as a result of being captured by English warships in the Irish sea while attempting to circumnavigate Britain. To my excitement, I discovered that her cargo included consignments split with the Santo Cristo di Castello, allowing me to build up a more detailed picture of the cargo being transported by Viviano alongside the paintings (photo: David Gibbins, The National Archives).
Plan of Amsterdam by Balthasar in 1625, showing the ships in the harbour where the Santo Cristo di Castello would have anchored and in the upper right the area of the Rozengracht, the unfashionable street near the city walls to which Rembrandt moved in 1658 after his fortunes had waned. In keeping with Dutch cartographic convention at the time, the map is shown with south at the top.
A 19th century view in Amsterdam of the Rozengracht (Roses Canal), giving a good idea of its appearance at the time when Rembrandt lived here and Captain Viviano visited him while the two paintings were being completed in 1666-7.
Modello by Rubens for his Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Antwerp Cathedral, shown in the next image. These two paintings give an excellent idea of the relationship between modelli and finished works. One difference is the size - the modello is just under a metre high, whereas the finished altarpiece is nearly five metres. It also shows that a modello could have great artistic merit in its own right (Mauritzhaus, The Hague).
Rubens’ Assumption of the Virgin Mary (1626) in the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp.
Front elevation of the Basilica of Santa Maria Assunta in Carignano by Rubens, showing its appearance in the early 17th century (Palazzi di Genova, 1622).
Interior of the Basilica of Santa Maria Assunta in Carignano showing the space in front of the two sculptures by Pierre Puget - the Blessed Alessandro Sauli and San Sebastiano, both completed in 1668 - where the altar was to have been placed.
Plan by Rubens of the Basilica of Santa Maria Assunta in Carignano, showing the central space beneath the dome where the altar with the Rembrants was to have been placed (Palazzi di Genova, 1622).
Detail of Pierre Puget’s San Sebastiano of 1668 in the Basilica of Santa Maria Assunta, Genoa - showing the exceptional quality of art that Sauli envisaged surrounding the Rembrandts.
We can only guess at what Rembrandt’s Assumption would have looked like - it may have had the standard iconographical elements of the scene in order to satisfy Roman Catholic taste in Italy, but with the characteristics of Rembrandt’s other late paintings. The possibilities are seen in this outstanding Assumption by Pierre Puget, thought to have been completed in 1665 and therefore only a year before Rembrandt’s commission by Sauli (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst / Antje Voigt).
Rembrandt was no stranger to losses through shipwreck - in the late 1640s he may have invested in several shipping ventures that ended in wreck. But the loss of the Santo Cristo di Castello may have been a particular blow at a time when he was probably hoping to revive his fortunes by selling more paintings to wealthy patrons in Italy. This painting by Ludolf Backhuysen shows Dutch merchant ships being driven into a rocky coast very reminiscent of the wreck site off Cornwall. It was completed in 1667, the very year of the wreck (National Gallery of Art).
This self-portrait by Rembrandt may have been completed in 1668 or 1669, not long after the wreck. Much debate has focused on the meaning of the two empty circles behind him, including the idea that they may represent artistic perfection. To me they seem a cypher for Rembrandt’s two modelli, lost with the Santo Cristo di Castello but not forgotten. The painting has been at Kenwood House, north London, since 1927, part of the collection bequeathed to the nation by Edward Cecil Guinness, 1st Earl of Iveagh (photo: David Gibbins).
Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait with Two Circles, displayed at Kenwood House as it might have been by an art collector in the 18th century (photo: David Gibbins).
The Rembrandt at Kenwood House is hung next to a painting by the great Dutch marine artist Willem van de Velde the Younger showing a fleet at anchor, with ships similar in appearance to the Santo Cristo di Castello - the ship on which Rembrandt’s two paintings were laden in 1667 (photo: David Gibbins).
The Daily Telegraph, 6 January 2024.
Click on this image to go to my page on the Santo Cristo di Castello, with many photos of the site and artefacts.