Full text of "The Ahmanson gifts : European masterpieces in the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art"

See other formats

THE /\HMARSON GIFTS

European Masterpieces in the Collection of the Los Angeles County Museum oj Art

m. ^^

■^*»«;^s<;

.:?^.

l»vvii

^^•*

^ ^ 4-". -a*-

THE AhMANSON gifts

European Masterpieces in the Collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Philip Conisbee Mary L. Levkoff Richard Rand

Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Published by the Los Angeles County
Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Boulevard,
Los Angeles, California 90056.

Editor: Gregory A. Dobie

Designer; Robin Weiss

Photographt-rs: Peter Brenner, Barbara Lyter,

and Steve Oli\er

Typesetter: Andresen Typographies, Tueson,

Arizona

Printer: Nissha Printing Co., Ltd., Kyoto,

Japan

COVER:

Philippe de Champaigne
Saini Augustine (detail)
Cat. no. 46

FRONTISPIECE:

Circle of Domenico Antonio Vaccaro
Samt Michael Casimg Satan into Hell (detail)
Cat. no. 24

Library of Congress
Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Los Angeles County Mu.seum of Art.

The Ahmanson gilts : Luropean
masterpieces in the collection of the Los
Angeles County Museum of Art / Philip
Conisbee, Mary L. Levkoff, Richard Rand,
p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and
index.

ISBN 0-87587-160-7 (pbk.)

1 . Painting, European — Catalogs.

2. Painting, Modern — Europe — Catalogs.

3. Ahmanson Foundation — Art
collections — Catalogs. 4. H. F. Ahmanson
& Company — Art collections — Catalogs.

5, Painting — Private collections —
California — Los Angeles — Catalogs.

6. Los Angeles County Museum of Art —
Catalogs.

I. Conisbee, Philip. II. Le\koff, Mary L.,
1953- 111 Rand, Richard. IV title.

ND454.Lh 1991

759.94 ' 074 ' 79494 — 1I1-20 91-18247

CIP

Contents

6 Horcwonl

Earl A. Poncll III

7 Editorial Note and Acknow Icdtjmcnts
Philip Conisbcc

8 A Model of Informed Patronage
Philip Conisbee

1 1 Catalogue

207 Index ol Artists

Foreword

iVrt has never been created in a social and economic vacuum. Few of the works
jiublishcd in this catalogue would ha\e come into existence without the informed
patronage ot either individuals or institutions (v\hether secular or religious) from
the fifteenth centurv through the earlv twentieth centurv. Most of these pieces were
produced tor the privileged, in whose exclusive preserve thev normally remained.
But the public art mu.seum, that noble creation of enlightened nineteenth-century
philanthropy, has made art a\ailable to a wide audience. While the context for
these works has radically changed, the enterprise of the modern museum also
requires infomied patronage. It necessitates considerable efforts of thought, w ill, and
generosity to bring fine artworks into the public domain, especially in these days of
upwardly spiraling prices and strong international competition. The Los Angeles
County Museum of Art has been extremely fortunate in receiving such enlightened
support trom The Ahmanson Foundation, se\eral members of the Ahmanson
family, and H. F. Ahmanson and Company, all of w horn have been consistently and
magnanimously generous to the museum's Department of Furopean Painting and
Sculpture during the last twentN' years.

While the focus of the catalogue is the remarkable group of European old master
paintings and sculptures that has come to constitute bv far the major concentration
of Ahmanson gifts to the museum, their other donations to the Departments of
Far Eastern Art, Indian and Southeast Asian Art, and Prints and Drawings should
also be acknow ledged. It should be mentioned as well that before the Ahmanson
benefactors turned their attention to the museum's collections with such good
effect, Howard F. Ahman.son provided the major funding for the building in w hich
the same collections are housed and which bears the .Ahmanson name. This
benefaction is discussed in more detail in the introduction.

The purpose of this \olume is to celebrate tw ent\ \ears of .Ahmanson gifts bv
publishing them all in full color, together with scholarly entries that present the
current state of know ledge about each piece. While it should be borne in mind
that the works discussed are complemented by the many other gifts and purchases
that make ii|) the European collection as a w hole, the quality of the .Ahmanson gifts
is consistently outstanding. .Among them are se\eral truly great masterpieces of
European art.

The catalogue is meant to be both a handv reference work tor tlu' art historian
and an enjoyable guide for museum visitors. It fulfills an important part of the
educational mission of the museum and is a just tribute to the outstanding
generosity of The .Ahmanson Foundation, the Ahmanson family, and H. F. Ahmanson
and Company

Earl A. Powell III
Director

Editorial Note and Acknowledgments

authorship ot this cataloiJUc was divided between the three members ot the
Department of European Painting and Sculpture: Mary L. Levkoff, assistant curator
of sculpture, Richard Rand, assistant curator of paintinw, and myselt. The entries (or
which we are each responsible arc signed with our initials. Richard Rand deserves
a special acknowledgment for taking on many additional administrative chores.

A wide range ot artists from the HItcenth century to the early twentieth century
is represented in the Ahmanson gifts to the department during the last twenty years.
This eclecticism, which reflects the ultimate goals of balance and comprehensiveness
for the collection, means that w ithin a total to date ot Htty-tvvo gifts there arc no
obvious stylistic or national groupings. Therefore the catalogue is arranged in
chronological order by date of acquisition, which at least gives some sense of how
the collection has developed. The reader should be reminded that the Ahmanson
presentations need to be seen against the background of the grow th of the collection
as a whole during this period. A good idea of the overall holdings can be had from
the museum's 1987 publication, European Painting and Sculpture in the Los Angeles
County Museum of Art: An Illustraled Summary Catalogue, which is complete up to 1986.

Many scholars have contributed directly or indirectly to this catalogue. In writing
it, v\e occasionally have had to stray rather far from our personal areas of expertise.
In such cases our reliance on the research of others has become proportionally
greater. Wc do not pretend to have said the last word about any of these artworks;
rather, we present the current state o( knowledge. We hojje that this celebratory
volume will be read not only by fellow art historians and curators but also by
a wider audience. The cited literature on each work is selective, although it
provides more than enough leads for the curious reader to take his or her own
investigations further

The scholars on whose previously published studies we have relied are specifically
acknowledged at the beginning of each entry. Others, sometimes anonymous, have
contributed information to our files. A special acknowledgment must go to Burton
Frederickson, senior curator for research at the J. Paul Getty Museum and director
of the Getty Provenance Index, w ho some years ago did much research on the
earlier acquisitions in this catalogue, research that remains unpublished in our
files. Of course any shortcomings arc entirely our ow n. We are also pleased to
acknowledge the invaluable support of our colleagues here at the museum, who
photographed, edited, designed, and otherwise assisted in the production ot this
catalogue. We are especially grateful to Peter Brenner, Martin Chapman, Bruce
Davis, Gregory A. Dobie, Julie Johnston, Mitch Tuchman, Robin Weiss, and Alison
Zucrow. Others we would like to thank are Trudi Casamassima, Mary Alice Cline,
Sandy Davis, Carol Dowd, Peter Fu.sco (former curator of European .sculpture and
decorative arts), Scott Schaefer (former curator of European painting and sculpture),
and Lee Walcott.

Philip Conisbee

Curator of European Painting and Sculpture

A Model of Informed Patronage

Howard F. Ahmaii.son anil the Alimanson
Gallen (photooraph bv Richard Gross trom
the Los Angeles Times special edition of
March 28, 1965, on the opening of the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art)

lIh- Alimanson name has lnvn continuousK linked with that ol the Los Angeles
County Museum ot Art since the mid-ighos, when the museum was established as
an independent entity and mo\ed west trom hxposition Park to its present Hancock
Park site. A substantial donation made possible the building of the Ahmanson
GallerN, now known as the Ahmanson Building, which was designed b\ William L.
Pereira and Associates. This structure housed all ol the permanent collection when
the new institution opened its doors in March ot 19(15. The museum has enjoyed
twenty-H\e years of spectacular grow th since then, but the .Ahmanson Building,
which itselt was expanded in 198^ with an addition tunded in part by a major lead
gift from The Ahmanson Foundation, remains a signiHcant monument to those
auspicious beginnings.

Hovyard K Ahmanson (1906—68), a graduate of the Uniyersity of Southern
California (USC), was the creator ot a great financial empire, controlled by H. F.
Ahmanson and Com]3an\', a holding compan\-, which re\oKed around his Los
Angeles-based Home Sa\ ings and Loan .Association, the largest institution ot its
kind in the LInited States. In addition Mr. Ahmanson had a number ot collateral
entcr|5rises: the Ahmanson Bank and Trust Company, the National .American
Insurance Company ot Omaha, and the Soiithern Counties Title hisurance Company
ot Los Angeles, along with other atfiliated hrm.s.

As one ot the community's most public-spirited citizens, Mr. .Ahmanson was
deeply concerned about the cultuial lite ot 1 os .Angeles and Southern Calitoinia and
in 1967 suggested that the region needed a cultural master plan; "We haye to find

out how manv art galleries we're going to need, how many symphonv orchestras
and theaters. There is a growing enthusiasm about culture, and we're going to have
more leisure for culture." Mr Ahmanson matched his words and his ambitions with
deeds and through a \ariety of significant benefactions to museums, libraries, and
the performing arts did much to stimulate the cultural life of the most dramatically
expanding community in the country. He also gave generously ot his time and his
counsel as a member of the board of trustees of the Los Angeles County Museum
of Art, the California Museum Foundation, the California Museum of Science and
Industrv, and USC; as a member of the board of governors of the Otis Art Institute
and the Pcrfonning Arts Council of the Music Center; and as a trustee of the John F.
Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. In addition to the
Ahmanson Building at the museum the Ahmanson name v\as given to the Ahmanson
Theatre at the Music Center and, in the sphere of medicine, to the Ahmanson
Center for Biological Research at USC. Most recently, in 1986, a building was named
for Mr Ahmanson at the California Museum of Science and Industry

The importance of Howard F. Ahmanson to the early development of the
museum cannot be exaggerated. He was a prime mo\er in securing the support
of the County Board of Supervisors for the concept of an art museum and in
encouraging them to make a\ailable the site in Hancock Park. When fund-raising
began, although Hdward W Carter, Sidney Brody, and Kathryn Gates led the
campaign, it was the two-million-dollar gift from Mr Ahmanson for the Ahmanson
Gallery that con\ inced the board of the museum that it could raise sufficient funds
and got the campaign off to a successful start.

Mr Ahmanson was a noted collector of art, and a number ot important \\ orks
from his personal and corporate collections ha\e been gi\en to the museum by
H. F. Ahmanson and Company, his first wife, Dorothy G. Sullivan, and their son,
Howard F. Ahmanson, Jn These gifts and their provenances are duly recorded in
the catalogue. Mention should be made here of the masterpiece acquired bv
Mr .Ahmanson in 1959, Rembrandt's The Raising of Lazarus, which was given to
the mu.seum in 1972 in Mr Ahmanson's memory by H. F. Ahmanson and Company,
a gift that instigated the Ahmanson donations of old master paintings, w hose
twentieth anni\ersary is celebrated with the present publication.

