The Sorrowing Virgin (Mater Dolorosa)

Carlo Cesare Malvasia, the Bolognese churchman who published Reni's life in 1678, recorded a boast. Reni said he felt able to paint heads with the eyes raised to heaven in 100 different ways. This Virgin is one of them. She is the Mater Dolorosa, the mother of sorrows of the medieval Latin hymn Stabat Mater, which opens with her standing in tears beside the cross. Reni painted her on copper between about 1617 and 1620, as one of a set of three ovals with a Christ crowned with thorns and a Saint John, and he gives her only a head and shoulders. The museum describes the expression he was after. She suffers as she watches the Passion, and yet her eyes, turned toward something higher, already seem to understand what the sacrifice is for. Guides to Rome were listing the picture in Palazzo Corsini as early as 1817.