The Fall of Simon Magus (c. 1745–50): Art, History and Details

The Fall of Simon Magus (c. 1745–50) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Pompeo Batoni (Italian, 1708–1787).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Saints Peter and Paul came to Rome to win converts to Christianity soon after Christ’s death, while Simon Magus, claiming to be the son of God, attempted to prove his divinity by flying. Due to Saint Peter’s prayers, the demons supporting Simon abandoned him and he plummeted to his death. This work is probably a studio copy after a lost oil sketch for a huge altarpiece commissioned in 1746 for Saint Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican. Because of the humidity in Saint Peter’s, which quickly ruined paintings, the work was to have been translated into a massive mosaic. However, for reasons that remain unclear, Batoni’s mosaic was never created.

Object facts

• Title: The Fall of Simon Magus
• Date: c. 1745–50
• Creator attribution: Pompeo Batoni (Italian, 1708–1787)
• Culture: Italy
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 207 x 133 x 10.5 cm (81 1/2 x 52 3/8 x 4 1/8 in.); Unframed: 183 x 108 cm (72 1/16 x 42 1/2 in.)
• Collection: P - Italian 18th Century
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1983.217

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Arnaud, Odette. "Subleyras." In Les Peintres Français du XVIIIe Siècle, Histoire des Vies et Catalogue des Oeuvres. Louis Dimier, ed., 49-92. Paris: Les Éditions G. van Oest, 1928.
• Barsali, Isa Belli. "Documenti Vaticani per il Batoni." Studi Romani XXI, no. 3 (July-Sept. 1973): 366-372.
• Turner, Evan H. "The Year in Review for 1983." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art LXXI, no. 2 (February, 1984): 39-79.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.