Support for cultural acti\ities of various kinds has come mainly through The
Ahmanson Foundation, which was incorporated in 195^2 as an independent body in
California w ith funds pro\ ided h\ Howard F. Ahmanson and Dorothy G. Sullivan.
Other donors include William H. .Ahmanson and Robert H. Ahmanson, both
nephews. While the .'\hmanson name is displayed with justifiable pride on several of
the most prestigious cultural buildings in Los Angeles, this is but a .small measure ot
Ahman.son philanthropy in the cultural and educational life ot this area. The
Ahmanson Foundation has given wide support, primarily in Southern California
(with major emphasis on Los .Angeles County), to the arts and humanities,
education, medicine and health, and a broad range of social w eltare programs. The
president of The Ahmanson Foundation since 1974 has been Robert H. Ahmanson.
During his term of service support for the acquisition of European paintings and
sculptures of the very highest quality by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art has
been especially generous. It is no exaggeration, nor a slight to the museum's many

other generous benefactors, to say that the combined efforts of H. F. Ahmanson
and Company, the Ahmanson family, and, above all. The Ahmanson Foundation
have resulted in the museum now displaying one of the \erv finest collections
of European old masters to be seen in America. Thcv form a part, albeit a \ery
significant one, of a major collection of European paintings and sculptures, the
ultimate goal for w hich is the representation of the significant artistic movements
from the Middle Ages to the end of the nineteenth centurv.

If The Ahmanson Foundation has been especially generous to the museum in
supporting such acquisitions for the edification and enjoyment of the ever-growing
public, this should be seen as a significant part of much broader cultural and
educational programs of support, v\ hich are referred to above. To limit the
discussion here to education and culture, but not to forget important contributions
to health, medicine, and social services. The Ahmanson Foundation has extended its
philanthropy to almost every important museum, library, educational and cultural
foundation, and performing arts organization in the Los Angeles area for buildings,
galleries, endowments, .scholarship.s, and library, archive, and art acquisitions.

It is virtually impossible in a brief introduction to make even a representative
selection from the thousands of grants made by The Ahmanson Foundation since
the mid-1970s, but all the major museums have been the recipients of funding for
building programs of one kind or another Major grants for visual and performing
arts structures have gone to Pepperdine University, USC, Scripps College, the
Music Center, and the Orange County Center for the Performing Arts, while the
construction and expansion of libraries has been assisted at USC, the Universitv of
California at Los Angeles (UCLA), California Lutheran College, and the Universitv
of San Diego, to name only the larger projects. Support for library acquisitions has
ranged from grants to the Los Angeles Public Library to replace materials lost in
a devastating arson fire in 1986 to major and continuing funding of collections of
international prestige and scholarly importance such as the Huntington Librar\- and
Art Gallery and the UCLA Biomedical Library. An especially distinguished project
has been to help the Department of Special Collections in the UCLA Universitv
Research Library to build its holdings of earh Italian Renaissance printing,
especially the works of the humanist scholar, teacher, printer, and publisher, Aldus
Manutius. The first fascicle of the scholarly Ahmanson-Murph\- .Mdine Collection
catalogue appeared in 1989, with Ahmanson Foundation support. Thus The
Ahmanson Foundation is playing a significant role in making the libraries of Los
Angeles collectively into one of the great bibliographical centers of the \\ orld.
There have also been manN' grants in support of institutional academic scholar-
ships, performances, and cultural broadcasting.

The model patronage outlined above has made a significant impact on the
cultural life of Southern California. The present catalogue is a record of one of
the most consistent acts of Ahmanson generositv to a cultural institution.

Philip Conisbee

Catalogue

Several Ahmanson oifts on \ie\v in the
Ahmanson Buililing, 1991

Note to the Reader

The entries are arranged m chronological order b\ date of acquisition, beginning with
Rembrandt's The Raising ot Lazarus (Mj2.6j.2). accoutred in 191^- ond ending with
Troyon's View at La Ferte-Saint-Aubin, near Orleans (M.91.36), acquired in 1991 (the first
two numerals in the accession number indicate the year of acquisition). Dimensions for paintings
are given as height by width; for sculptures, height by width by depth. The Select Literature
section of each entry lists particular sources where the museum's artwork is specif cally
mentioned; general references to these sources in the text take the place of specific citations.
Notes are utilized, however, when greater specificity is desired.

The Raising of Lazarus

Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn

Dutch, 1606—69

c. 1630

Oil on panel

37'Vi6 X 32 in. (96.4 X 81. J cm)

Gift of H. F. Ahmanson and Company in
memory of Howard F. Ahmanson

M.72.b7.2

Provenance:

Probably Amsterdam, collection of the artist,
until i6{6.

Possibly Amsterdam, Johannes de Renialme,
by 1657.

Possibly Amsterdam, Abraham Fabritius,
by 1670.

Possibly Amsterdam, Pieter le Moine, by 1674.

Possibly Middlebur^, David Grenier sale,
18 August 1712, no. 96.

Possibly Amsterdam, sale, 4 June 1727, no. 2.

Amsterdam, Philippus Joseph de Jariges sale,
14 October 1772, no. 24.

Leipzig, Gottfried Winckler II, until 1795.

Leipzig, Gottfried Winckler III.

St. Petersburg and Gene\a, Jean Francois
Andre Duval, by 1812.

London, Duval sale, 12—13 '^^y '^4^-: no- n^-
Paris, C'omte de Morny sale, 24 May i8f 2,
no. 17.

F^ris, Jules Beer sale, 29 May 1913, no. 52.

Paris, Charles Sedelmeyer (dealer), 191 3.

Paris, Vicomte de Brimon.

Paris, Charles Sedelmeyer (dealer), 1920.

London, R. Langton Douglas (dealer), by 1932.

Shanzmiile, Solothurn, Switzerland,
Madame Dubi-Miiller (on extended loan to
the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam), 1932— jg.

Los Angeles, Howard F. Ahmanson, 1959-72.

Select Literature:

Abraham Bredius, Rembrandt: The Complete
Edition of the Paintmcfs^ 3d ed., revi.sed by
Horst Gerson (London: Phaidon Press, 1969),
454, 604, no. 538.

Wolfgang Stechow, "Rembrandt's Repre-
sentations of the 'Raising of Ijzarus,' " Los
Angela County Museum of An Bulletin 19, no. 2
(1973): 6-11.

Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research
Project, yi Corpus of Remhrandt Pointings: Volume
I, 162S-1631 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff
Publishers, 1982), 293—308, no. .'^30.

Gary Schwartz, Rembrandt: His Life. His Paintings
(New York: Viking, 1985), 82, 84-87.

Ihi:

Lhi.s wholly autograph painting is a key picture from Rembrandt's early period
in Leiden, when he set up his o\\ n studio and became an independent master. It
was through dramatic depictions of such New Testament subjects as this one that
Rembrandt was first recognized as a painter of exceptional genius.

The eleventh chapter of John tells the story of Lazarus of Bethany, \\ ho was the
brother ot Mary Magdalene and Martha. When Jesus heard that Lazarus was sick,
he went to see him, only to Hnd that Lazarus had been dead for lour days. Jesus
nevertheless ordered the tomb opened and, in\oking the power of God, resurrected
the dead man. Rembrandt's painting shows the most dramatic moment of the story.

Rfmbrandt

Detail

when Christ cries out, "Lazarus, come forth," and Lazarus, still bound in his burial
shroud, lifts his head from the stone tomb. As prescribed in the biblical text, the
scene is set in a gloomy cave, lit only by the light that filters in from the entrance
at left. The penumbra! composition reveals itself gradually: only after the eye
records the triangular positioning of the commanding Christ, the amazed Marv,
and the rising Lazarus do other details emerge. At the lower left the shadowy figure
of Martha, dressed in mourning clothes, faints back in awe; at the top right a sword
in its sheath, a bow and quiver, and a turban hang on the craggy cave wall; and just
to the right of Christ's firmly planted left foot a half-\ isible group of spectators
presses forward.

These localized areas ot \isual interest, separated by passages
of shadow, interact dynamically, guiding the viewer's eye through
the composition in a deliberate sequence. Rembrandt utilized this
strategy in a number of pictures painted during his early years in
Leiden. The most celebrated of this type is Judas Returning the Thirty
Pieces of Silver (private collection, England), which is signed and dated
1629. hi composition and lighting it is closely related to the museum's
panel. Both paintings share details such as the motif of armor hang-
ing on the wall. Based on the.se similarities, most scholars date The
Raising of Lazarus to shortly thereafter, about 1630.

Rembrandt was born in Leiden, a university tow n and leading
textile production center His early biographer, Jan Orlers, relates
that at a voung age Rembrandt was enrolled in the local Latin
.School but later w ithdrew and entered the studio ot Jacob van
Swanenburg, a noted Leiden painter. Rembrandt trained w ith him
for three years before moving to Amsterdam, where he was appren-
ticed to Pieter Lastman in the fall of 1622. Lastman's Hagar and the
Angel (cat. no. 37) embodies the sort ot clear-headed, meticulously
realized composition that Rembrandt would have emulated at this
earlv stage. About six months later he returned to his hometown and
established his own studio.
In the ensuing years Rembrandt painted a number of historical subjects in the
style of Lastman but in the latter part of the decade was draw n to the painters of
the Utrecht school, such as Gerrit van Honthorst and Hendrick Terbrugghen, both
of whom had recentK returned from ItaK'. These artists had been much impressed
by the inno\ati\e paintings ot Cara\aggio, and Rembrandt adopted their dramatic
use ot light and shade and the tocused expressi\e ettect ot their compositions. A fine
example ot this type ot painting is his Hannah and Simeon ;n the Temple (Kunsthalle,
Hamburg), datable to 1627-28, which was painted for Frederick Hendrik, the Prince
of Orange. This new tenebrist style would be completely realized in The Raising
of Lazarus.

During this period Rembrandt became a successful local painter and took on his
first students, the most important of whom was Gerard Dou. The organization ot
Rembrandt's studio at this time is unclear, but it is generalK thought that he shared
a workshop with another up-and-coming painter, Jan Lie\ens; indeed the styles ot
the two artists in these years are remarkably alike, a situation that has sometimes

Rembrandt

Fig. la

Jan Lievens, The Raising of Lazarus, 1631, oil on

canvas, 4i'/4 x 44V4 in. (104.8 .\ 113.7 cm), the

Roval Pa\ ilion .'Krt Gallerv and Museum,

Brighton.

led to confusion in attributions. The relationship between the two e\identlv was
quite producti\e, for at the end of the decade both were singled out for praise by
Constantijn Huvgens, an important connoisseur and secretary to the Prince ot
Oranwc. In a revealing passage in his memoirs, written in 1629 or 1630, Huygens
directly compares the art of Lievens and Rembrandt, admiring especially Lievens 's
abilities as a portraitist while lauding Rembrandt for his mastery of \ isual expression
and authentic emotion.

