Although details of Orazio Borgianni’s life are scarce, he created a body of work that was highly idiosyncratic, characterized by a masterful and dramatic handling of light. Born in Rome, he was itinerant in the early part of his career, going to Sicily where his first signed and dated work, of 1593, was made for the church of San Domenico in Taormina. He returned to Rome and then left shortly after for Spain, traveling extensively and securing significant commissions, including the series of pictures in the Convento de Portacoeli in Valladolid. By 1606, Borgianni had returned and settled in Rome, elected as a member of the Accademia dei Virtuosi al Pantheon in 1610, where he was introduced by Antiveduto Grammatica. Borgianni made striking use of color in his early maturity, showing the Venetian influence of Jacopo Bassano and Tintoretto, in pictures such as the Nativity of the Virgin (Santuario della Misericordia, Savona). This opulent coloring gave way to a more marked Caravaggesque influence in the latter part of his career, with a more dramatic use of chiaroscuro and a heightened sense of realism.
This newly discovered canvas, whose attribution to Borgianni has been confirmed by Gianni Papi (private communication, 15 July 2019), shows Saint Christopher carrying the Christ Child. It was clearly a subject that held particular appeal for Borgianni, and one to which he returned on a number of occasions in his career. Giovanni Baglione, his biographer, records at least two versions: the first dated to after his return from Spain, described as ‘Un s. Christoforo con Giesù Bambino in spalla di grandissima forma, che mostra di portar gran peso, & è felicemente condotto’. The other, Baglione records, was kept in San Lorenzo in Lucina, a picture that Borgianni left in his will to the Carmelite fathers of Santa Maria della Scala, requesting that it be placed near to his tomb in the church of San Lorenzo; there is, in fact, though, no early record of it being displayed in the church.
The best-known version is now recognized as the canvas in Edinburgh. Papi also records an autograph version published by Hermann Voss (location unknown), together with a somewhat larger version than the present example in a private collection published by Benedict Nicolson (B. Nicolson, The International Caravaggesque Movement, Oxford, 1979, p. 25) and a further one measuring 267 x 158 cm. discovered in Gelves, near Seville. It is possible that the last was the same picture that previously belonged to Juan de Lezcano, the secretary of the ambassador Francisco de Castro and one of Borgianni’s key patrons from his time in Spain, after which Borgianni executed an etching.