Rembrandt's The Raising oj Lazarus presents an instructive example of Huygens 's
comparison, since Lievens too painted a version of the subject, which is signed
and dated 1631 (hg. la). In fact the theme occupied both artists for a time; during
the early 1650s Rembrandt made a drawing of the story (fig. ib), and Lievens and
Rembrandt each produced a print (figs, ic and id). Apparently stimulated by each
other's creativity, the artists experimented w ith several possible interpretations ot
the subject, responding and reacting to the progress the other was making. Encour-
aged by Huygens, the relationship ot the two painters turned into a triendlv rivalrv.

The exact connection between these five depictions of Lazarus has vexed scholars,
as has the sticky question ot who made the initial work. Except for Lievens 's paint-
ing the only other of the works that is dated is Rembrandt's drawing, w hich is in-
scribed 1630. Rembrandt subsequently modified this sketch, changing the subject to
show the Entombment of Christ, but underneath the alterations one can still make
out the original composition. It follows quite closely the main structure and elements
of Liev ens's etching, to such an extent that it can be characterized as a rather free
copy of the latter Since Lievens's etching certainly followed his painting ot 163 1
(reversing the composition in the process), the chronological puzzle is solved only
if the date on Rembrandt's drawing is viewed vv ith skepticism. This hypothesis is

■S

Rembrandt

\ i^%,t^

Fig. lb

Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn, Entomhmeni
ofChrisi, i6jo, red chalk, ii'A x S'/s in. (28.6 x
20.6 cm), Briti.sh Museum, London.

advanced by Gary Schwartz, who places Rembrandt's painting first, dating it to late
1630; Lievens's painting of 1651 .second; Lievens's etching third; and Rembrandt's
drawing, with an incorrect date of 1630, fourth. Rembrandt's etching undoubtedly
was not finished until the artist had moved to Amsterdam in 1632; the print is
signed "RHL van Ryn f," a form the artist used only after his move from Leiden.

More recently Peter Schatborn has postulated that Lievens started his painting in
late 1630, making the print before the painting was completed; this etching was then
copied by Rembrandt in his drawing of later that year. Lievens then completed his
painting in early 1631, dating it at that time. This hypothesis differs only marginally
from the opinion of the Rembrandt Research Project, which believes that all the
images were developed over a period of time, probablv simultaneouslv, and that
the discrepancy in dates results from the different periods in \\hich the uorks
were finished.'

Whatever the exact sequence and despite the agreement of most scholars that
Rembrandt's painting initiated the Lazarus series, one should not exclude the possi-
bility that Rembrandt responded to v\hat Lie\ens was doing. After all Rembrandt
admired his colleague's etching enough to make a drawing of it. The general sim-
ilarities in composition between Rembrandt's and Lievens's paintings (in contrast
with Rembrandt's radical rearrangement of the composition in his etching) indeed
suggest that Rembrandt's painting followed Lievens's painting and etching. In fact
the genesis of The Raising of Lazarus presented something of a struggle for Rem-
brandt: laboratory analysis reveals a number of changes and false starts, testifying to
the pains he took to resoKe the structure of the picture. The decisive alterations in
composition, figure.s, and gestures are signs that the painter, still unsure of his abil-
ities, labored in his quest for maximum expressive effect.

It can be argued, however, that Lievens clearlv responded to Rembrandt's picture
by emulating the brooding atmosphere of the cave. One might sav he took deliberate
notice of Huygens's appreciative comments regarding Rembrandt's expressive use of
mood and gesture by utilizing the compositional strategies and provocative lighting
effects at which his rival was so adept. He was not entireh' successful; despite the
dramatic contrast ol light and shade and the miraculous tenor that pervades the
scene, Lievens's painting is oddlv disparate, the figures tinv and doll-like. Lazarus is
represented only bv a pair ot ghostlv hands reaching from the tomb. Rembrandt's
Christ is monumental; his Lazarus is shown struggling to lift his revived bones trom
the grave. Huygens was correct when he wrote: "Rembrandt surpasses Lievens in
the faculty of penetrating to the heart ot his subject matter and bringing out its
essence, and his works come across more vividlv."'

As one of Christ's most spectacular miracles, the Raising ot Lazarus understanda-
bly was a very popular subject in the historv of art; representations ot it date trom
as earlv as the third centurv. For Christians the event was v ievved as a prefiguration
of the Resurrection of Christ as well as a prelude to the resurrection of the dead
at the Last Judgment. In his painting Rembrandt makes subtle visual references to
the.sc dogmatic parallels: Marv's outstretched hands, dramaticallv backlit, allude
to the Crucifixion, while Christ's triumphant stance on the lid of Lazarus's tomb
recalls images ot his own Resurrection.

Rembrandt's interpretation of the event is markedlv different from those ot his

Rhmbrandt

Fig. It-
Jan Lie\ens, The Rainnij of Lazarus^ c. ib^i,
etching, 14 x i2'/4 in. (35.6 x 31. i cm), Los
Angeles Countv Museum of .'\rt, lent bv the
Engel Family Collection (L. 84.9. 119).

Fig. id

Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn, The Raising
oj Lazarus, c. ibjl, etching and burin, I4y8 x
10V16 in. (37.1 X 25.9 cm), Los Anjieles
Countv Museum of Art, lent bv the Hngel
Family Collection (L. 84.9.84).

immediate predecessors, such as Jan Tcn^nasJcl and Lastman, whose straightforward
presentations, placed in the brightly lit landscape outside the tomb, appear pedantic
bv comparison.' Rembrandt instead took as his starting point the clammv recesses
of the cave, a setting that allowed him to exploit lullv the mysterious ettects of
filtered light and murky shadows; his version is not so much a transcription ot the
event, with all the appropriate participants present, as an evocation ot mood and
atmosphere. He imagined how such a wonderful but grisly miracle must have
appeared to those present and attempted to communicate the onlookers' sense ot
fear and awe. The reaction ot Christ indicates his o\\ n amazement at the pow ers
in his possession.

This interpretation ot Christ, emphasizing his human characteristics transtormed
by faith, breaks w ith the iconographic tradition established bv Italian artists such as
Sebastiano del Piombo and continued in the North principally bv Rubens.'' These
artists, rooted in Catholic dogma, imagined a robust and athletic Christ, in full
command of his powers, a hero of unmistakable divine pro\ enance. The Protestant
Rembrandt, bv contrast, stressed the humilitv of Jesus, whose divinity was mvste-
rious and of supernatural origin, understandable only through the faith of his be-
lievers. It was a vision of the sa\ iour shared bv Lievens, whose Christ is even more
earthbound and insubstantial, but who is transtormed bv a hea\enlv radiance. The

RHM BRANDT

Notes

1. Peter Schatborn, "Notes on Harly Rem-
brandt Drawings" Master Drawings 27, no. 2
(Summer 1989): 124; Rembrandt Research
Project, 300-306. Martin Royalton-Ki.sch, in
an unpublished manuscript, has recently sug-
gested that on the basis of style the British
Museum drawing should be dated to c. 163J,
when Rembrandt was making numerous stud-
ies after other artists. Rembrandt presumably
predated the drawing to indicate when Lievens
conceived the composition. The author is
grateful to Mr Kisch for his assistance.

2. Sch\\artz, 74.

3. A 1615 painting by Tengnagel is in the
Statens Museum lor Kunst, Copenhagen;
a 1622 painting by Lastman is in the
Mauritshuis, The Hague.

4 See The Roismcj of Lazarus bv Sebastiano, ifig.
National Gallery, London. A painting of about
1620 by Rubens (tomierly Kaiser-Friedrich
Museum, Berlin) was destroyed in 1945.
J. Rembrandt reinterpreted the subject once
again in an etching of 1642. In addition a copy
of the Los Angeles painting is in the Art In-
stitute of Chicago (1970.1010).

6. Walter L. Strauss and Marjon van der
Meulen, The Rembrandi Documents (New York:
Abaris Books, Inc., 1979), 353, nos. 38, 42.

undercurrent of spiritual intensity running through these paintings form.s a pictorial
corollary to Christ's dictum to Martha immediately before the Raising of Lazarus:
"I am the resurrection, and the lite; he that believeth in me, though he were dead,
yet shall he live."

How much Rembrandt's personal religious sentiment resonates in his painting is
unknown, but at this youthful stage in his life he had not cemented his Christian
beliefs nor the particular compositional strategies of which the Raising is a stellar ex-
ample. This was made clear when Rembrandt reinterpreted the hgure of Christ in
his etching of c. 1632, where Jesus takes on the stature and power of the Italianate
model, and his Howing hair and active draperies assume a Rubenesque dynamism.
The brash move of turning the principal figure away from the picture plane, show-
ing only Christ's profile, might appear idiosyncratic (and was rarely repeated by
Rembrandt), but it testifies to his keen desire to create something bold in emulation
of Rubens.^ It is no accident that the etching dates from about the same time as
Rembrandt's Passion series of 1635-59 (Munich, Altc Pinakothek), which was painted
for the Prince of Orange in direct rivalry with Rubens. The.se different interpreta-
tions of the Raising of Lazarus signal the experimental character of Rembrandt's art
in these heady early years, when, boosted by the encouraging words of Huygens, he
explored a variety of stylistic and iconographic options.

It is unclear for whom Rembrandt might ha\e painted The Raising oj Lazarus; in
seventeenth-century Holland, Calvinist strictures against icons precluded the use of
religious paintings in churches. There was, however, an active market for such works
among private collectors. Unfortunately the pro\enance of the Los Angeles picture
is traceable for certain only from the late eighteenth centurx. It is probable that
Rembrandt painted it for himself and never intended to sell it. In fact an in\ entory
of Rembrandt's effects drawn up in i6j6 records a Raising of Lazarus bv Rembrandt
and one by Lievens hanging in the antechamber of the artist's residence in Amster-
dam.'' The descriptions of these pictures are not precise enough to ascertain whether
they were the paintings discussed here, but the hypothesis is attractive; it certainlv
v\ould have been appropriate for Rembrandt to hold on to two paintings that plaved
such an important role in his development as an artist and that were the fruit of
the creative rivalry he shared with Lie\cns.

An Artist in His Studio

David Teniers the Younger

Hemish, 1610-90
and

Jan Davidsz de Heem

Dutch, i6o(i-cS4

'Hi

Oil on oak panel

19 X 25'/! in. (48.5 X 64.1 LTii)

Signed at lov\i»r lett center: H. D. Teniers; at
lower ri^ht center: J. D. Heem f Ao 1645

Gift of H. F. Ahmanson and Company in

niemorv ot Howard F. Ahmanson

M. 72. (17. 1

Provenance:

Amsterdam, Fieter de Smeth \an Alpen sale,
1—2 Ausjust iSio.

Amsterdam, Anna Maria Hojigiier sale, 18—21
Auaiist 1817.

Paris, Madame Le Rouge sale, 27 April 1818,
no. 58.

Paris, Comte de Morny.

Paris, Charles Sedelmeyer (dealer), 1894-95.

Brussels, Simeon del Monte, by 1928—59.

London, sale, Sotheby's, 24 June 1959, no. 59.

Los Angeles, Howard F. Ahmanson, 1959—72.

Select Literature:

Jane P Davidson, DaviJ Teniers the Yoiincjer
(Boulder, Colorado: We.stview Pre.ss, 1979), 25,
57, ho, 77, pi. 5.

'a\id Teniers the Younger was born in Antwerp, where he reportedly trained
with his father, David Teniers the Elder, a minor painter and art dealer. In 1632 the
son joined the Antwerp guild and soon after mot the painter Adriaen Brouwer, v\ ho
had recently returned from Holland ( Brouwer's compositions of tav em interiors
and lov\ -life genre scenes had a decisive and lasting influence on Teniers's oeuvre).
Teniers \\as an associate of Rubens and Jan Bruetihel I, whose daughter he married
in 1637.

An immensely productive artist, whose paintings were often copied and imitated,
Teniers is best known for his genre scenes, usually set in guardrooms or taverns. He
painted still lites, portraits, and religious pictures as well. In addition he was an
important landscape painter in the Dutch manner His penchant for bawdy images of
lower-class and military life did not preclude his association w ith the most exalted
of clients and protectors. He enjoyed, for example, the patronage of Antoon Triest,
the bishop of Ghent, and around 16 ji he mo\ed to Brussels, where he became court
painter to Archduke Leopold Wilhelm. Teniers al.so served Leopold as caretaker of
his art collection, preserving a semblance of its richness in .several encyclopedic
paintings ot the kunstkamer. Leopold's successor, Don Juan ot Austria, ennobled the
artist in i6j8.

An Artist in His Studio was painted in 1643, when Teniers was at the height of his
powers. The artist's debt to Brouwer in this interior scene is considerable, especially
in the planarity of the composition and such details as the old woman peering

Teniers and de Heem

through tlio lialf-oprn door. Tonicis's precise and smooth brushstrokes, however,
owe Httle to Brouwer's typically rough and heavy application of paint. The
arrangement of the principal elements, moreo\'er, recalls numerous works hy Teniers
trom the 1640s, such as the Giundivom wiili ihc Dclnemncc of Sainl Peter (Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York), which is datable to 1645-47. In both pictures figures
^°'" are grouped around a table at the center, an tnen or fireplace is placed to one side,

1. Davidson, 57. apj 3 wedge of either military accoutrements or kitchen bric-a-brac fills a corner

of the foreground.

In the Los Angeles picture this repoussoir device, which heightens the sense of
three-dimensional space, plays a more prominent role than usual. The fruit and
vegetables on the wooden table and the cluttered kitchen ware in the lower right
corner fill much of the foreground. These objects were painted by Jan Davidsz de
Heem, who signed his name and dated the picture at the lower right center edge,
just below the copper pot. Teniers, whose own signature appears to the right of the
discarded shoes, often collaborated with other artists, especially later in his career,
but this painting is a rare instance of Teniers working v\ith de Heem, the premier
still-life painter of the seventeenth century The deft touch of de Heem's brush is
here in lull power, capturing, for instance, the reflection off the copper jugs and the
translucency of the grapes. The still-life elements can be compared w ith those in his
Still Life with Oysters and Grapes (cat. no. 59).

The subject matter of An Artist in His Studio is difficult to determine at first. The
work was previously titled Kitchen Interior, no doubt owing to the presence of the oven
and the profusion of foodstuffs and culinary equipment. The drapery at the upper
left, however, which partially obstructs the light from a hidden window, suggests
the orchestrated space of a studio. The man at the left, dressed in a fur-lined coat
and hat and holding a maulstick, is clearly an artist and has in fact been identified
as Teniers; he directs the actions of the servant in the center, who seems to be
arranging a still life, evidently the subject ot the picture the artist is painting.' The
motif is similar to Jan Vermeer's famous Artist's Studio (Kunsthistori.sches Museum,
Vienna), which includes the artist, his subject, and the curtain that controls the fall
of light. But the dank and humble studio of Teniers's painting, with its unseemly
chaos of objects and food, shares little of the dignity and hushed reverence of
Vermeer's working space. Painted prior to Teniers's exalted status as court painter
to Leopold, An Artist in His Studio draws attention more to the artist as craftsman,
working with his hands, than to the poet-painter celebrated in Vermeer's picture.

Saint Francis's Vision
of the Musical Angel

MoRAZZONE (Pier Francesco Mazzucchelli)

Italian (Lombard)), 1575-1(126

f. Ibll

Oil on canvas

46'/; X 62 in. (118.1 \ 157. { cm)

Gift ot The .Aliman.son Foundation

M.75.b

Provenance:

Italy, private collection.

New York, Frederick Mont (dealer).

Select Literature:

Roberto Longhi, "Codicilli alle 'Schede
lombarde' di Marco Vaisecchi," Paragone 21
no. 24} (Mav 1970): 57— jS, pi. ji.

n the anon\mou.s toiirtccnth-centiirv The Link Flowers of Saini Francis of .Assjsi,
which was the most widely consulted life of the saint in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, it is recounted how he retired to a cell or ca\c in a rockv
wilderness to pray and do penance bv lasting and mortifying his body;

Finally . - . Saint Francis being much weakened in body through his sharp abstinence, and
through the assaults of the devil, and desiring to comfort the body with the spiritual food of
the soul, began to think on the immeasurable qlory and joy of the blessed in the life eternal;
and therewithal began to pray God to gran! him the grace of tasting a little of that py. And
as be continued in this thought, suddenly there appeared unto him an Anqel with exceeding
qreat splendour, having a viol in his left hand and in his riqht the bow: and as Saint Francis
stood all ama/cd at the siqht of him. the .\nqel drew the bow once across the viol: and
straiqhtwa\ Saint Francis was ware of such sweet inelod\ that his soul melted away for very
sweetness and was lifted up above all bodily feelinq: insomuch that, as he afterwards told his
companions, he doubted that, if the .\ngel had drawn the bow a second time across the
strings, his mind would have left his body for the all too utter sweetness thereof

This scene ot ansjolic consolation tor the penitent sutteriniJ ot Saint Francis was
not treated b\' artists in nicdie\al and Renaissance times, but it became a popular
subject in Counter-Retormation Italy. Hxemplarv ot the Counter-Retormation
revi\al of interest in the saints of earlier eras was the claim of the seventeenth-
century Franciscan scholar Luke Wadding that he had establisiied the date that the
musical angel had appeared to Saint Francis in Rieti. Wadding claimed the year was
1225, one alter the saint had received the stigmata on Mount .■\lverna and one before
his death in 1226. The most celebrated representation of this event was .Agostino
Carracci's print of 1595 {Saint Francis Consoled by the Musical Angel, fig. 3a), which was
adapted from a slightlv earlier print by his friend and colleague Francesco X'anni. In
these two works it is established that Saint Francis is in a remote, rockv jilace with
only a simple cup tor drinking and roots to eat; the knotted cord is his scourge. The
cruciHx he embraces indicates that he has been contemplating the suflerings ot
Christ, but it also carries a message of eternal spiritual lite. The nearby skull is a

MORAZZONE

reminder of the mortalitv of the flesh. The saint has fainted in ecstasy, "lifted up
above all bodilv feeling" a respite pro\ided bv the angel's "sweet melodv."

All of these elements are present in Morazzone's picture, albeit \\ ith some
variations: there is no cup, just a nearby stream for drinking water, and the roots
are still grow ing on the hillside. The painting is much larger than Carracci's print,
giving the figure of Saint Francis a powerful, looming presence. It is a dark work,
typical of the Lombard school in the late sixteenth and earlv seventeenth centuries,
colored mainly with austere browns, grays, and creams. There is an eerie, spiritual
light, however, still reminiscent, almost a century after his death, of Leonardo da
Vinci, who had such a potent influence on Lombard painting.

The pro\enance tor Suini t-rancn's Vision of the Muncal Angel is sketchy. It cannot
be traced before its acquisition bv Frederick Mont, when it bore an attribution
to the Spanish painter Francisco Ribalta. In 1970 Roberto Longhi attributed it to
Morazzone and dated it to about 1611. He compared the piece with Morazzone's
Magdalen, which was installed in the Cappella della Maddalena in San Vittore, Varese,

Fl(j. ja

Agostino Carracci (after Francesco Vanni),
Saint Francis Consoled by the Musical An^el, '59?i
engraving, 13^/16 x ti'/s in. (34.2 x jo. 8 cm),
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.,
Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund.

<;im fK'jiAnc uraiun conil tin! I? tnj/oj. i^rf/t« Jnuil u«cl( holu (UWjsf ly^-

MORAZZONE

Notes

1 . The Link Flowers of Saint Francis ofAssisi, trans.
T. W. Arnold (London: J. M. Dent & Sons,
1898), 184-85.

2. For intormation on the MoijJaL'n see //
seicento lomharJo, exh. cat. (Milan: Palazzo
Reale, 1973), 2:47, no. 103, pi. mS.

3. Mariagrazia Brunori, "Considerazioni sul
primo tempo di Francesco Del Cairo,"
Bolleitino d'Arie 49, no. 3 (Julv-September
1964): ZB''. % '■

4. Mina Gregori, letter to author, 25 October
1989.

5. // Morazzone, exh. cat. (Milan: Bramante,
1962), 186.

in ifeii.' The schematic landscape settino, treatment oi draperies, small angels, and
use of light are indeed generally comparable in thi- two works, so the attribution
seems quite reasonable.

Several scholars have questioned this attribution in recent years, however.
All agree that the painting is from Lombardv or Piedmont, from the circk' of
Morazzone, and that it is of good quality. The most fiequeiit alternative attribution
has bef-n Francesco del Cairo, a follower of Mora/zone who worked mainly in Milan.
This suggestion rests primarily on similarities between the must'um's painting and
Cairo's Dream oj Elijah (church of Sant'Antonio Abate, Milan), which probably
dates trom the early 1630.S.' To the present writer these similarities arc more
compositional than stylistic; the reclining figures of Hlijah and Saint Francis are
similar, but the Morazzone does not have the almost mystical intensity of light and
expression that is typical of Cairo's works. Of course if the museum's painting
is a much earlier work by Cairo, it could be argued that he was still trying out
Morazzone- like ideas, but corroborating e\ idence of this is lacking. More recently
Mina Gregori has reiterated her opinion that the Los Angeles painting is by a
Piedmontese follower of Morazzone, not Cairo. Indeed if a Morazzone follower or
pupil is being discussed, it is all too easy to go to a famous name like Cairo. For
Gregori the angel in the museum's picture recalls painters such as Isidoro Bianchi or
Stefano Montalto, but she still lea\es the question open."* Gregori draws attention to
another \ ersion of the museum's painting in the sacristy of San Tommaso, Turin, a
work to which she first referred in 1962.^

Whoever painted it. Saint Francis's Vision of the Musical Ancjel is an excellent example
of religious art in Lombardy and Piedmont during the early seventeenth century.
The unusual way in which the saint has swooned into the landscape perhaps
suggests knowledge of Caravaggio's early Stigmatization of Saint Francis (Wadsworth
Atheneum, Hartford), as does the dark landscape setting and the eerily breaking
light. Subsidiary figures of shepherds in Caravaggio's painting are echoed in the tiny
background figures, possibly Tobias and the Angel, who appear in the Morazzone,
but their identification is uncertain and also inconsistent with the life of Saint
Francis. Longhi suggested that the distant hill tow n seen in the glimmering light is
Varese, but this seems fanciful.

Morazzone, along with his Lombard colleagues Tanzio da Varallo (cat. no. 19) and
Cerano, was profoundly influenced by the art of Gaudenzio Ferrari, his Lombard
forerunner, and studied in Rome from 1^92 to 1J98, where he was certainly aware
of Caravaggio's innovative realism and exaggerated chiaroscuro. Although he draws
stylistically from the Carracci and Caravaggio, Morazzone's interpretation of Saint
Francis's ecstasy has considerable originality of composition and mood. The painting
is permeated by a gentle restfulness, as the saint gains a welcome relief from his
mental and physical anguish.

Hol^ Famil_y

Fra Bartolommeo (Baccio della Porta)

Italian (Florence), 1472—1517

c. 1497

Oil on canvas

59^16 X 55'Vi6 in. (151.0 x 91.3 cm)

Gift ot The .Ahnian.son Foundation

M.73.83

Provenance:

Florence, Ferdinand Panciatichi Ximemes
d'Aragona, by 1857.

Florence, Mariana Panciatichi.

Florence, Charles Fairfax Murray (dealer).

Rome and Florence, Count Alessandro
Contini-Bonacossi, until 1969.

New York, Eugene Thaw (dealer), 1969—73.

London, Thomas Agnew and Sons (dealer).

Select Literature:

Bernard Berenson, liahan Pictures of the
Renaissance: Florentine School (London: Phaidon
Press, 1963), 1:23.

Everett Fahy, "The tarliest Works of Fra
Bartolommeo," The Art Bulletin 51, no. 2
(June 1969): 148-49, tig. 20.

Everett Fahv, "A 'Holv FamiK' b\ Fra
Bartolommeo," Los Ant^eles Count\ Museum of Art
Bulletin 20, no. 2 (1974): 8—17.

Ihi:

.his Holv Family v\as first published as a work bv Mariotto Albertinelli, but when
the painting v\as exhibited in Florence in 1940, it was declared bv leading scholars
to be unquestionably by Fra Bartolommeo. ' The confusion regarding works bv
Bartolommeo and Albertinelli has since been clarified bv Everett Fahv, w ho hmilv
established that the Annunciation in the Cathedral of Volterra (fig. 4a), dated 1497,
is by Bartolommeo and not Albertinelli, as had hitherto been claimed.' This is
significant for the Los Angeles painting (which was done after the \blterra work),
for, as Fahy recognized, the Madonna in the Annunciation is duplicated in the Hoh
Family.' Marv's stance, the position of her left hand and head, and the fall of her
draperies arc the same in both paintings. The artist varied onlv the position of the
Virgin's right hand, which in the museum's painting holds the head of the Christ
Child, and the mantle, which covers her head in the Hoh Family but rests on her
shoulders in the Annunciation. It is clear the artist used the same cartoon for the
Madonna in each picture.

The museum's work conforms to the traditional portraval of the FIolv Family
as established in the 1490s, principalK- bv Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci.
Bartolommeo absorbed the innovations of these masters through his teacher Cosimo
Rosselli, a follower of Leonardo. Bartolommeo subsequently studied w ith the
fashionable painter Domenico Ghirlandaio, in whose studio he met .-Mbcrtinelli.
Around 1492 the two young artists set up a workshop together, collaborating
occasionally on paintings such as the Iresco ot the Last judgment in Santa Maria
Nuova in Florence.

Sometime around 1500 Bartolommeo gave up painting to become a monk,
entering the Dominican monasterx at Prato. Bv IJ04 he was back in Florence,
however, where he established a flourishing studio. Aside from brief visits to Venice
in 1508 and Rome in 1514, he spent the majority of his career in his native Florence,
w here he was the principal exponent of the High Renaissance stvle. .All his extant

Fra Bartolommeo

Flu. 4a

Fra Bartolommeo, Annunciation, 1497, tempera
and oil on panel, 69^16 x bb'^Ab in. (176.0 x
170.0 em). Cathedral, Volterra. Photo: Alinari/
Art Resource.

paintings are religious in .subject matter

Bartolommeo's art, also like that of Raphael and Leonardo, ultimateiv drew its
inspiration from nature, although it was a nature filtered through the idealizing
conventions suitable to the subject matter As an heir to the artistic innovations of
the fifteenth centur\-, Bartolommeo represented nature in its perfect state, jjurged ot
the accidents and particulars of real life but nevertheless rendered w ith complete
understanding of anatomical structure and optical phenomena. His figures betray no
hint of indi\ idualitv; instead thev conform to ideal types, as befits their heavenly
provenance. In the Holv hwuh the Virgin's elegant proportions are matched by the
perfect oval of her face and the graceful fall of her draperies; her movements are
restrained and measured as she gently caresses the head of the robust and active
Christ Child. Joseph is more a paradigm of benign old age than a portrait of
wrinkled flesh.

Fra Bartolommeo

Notes

1. Mostra del ctnqiiecento loscano in Palazzo Strozzi,
exh. cat. (Florence: Palazzo Strozzi, 1940),

22, no. j. Ludovico Bor^o, in his doctoral
tlissertation, still maintains the attribution to
Alhertinelli. See ludovico Bor^o, "The Works
of Mariotto Albertinelh" (Ph.D. diss.. Harvard
University, 1968), 78—83, 200—202, no. 4, Kg. 5.
The dissertation was published b\' Garland
Publishing, New York, in 1976.

2. Hvcrett Fahv, "The BeginniniJs ot Fra
Bartolommeo," The Burlington Maija}^we 108,
no. jbi (September 1966): 459-60.

;. Fahv, "The Earliest Works ot Fra
Bartolommeo," 148—49. The landscapes in both
paintings are extremeh similar as well.
4. Ibid.. 149.

The limpiil landscape stretching beyonii the parapet at the risjht side of the Hoh
Familv balances both natural observation and artistic idealization. The gentle valley,
with its town hugging the banks of a ri\er, is suffused with a clear, c\en light. The
hills dissolve into the distance as the rich earth tones of the foreground recede
into the silverv blues ot the lar-off mountains. Nature, however, is organized
by Bartolommeo into a series of overlapping planes, dcarlv di\ ided between a
foreground, middle ground, and background. At the extreme right the reedlike
tree, a bird's nest nestled in its branches, closes off the composition, providing
a frail counterpoint to the statue.sque Virgin.

In Htteenth-centurv Florence the vast majority of altarpicxes were square, or
nearly so, and usually painted on wood panels. The oddly vertical proportions of the
museum's composition and the fact that it was painted on canvas suggested to Fahy
that the picture served originally as a processional banner used by a confraternity
dedicated to the Virgin.^ This might explain the unusual placement of the Madonna
in the center Although an attractive hypothesis, there are few processional banners
from this period with which to compare the Holy Family, and the painting may seem
too elaborate and too well-preserved to have .served such a purpose.

In the middle distance of the landscape the artist painted the facade of a convent,
before which Saints Francis and Dominic embrace. This scene refers to a well-
known dream of Dominic, in which the Madonna tells Christ that the two friars
will lead the struggle against the vices of pride, avarice, and lust. This story clearly
had special significance for Bartolommeo, for he depicted it at other times in his
career (it also appears in a drawing in the Staatliche Museen, Berlin, and a fre.sco in
the Convent of the Maddalena, near Florence). No doubt the artist, w ho became a
Dominican monk himself, felt drawn to the life of the founder of the order
Bartolommeo's fascination w ith Dominican imagery had a more particular and
timely relevance, however: its inclusion here is undoubtedly an homage to the
charismatic sermons of the reformist Dominican friar, Girolamo Savonarola, who
led from his pulpit a populist challenge to the rule ot the Medici familv ami who
became, for a time, the de facto dictator of Florence. Bartolommeo, before joining
the Dominican order, was an intimate disciple of Savonarola and painted a portrait
of the friar, whose fanatical diatribes against luxury and idolatry must have made
the legendary dream of Saint Dominic intensely vivid in Bartolommeo's mind. The
painter was provoked, along with other artists, to destroy some of his works in the
great bonfires Savonarola orchestrated in the Piazza della Signoria as a means of
ridding Florentine society ot the idolatrous icons and extravagant items that
corrupted it. Savonarola was eventually hanged as a heretic in T498, soon after
Bartolommeo painted the Holy Family. Fittingly the artist later became the principal
painter at the church of San Marco, Savonarola's tomicr seat of power

Portrait of a Man (Pieter Tjarck)

Frans Hals

Dutch, 1581/85-1666

c. 1635-38

Oil on can\as

33'/r6 X 27 '/2 in. (85.2 x 69.9 cm)

Gilt of The Ahmanson Foundation

M.74-31

Provenance:

Brussels, Comte d'Oultremont.

Paris, sale. Hotel Drouot, 27 June 1889, no. 3.

Paris, Arnold and Tripp (dealer), 1889.

London and Bawdsev Manor, Sulfolk, Sir
William Cuthbert Quilter, 1889/90— 1911, then
by descent, until 1937.

New York, Knoedler (dealer), 1937.

Nas.sau, Bahamas, Sir Harrv Oakes, 1937—43.

Nassau, Ladv Oakes, 194J— 74.

London, .sale, Christie's, 29 June 197;, no. 104
(bought in).

London, R & D. Colnaghi & Co. Ltd. (dealer).

Select Literature:

Wilhelm von Bode and M. J. Binder, /-ram Hali:
His Life and Work, trans. M. W. Brockwell
(Berlin and London: Photographische
Gesell.schalt, 1914), 2:57, no. 178, pi. no.

N. S. Trivas, The Paintings of Frans Hals (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1941), 46—47,
no. 6y, pi. 88.

Seymour Slive, Frans Hals (London: Phaidon
Press, 1970, 1974), 1:122, 2: plates 176—77,
3:59-60, no. 108.

Claus Grimm, Frans Hals: The Complete Work
(New York: Abrams, 1990), 283, no. 92.

Ihe

Lhe identity of the sitter in this magnificent portrait has sometimes been
questioned, but there seems to be no reason to doubt the veracity of its traditional
identification. The painting first appeared at a Parisian auction in 1889 as a "Portrait
de Messire Pierre Tiarck." An old label on the back ot the panel bears an inscription,
probabh' from the eighteenth century, which reads: "Messire Pierre Tiarck / fils de
Theodore et de / Mademoiselle Gertrude / Worp." In the 1889 sale the painting was
paired with a Hals portrait of a woman, \\ hich is now in the National Gallery,
London (Hg. 5a).' It too bears an inscription, apparently by the same hand, which
describes the woman as "Mademoiselle Marie Larp fille / de Nicolas Larp et de /
Mademoiselle de / Wanemburg." Research in the Haarlem archi\es reyeals several
references to a Maria (or Maritgen) Claesdr Larp, who in 1654 married a Pieter
Dircksz Tjarck, whose occupation was listed as icrwer (a dyer of silk and cloth). It
would appear completely reasonable to assume that the French inscriptions on the
backs of the two paintings were translations of the names of the sitters, taken either
from old Dutch labels that have since been lost or based on some other form of
information.

The portrayal of the sitters offers internal e\ idence that the two works were
painted as pendants. The pictures are nearly identical in size, and in each the sitters
are placed within painted frames and lit from the left. Within these points of
similarity, however, Hals varied the gestures and torrns of the two sitters, contrasting
the man's bent wrist, his hand dangling a rose, with the woman's tense, open hand
held up to her breast. The dark, oval silhouette of his w ide-brimmed hat mirrors the
glowing white expanse of her huge ruH.

Hals

Fig. ja

Frans Hals, Fortran of a Woman (Maria Larp),
c. 1635—38, oil on canvas, 32'V'i6 x 26'Vi6 in.
(83.4 X 68.1 cm), reproduced by courtesy of
the Trustees, the National Gallery, London.

In traditional fashion Tjarck and Larp are distinguished one from another by the
way the artist reveals their personalities. The husband, with his tilted hat and air
of bravado, challenges the viewer through the simulated frame surrounding the
composition. As if interrupted, he turns toward the spectator, leaning his arm across
the back of a chair This was an artistic device Hals invented and w as to use in many
of his male portraits, notably in Isaac Ahrahamsz Massa (Toronto, Art Gallerv of
Ontario), wherein the sitter dangles a sprig of hollv in the foreground of the
painting as he leans over the back of a chair^ The effect is of a fleeting moment
captured in paint, of a dynamism and spontaneity that is contained in the very
brushwork itself, with its flashes of highlight and quickness of touch. This transient,
even casual, treatment of a portrait was a characteristic remarked upon bv the
artist's early biographer, Arnold Houbraken, who wrote of "the boldness and \ ivacity
with which his brush caught the natural likeness of human beings."'

Next to Tjarck, Larp is all reticence. In contrast \\ ith the sheer physical presence
of her husband, she seems to cower in her simulated frame. Her arm does not cross
the line between painted and real space but in fact pushes back the torso, exuding a
sense of shyness or humilitv in the presence of the viewer Unlike her husband, \\ ho
has suddenly turned in his chair, Larp alreadv faces the picture plane; there is no
sense of movement or dynamism in her prim deportment.

Hals adapted his technique in each portrait to reinforce the sitters' different
characters. For his portrayal of Tjarck, Hals loaded his brush with paint, deftlv
describing the textures of the silken doublet and the linen ruff, the gleam of flesh
and the stiff moustache. Tjarck's hand and the rose it holds were painted with a
startling palpability: they appear to break through the picture plane and enter the
space of the viewer When he created Larp's portrait, ho^ve\er, Hals reined in his
characteristic bravura handling of paint, restraining his technique in keeping with
the puritan demeanor of his subject. Any insight Hals might ha\ e had into her
personality appears subsumed within a concentrated articulation of her apparel:
the precise lace cuff embroidered dress, and millstone ruff Larp shrinks into
her clothing, exuding none of the self-assurance of Tjarck.

The subtle differences in technique and expression between the two portraits
are consistent with Hals's pendant portraits painted in the 1630s. Other examples
include the Portrait of a Man and Portrait of a Woman, datable to the eariv 1630s, in the
Staatliche Museen in Berlin, and a portrait pair in the Roval Collection of Sweden,
dated 1638.'' These last two are closely related to the Tjarck portrait and its pendant
in the inclusion of simulated frames around the sitters. Apparently Hals first
experimented with this trompe I'oeil de\ice in the earlv 1630s but abandoned the
trick bv the beginning of the next decade.

Based on the stvle, treatment of the characters of the sitters, and the emplovment
of the simulated frame, most scholars date the Portrait of a Man (Pieter Tjarck) and
its pendant to the mid-i63os. The fact that Tjarck wedded Larp in 1654 offers the
possibilitx' that the pictures were painted to celebrate their marriage. Tjarck's rose
can be understood not as a vanitas svmbol, a reminder of the transience and bre\ ity
of human existence, as it might in a still life, but as the flower of Venus, a SNTiibol ot
lo\e pcrfectlv appropriate in the context of marriage. In effect the portraits record
the offering of lo\e between the man and woman, a ritual the \ ie\\er e\ identK has

Hals

interrupted. Hals was to again use the theme of an offered rose to unite pendant
portraits of a husband and wife in Stephanus Geraerdts (Antwerp, Royal Museum of
Fine Arts) and Isabella Caymans (Paris, Rothschild Collection), both dated c. i6jo.^

Little is known of Tjarck or Larp other than the fact that they had one son,
Nicolaes Pietersz Tjarck, and that Larp was listed in the archives as a widow in 1646.
Notes She remarried in 1648, was widowed again in 1653, and died in 167J. Tjarck's

1. Slive, 2: pi. 181, 3:61-62, no. ii2. profession as a silk dyer suggests that the couple might have been Mennonite, as

2. Ibid., 2: pi. 64, 3:25-26, no. 42. ^gj.g ^^^j. Qf j}^g j,[qjJ^ merchants in Haarlem. Larp's rather elaborate costume,

3. Houbraken's UJe of hans Hah ,s printed in however, would have been unacceptably ostentatious to that religious sect.
From Hah, exh. cat. (London: Royal Academy ' ^ °

of Arts 1989) 17-18 Hals is considered today as one of the greatest Dutch artists of the seventeenth

4 Slive, 2: plates 150-51, 3:53, nos. 88-89; century and perhaps its greatest portraitist, after Rembrandt. He was, however,

2: plates 182-83, 3:62, nos. iij-14. virtually unknown outside Haarlem in his own time and was "rediscovered" only in

5. Ibid., 2: plates 290-91, 3:97-99, nos. 188-89. the nineteenth century when Dutch art as a whole was reappraised by French critics

and artists. As a result of his obscurity very little is known of his life. He was bom in
the first half of the i{8os in Antwerp, but later that decade his family moved to
Haarlem. There he probably studied with Carel van Mander, but he did not become
a member of the artists' guild until 1610. Hals joined De Wijngaardranken, one of
Haarlem's drama and poetry societies, in 1616.

The entirety of Hals's career was spent in Haarlem, where he received numerous
portrait commissions from various militia companies as well as leading citizens of
the city. The great majority of his oeuvre consists of portraits, although he did paint
genre scenes and several religious pictures. Despite great producti\ ity Hals was
continually in debt, and he died in poverty in 1666.

6-7

Paolo Veronese (Paolo Caliari)

Italian (Venice), ij28-88

Allegory of Navigation with
a Cross-Staff: Aver roes

1557

Oil on canvas

80V16 X 46 in. (204.J X 116.8 cm)

Gift of The Alimanson Foundation

M.74.99.2

Allegory of Navigation with
an Astrolabe: Ptolemy

1557

Oil on canvas

8o'/3 X 46 in. (204.5 '^ "&■** '^"1)

Gift of The Ahmanson Foundation

M.74.99.1

Provenance:

Scotland, John Camphell, tarl of Ormelic.

Possibly Lansjton (near Duns), Berwickshire,
Scotland, the Honorable Robert Baillie-
Hamilton, then by descent to his wife,
Mary Gavin Pringle, the niece of John
Campbell, until 1911.

Newport, Rhode Island, Robert Goclet, until

1947-

Newport, Rhode Island, Salve Regina College.

London, sale, Sotheby's, 12 December 1973,
no. 13.

London, Thomas A^new and Sons (dealer).

Select Literature:

Terisio Pignatti, Veronese (Venice: Alheri, 1976),
i:75~76, 127—28, nos. 136—57, 2: plates 387—92.

W. R. Rearick, The An 0/ Paolo Veronese
1^28-1^88, exh. cat. (Washington, D.C.:
National Gallery of Art, 1988), 60-62,
cat. nos. 22—25.

Ihe

^hese two paintings by Veronese are part of a set of four, the third of which, the
Allegory of Sculpture, slightly cut do\\'n, is in a pri\ate collection in Switzerland. The
fourth, the Astronomer nith an Astrolabe Globe, is missing. The appearance ot the
complete set is known through four larger copies, now in the Musee des Beaux-Arts,
Chartres, which v\ere made later in the sixteenth century (the copies of the Allegory
of Sculpture and the Astronomer are illustrated as figs. 6— 7a and 6— 7b).

In the Allegory of Sculpture a female figure is accompanied by a putto v\ho carries
her attributes of modeling tools and a clay statuette. Each of the three male
allegorical figures in the other paintings carries a scientific instrument for celestial
calculation. At the time of their acquisition in 1974 the museum's paintings were
tentati\ely and quite reasonably knov\n as Allegory of Naytgation nith a Linear Astrolabe
and Allegory of Nayigation with a Flat Astrolabe.

The four paintings do not make a \erv convincing self-contained set in terms ol
their subject matter and are probably the first and only completed parts of a larger
suite of decorative allegories. Although the attributes ot navigational devices cannot
easily be linked to specific individuals bv iconographic tradition, the three male
figures clearly are meant to represent mythical or historical astronomers.

Professor W. R. Rearick, to \\ hose scholarship this entry is indebted, has
suggested that the three men be associated with the ancient astronomers A\erroes
(cat. no. 6), Ptolemv (cat. no. 7), and Zoroaster (fig. 6-7b) by analogy with the

Veronese

Fig. 6-73

Copy after Veronese, Alle^jon of iciilptiirc,
c. if97, oil on canvas, Sy'/s x 56'/« in.
(221.9 x 142.6 cm), Musee des Beaux-Arts,
Chart res.

attributes assigned to these sages in a woodcut illustration for Daniele Barbaro's
edition of Vitruvius, which was pubHshed in Venice in 155^6 bv Marcohni. These
attributions are fitting considering that the paintings were conceived as part of
the decoration of a Hbrarv.

Between August 1^56 and Februarv 1557 the long ceiling of Jacopo Sansovino's
great Libreria at Saint Mark's in Venice was decorated with twentv-one paintings
that followed an elaborate iconographical program. The works were commissioned
in sets ol three from seven different artists. Veronese was one of these painters; in
February 1557 Titian awarded him a gold chain as the best artist in the scheme. The
walls of the main hall of the Libreria remained undecorated, as did those of the
antechamber. Rearick has convincinglv suggested that earlv in 1557 a decision was
made to complete the decoration of the main hall with more allegorical paintings
placed along the walls below the completed ceiling. Veronese executed the first
four paintings and planned another ( there is a preparatory drawing for a standing
philosopher in the Royal Library, Windsor Castle), while a further painting was
commissioned from Giuseppe Porta Salviati. Rearick argues that these first paintings
were soon perceived to be too small in scale for the grand spaces of the hall and that
their settings of antique architectural ruins with open skies did not harmonize with
Sansovino's architecture. In about i J59 this first scheme was abandoned and a
second one initiated. This new plan, begun by Battista Franco, Andrea Schia\one,
Veronese, and his brother Benedetto, was completed bv Tintoretto in 1570-71. These
decorations subsequently underwent many vicissitudes; the present arrangement
dates from 1929. Meanwhile, Veronese's original paintings of 1557 were probably
moved to the antechamber, where four such paintings (presumably the Chartres
copies) were identified by Boschini in 1674.' Most likely Veronese's originals were
sold off when the antechamber was remodeled b\' Scamozzi in i J97 and replaced
in the new antechamber b^' the four copies now at Chartres.

The museum's works can well be imagined in an architectural setting and are
clearly meant to be \iewed from slightK- below. A\erroes looks up, no doubt
originally toward one of the allegorical ceiling paintings in the Libreria, while
Ptolemy looks dow n into the room. The figures assume mannerist contrapposto
poses and are slightly top-heavy to allow for the effect of perspective w hen seen
from belov\. The^• ha\e the rich surface texture associated with Venetian painting of
the sixteenth century, which helps gi\e the figures a powerful ph\sical presence. The

Veronese

Fig. 6-7 b

Copy after Veronese, Astronomer with
an Aiirolahe Globe, c. 1597, oil on can\as,
87V8 X {6'/8 in. (221.9 " '42-6 cm),
Musee des Beaux-Arts, Chartres.

Noces

I . Marco Boschini, Le ricche minere deila pittura

veneziana (Venice: F. Nicolini, 1674), &9-

first paintinsi i.s richer and more saturated in color, \\ itli lontrastina red and ^reen
and a silvery white, while the second is more somber and tonal. While Venetian
painters were aligned traditionally v\ ith the painterly eltects ot colore, and Veronese
was no exception, his Libreria decorations, in their strong modeling of form and in
the artist's understanding of anatomy and the force of a bold outline, betray his
interest in the disegno (drawing) of Michelangelo and the Florentine/Roman school.
,'lrerroM and Piolcmv are among Veronese's grandest and most mature hgures,
decorative vet substantial in their phvsical and intellectual weight.

Veronese was the greatest ilecorati\e painter ot the Venetian school in the
sixteenth century Born in Verona, where he had his hrst artistic training, he
traveled to Venice sometime between IJ45 and IJ50. Although Verona was under the
sway of the coloristic traditions of nearby Venice, it was also close to influences from
Giulio Romano in Mantua and Parmigianino in Parma. On Veronese's arrival in
Venice, however, it was above all the rich and festive color of Titian that impressed
the young artist. Although he produced many beautiful and moving easel pictures
and altarpieces, it was as a decorator on a grand scale in the churches and palaces of
Venice that Veronese had his greatest successes. In ij^j he was working in the Ducal
Palace, in the Sala del Consiglio dei Dieci, and then in the Sala dei Dieci, important
commissions that show he v\as v\ell regarded. By the late ijjos he had begun work
on his greatest surviving decorative ensemble, the interior of the church of San
Sebastiano, which was to occupy him on and off for the next twenty years.

The canvases for the Libreria date from this first decade of Veronese's acti\ its- in
Venice. At the end of the ij^os he executed his most delightful secular decoration.s,
the painted interiors of the Villa Barbaro, newly completed by Palladio in the
foothills of the Alps at Maser. Veronese's decorations became increasingly sumptuous
and colorful. The most celebrated in his day and today are the Marnacje Feast at Cana
(Louvre, Paris), painted in 1562-63 for the refectory of the Venetian church of San
Giorgio Maggiore, and the Feast in the House of Levi (Accademia, Venice), painted in
IJ73 for the refectory of Santi Giovanni e Paolo. With their ornate scenography and
colorful casts of festive diners, they have come to typify Venetian painting at its most
glamorous. Veronese's earlier works, such as Averroes and Ptolemy, ha\e more gravitas
and are closer in mood to the earlier Roman and Tuscan influences of Michelangelo
and Giulio Romano.

Portrait ofJean-S_ylvain Bailly

AuGUSTiN Pajou

French, 1730—1809

■791

Patinated plaster on painted wood socle and

plinth

29V4 X \<)'h X II in. (75.6 X 49.5 X 27.9 cm)

with socle and plinth

Inscribed on ri^ht shoulder truncation: Par

Pajou Citoyen de La Ville de Paris. 1791;

painted on front of plinth: SI TROMPANT NOS

DOULEURS D'UN PERt QUI N'EST PLUS / CETTE

ARGILE A NOS YEUX SAIT RETRACER L'IMAGE, /

DANS NOS CttURS AFFLIGES, OU VIVRONT SES

VERTUS, / NOTRE AMOUR LUl CONSACRE UN PLUS

DURABLE HOMAGE. (While this clay can deceive

our sorrow for a father who has died / by

re-creating his image before our eyes, / It

is in our suffering hearts, v\here his virtues

survive, / that our lo\e accords to him a

more lasting homage. )

Gift of The Ahmanson Foundation

M.75.10]

Provenance:

The family of the sitter

Monsieur Wolff.

Pierre Decourcelle.

His daughter

Paris, sale, Galerie Charpentier, 30 May 1951.

Ader Collection.

Madame Jacques Loste.

Monte Carlo, Black-Nadeau Gallery (dealer).

Select Literature:

Stanislas Lami, Diciionnaire des sculpieurs de
I'ecole franqaise au di\-huiiieme Steele (Paris:
Honore Champion, 1911), 2:221.

Henri Stein, Augustin PajOu (Paris: Librairie
Centrale des Beaux-Arts, 1912), 72-75, 416.

France m the highteenih Ceniur\^ exh. cat.
(London: Ro\al ."XcademN of .Arts, Winter
196S), 13S, no. 814, fig. j49.

"L.A. Countv Art Museum .Acquisitions,"
National Sculpture Review 27, no. 1 (Spring
1978): 16.

Genevieve Bresc-Bautier, Sculpture jranqaise—
XVIIIe Steele, Ecole du Louvre notices d'histoire
de Part, no. 3 (Paris; tditions de la Reunion
des musees nationaux, 1980), under no. 4b.

Ican-Svlvain Baillv (1756-93), whose literary career was surpassed bv his studies in
astronomy and its historv, was elected to the French Academy of the Sciences at the
age of twenty-seven. He calculated the orbit of Halley's comet, wrote two books
about the moons of Jupiter, and published three volumes on ancient, Eastern, and
modern astronomy. As the events of the French Revolution untolded, he was draw n
into political life and was elected deputy from Paris to the Estates-General. On
July 15, 1789, he became mayor oF Paris. Pajou no doubt modeled this portrait
before Bailly was driven from ofHce in No\ember 1791, when the populace turned
against him.

Pajou, descendant of a family of sculptors, studied under Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne
and won, in 1748, the first Grand Prix de Sculpture. After spending tour years at the
French Academy in Rome (I7j2-j6), he returned to Paris to embark on what would
become one of the most illustrious careers ot an\ French sculptor in the second halt
of the eighteenth century

In 1768 Pajou was awarded the commission tor all ot the sculptured ornament
of the Opera at the chateau of Versailles. This ambitious undertaking imolv ed the
decoration of the exterior of the building, the sculpture for its foyer, and a multitude
of reliefs and panels for all of the loges of the interior The Opera was to be readv in
just two yeans, in time for the marriage of the L^auphin Louis to Marie .Antoinette ot

Paiou

Austria. Pajou oversaw a team of practitioners w ho vsorked incessantly to complete
the project by 1770. By then he had become the preferred portraitist of Madame du
Barry and, after his nomination as sculpteur du roi, was made responsible from 1777
to 1784 for the official portraits of Louis XVI.

Pajou 's appointment as curator of the collection ot antiquities in the Louvre (also
Notes in 1777) helped him to survive professionally during the Revolution. He was asked

I. Stein, 72-73. tQ serve on the Revolutionary Committee on the Conservation of Works of Art,

which ostensiblv decided the fate of works of art during a period of methodical,
widespread destruction of human life and historic monuments. In 1795, together
with Claude Dejoux, Jean-Antoine Houdon, Pierre Julien, Jean-Guillaume Moitte,
and Philippe-Laurent Roland, Pajou was nominated to the Institut de France, which
had just been established.

The upheaval caused by the Re\olution and its subsequent reversals affected all
levels of society. Although the Revolutionary government endeavored to maintain
its own support of the arts, France's sculptors suflered professionally as their
aristocratic patrons v\ere executed or fled the country. VirtualK' overnight, ro\al
patronage had been brought to an end. The number ol major commissions, in
particular funerary monuments (vilified because of what was seen as their aristo-
cratic character), v\as greatly reduced. In these adverse conditions the portrait bust,
w hich had always pro\ ided .sculptors w ith a basic means of livelihood, took on a
proportionally greater significance as a category ol sculpture.

Throughout his career Pajou had been recognized for his excellence as a
portraitist. Indeed two of his earliest know n works are portraits of his teacher
Lemovne (1758, bronze. Louvre, Paris; 1759, terra-cotta, Musee des Beaux-.Arts,
Nantes). In these his portrait style is already purified, direct, and purged of trivial
details.

Unlike Houdon, who enlivened his portraits w ith a tlickering charm, Pajou
developed a more reticent idiom. In contrast w ith Houdon's treatment of Baillv's
portrait (c. 1790, terra-cotta, Lindenau Museum, Altenburg), Pajou gave a gloss of
idealization to the features and further neutralized the details ol contemporary
costume. By tilting the head back so that the focused gaze v\-as slightly askance
and by showing the lips bareK- parted, the artist conveyed the intellectual \ italitv
of his subject. Baillv had been described by Merard de Saint-Just as "serious, w ith
an imposing air, perhaps even a little severe, but never austere."' This portrait,
expressing the lively rationalism of the Enlightenment, captures the skepticism of an
astronomer elected ma\or of Paris. The open collar of the shirt, w hich contributed
to the sense of candor of the sitter, suggests in retrospect the poignant vulnerability
of this man of science, guillotined in 1793.

WLL

Landscape with Dunes

Jacob Isaacksz van Ruisdael

Dutch, 1628/29-82

1649

Oil on oak panel

20% X 26V8 in. (f2.4 X 67.6 cm)

Signed at lower lett: Ruisdael 1(149

Gift of Dorothy G. Sullivan

M.7f.ij8

Provenance:

Brighton, Lady Rage Turner

Paris, sale, Maurice Kahn, 9 June igii, no. 58.

Paris, Charles Sedelmeyer (dealer).

Amsterdam, J. Goudstikker (dealer).

Almelo, Ten Gate Collection.

Munich, Julius Bohler (dealer), bv 1958.

Los Angeles, Howard F. Ahmanson.

Los Angeles, Dorothy G. Sullivan, until 1975.

Select Literature:

Jakob Rosenberg, yaroi van Ruisdael (Berlin:
Cassirer, 1928), 10;, no. {23a.

'utch artists of the seventeenth century can properly be credited w ith the
invention ot landscape painting in its pure form. Pre\ iouslv the natural world had
served primarily as background to subject pictures; these artists, in their closely
observed renderings of the countryside, sea, and townscape, elevated landscape to an
important genre ol its own. Jacob van Ruisdael is generally considered its greatest
practitioner during a period when this type of painting flourished. Born in 1628 or
1629 in Haarlem, he was the son of art dealer and occasional landscape painter Isaack
Jacobsz van Ruysdael. Ruisdael's own artistic talents were manifested at an early age,
and he was probably trained bv his uncle, the prominent landscape painter Salomon
van Ruysdael. Jacob joined the Haarlem guild of Saint Luke in 1648.

Early in his career Ruisdael made several trips in the Netherlands; in 1651 he
traveled with Nicolaes Berchem, his friend and fellow landscape painter, to
Westphalia. Bv 1657 Rui.sdael had settled in Amsterdam, where he would spend the
remainder ot his lite. He was a prolific painter of dunclands, forests, rivers, and fields
and also a producer of etchings and drawings. An inHuential and often imitated
artist, Ruisdael frequently collaborated on paintings w ith Berchem, Adriaen van de
Velde, and Philips Wouwerman. His most important pupil was Meindert Hobbema.

Landscape uhh Dunes, which is signed and dated 1649, is a fine example of the kind
of rugged, agitated landscape in which Ruisdael specialized early in his career. The
artist chose as his site a rough country lane that winds through the landscape,
bordered on the left by a meandering stream and on the right bv grassv dunes. The
bend in the road curves high at right, creating a dynamic balance \yith the low land
at left. Just off center Ruisdael placed a pair of twisted oaks, their intertw ined limbs
silhouetted against the stormv sky. Nestled in the folds of the land is a steep-roofed
house, perhaps the destination of the mother and child who hurry along the path in
the right middle ground. In the field at left a number of sheep lie in the path of the
approaching storm, their presence half hidden by deep shadow.

RUISDAEL

The particular motif of lundscijpe wnh Dunes was apparently a favored one \\ ith

Ruisdael. There exist several cIrawinsJs and etchini^s that repeat the principal

elements of the picture, and in its composition and mood the panel is a variation

on se\'eral paintinsjs that date from the late 1640s, such as the Dune Landscape near

Haarlem, dated 1647 (on loan to thi- fviiiistmuseum, Diisscidorf), and the landscape

Notes known as Le Buisson (Louvre, Paris).' The focus of both of these pictures, like the Los

I. Seymour Slive and H. R. Hoetink, /aroi ion Angeles one, is the tangled mass of trees in the center, and both include a stream on

"'^ "^ ' ', , „ ^ the left and a rutted path sharply struck by sunlight on the right. The Diisseldorf

Mauritsriuiii/Abbcville, 19S1), ?<>-!7, no. 5 and ' ' . e- o

fj_ ,Q and Paris versions, however, feature a distant view of Haarlem at left, w ith the spire

of Saint Baxo prominent on the hori/.on. In the Los Angeles panel no such specificity

of locale is apparent. Rather, Ruisdael chose to focus on those elemental forces of

nature that make tor such a dramatic composition.

In Landscape with Dunes the great, gray band of rain-soaked clouds runs the length
of the picture, the agitated, dancing brushwork utilized h\ Ruisdael filling the
air with the heavy moisture and chill of the approaching storm. The ground is
composed of a series of curves and twists: the path, the gnarled logs that litter the
foreground, the undulating creek, the weather-beaten fence. The central trees, their
peeling bark rendered in a thick impasto, are strangely anthropomorphic, seemingly
struggling as much against each other as w ith the w ind that tears at them.

In such stormy landscapes Ruisdael's vision of nature is one of internal movement
and dynamism, a vivid contrast with the placid calm that pervades other Dutch
landscapes, such as Forest Clearing with Cattle by Philips Koninck and Adriaen van de
Velde (cat. no. 41). Signs of man's industr\ or culture are negligible in the Ruisdael,
and there is no sense of the sylvan compatibility of the human and natural that
pervades the work by the other two artists. In fact the solitary mother and her
child flee nature in the Landscape with Dunes as they hasten their progress along
the vvindsv\ept road, eager to find shelter in the face of the threatening storm.

4-S

Magdalen with
the Smoking Flame

Georges de La Tour

French, 1^93—1652

c. 1638—40

Oil on canvas

46 '/16 X 36'A in. (117.0 X 91. S im)

Signed at lower ri^ht: G DclaTour

Gift ol The Alimanson Foundation

M. 77-73

Provenance:

France, La Have familv.

Paris, Simone La Haye, c. 1943-77.

Select Literature:

Pierre Rosenbers; and Francois Mace de
L'Fninav, Georaes dc La lour: Vie et oeuvre
(Fribourg: Office du Livre, 1973), 132—33,
no. 32.

Jacques Thuillier, L'opera completa di Georges de
La Tout (Milan: Rizzoli, 1973), 93, no. 38.

Benedict Nicolson and Christopher Wright,
Georges de La Tour (London: Phaidon Press,
1974), 174, no. 27, pi. 49.

Pierre Rosenberg, France in (be Golden Age:
Seventeenth-(.enuir\ Trench Paintings in American
Collections, exh. cat. (New York: Metropolitan
Museum of Art, 1982), 354, no. 12.

Pierre Rosenberg, "France in the Golden Age:
A Postscript," .l/t'Iropo//wn Museum Journal 17
(1984): 41, fig 23.

IcorsJes de La Tour was the greatest tenebrist painter working in seventeenth-
century France. Indeed since his "rediscovery" early in this century he is ranked
second only to Carava^Jgio, the artist who in Rome and Naples at the \er\ beginning
of the seventeenth century eflectiv eiy invented tenebrism, as a master at painting
in this dramatic style, w ith its bold contrasts of light and shade.

La Tour was born in Vic-sur-Seille in 1593, a time when the duchy ot Lorraine was
still inde|5endent trom France. Nothing is known tor certain about his training as an
artist, but contemporary documents show that he spent most ol his working lite at
Luneville, Lorraine's administrative center In 1623 and 1624 he sold paintings to
Duke Henri II. In 1639 he was in Paris, where Louis XIII conferred on him the title
ot peinirc ordinaire Jii roi. In this year he ottered the ruler a painting ot Soini Schasiun
Mourned by Irene (the original is lost, but there are good replicas in the Louvre,
Paris, and the Staatliche Museen, Berlin). Between 1644 and 1651 La Tour received
important commissions tor paintings destined tor the Marechal de la Ferte, governor
ot Lorraine.

Among the unresolved questions regarding La Tour's training is whether or not he
went to Italy. It so he possibly journeyed to Rome during the second decade ot the
century, w here he would have been one of a large international community ot artists
under the swa\ ot Caravaggio's influential dramatic stvle, even though the master
had dieil in idio. lii the jiresent writer, however, there is nothing in La Tour's
manner to suggest direct exposure to Caravaggio's art nor to the rather down-to-

La Tour

earth work of his immediate followers in Italy. It is just as likelv that he traveled in
the Low Countries, especially to the southern, Dutch, Catholic city of Utrecht, the
most important center of Caravaggesquc painting north of the Alps, \\ here he might
have seen the work of artists such as Dirck van Baburen, Gerrit van Honthorst, and
Hendrick Terbrugghen, all of whom had studied in Rome. This is a matter that can
never be resolved by stylistic comparisons alone: until a document is found, the issue
of La Tour's travels north or south must remain an open question.

There is a general con.sensus among .scholars that in the early to mid-i6 jos La
Tour developed his own celebrated tenebrist manner, in which his strong effects of
chiaroscuro are created by artificial light sources in dark and normally nighttime
settings. This is long after he was likely to have been exposed to any direct
experience of Caravaggio or his immediate followers. Indeed relati\e to the
Caravaggesquc painting that was going on in Italy and Utrecht during the first
twenty years of the century. La Tour's effects of light are especially studied and
subtle, while his forms are smooth and have a personal refinement of design and
execution that is almost mannered. His three surviving dated works. The Payment
of Dues (1634, Lvov Museum), the Repentant Samt Peter (1645, Cleveland Museum
of Art), and the Denial of Saint Peter (1650, Musee des Beaux-Arts, Nantes), show
how La Tour's tenebrist works become progressively more simplified in form.

Within these three fixed points of reference it is generally accepted that the
Magdalen with the Smoking Flame dates to the late i6jo.s, after The Payment of Dues, with
its complex disposition of the six participants and ambitious light effects, but before
the grand and simplified monumentality of the Repentant Saint Peter. Before this
tenebrist period La Tour seems to have concentrated on his daylight scenes, which
have a greater sense of observed realitv than the later works and are more often
genre subjects. However, his religious subjects were alwavs to be close to genre
in treatment.

Magdalen ivith the Smoking Flame is one of the artist's finest nocturnal scenes.
It depicts a subject that was especially popular in Catholic Europe during the
Counter-Reformation in the seventeenth century. If Protestant reformers decried
both the Catholic adoration of saints and the use of images as aids to devotion, the
Catholic Church responded by asserting both traditions e\en more firmly Images ot
the penitent Magdalen were particularly favored, because she appealed to both rich
and poor alike in her rejection of the blandishments of the material world in favor of
the spiritual life as a follower of Christ. Although there is no justification lor such
an identification in the Scriptures, the Magdalen came to be seen traditionally as a
courtesan who, upon her con\ersion to Christianity, rejected her former life of sin
and materialism and became one of Christ's most ardent followers. Her apocryphal
story is told in Jacobus de Voragine's compendium of the saints' li\es. The Golden
Legend, compiled in the thirteenth century and still the standard source for her life
in the se\enteenth century. He relates that her great lo\ e and the intensit\- of her
conversion won her a special place in Christ's heart.

La Tour shov\s the Magdalen in her retreat from the world, as she sits alone in
a dark and austere interior She is no longer dressed in her elaborate courtesan's
costume but wears plain, homespun clothes, her skirt supported by a simple cord.

La Tour

Detail

Her hair is undressed, not decked with jewels; her I'eet are hare in hnmilitv. On the
table is a knotted scourge used m the niortihcation of thi' Hesh, a plain woodin
cross, and two hooks, which suggest she has been contemplating tiu- sutleiing ot
Christ and studying devotional texts. On her lap she cratlles a skull, s\nibol of
the niortalitv of the Hesh. Mary's attention is concentrated aho\e all on the steady
gk)\\ ot the Hame rising from the simple oil lamp on the tahli'. 1 kr
lontemplation ot this light is the subject of the painting; her hxed
ga/.e also directs the yiewer's attention. The light not only illuminates
the salient features of the Magdalen's ascetic surroundings but is also
spiritual, representing truth and religious faith, la lour does not
stress her jjenance, her deyotion to prayer as a means of salvation,
nor her ultimate heayenlv glory. Rather he emphasizes her spiritual
enlightenment. Moreoyer her ow n faith will burn \yith the ardor of
this Hame. Voragine \yrites that the Magdalen is to be interpreted as
a "light-giver, or enlightened." More than jjenance or heavenly glory
she chose the way of inward contemplation in her converted life and
became "enlightened with the light of perfect knowiedsje in her
mind." She is called light-giver "because therein she drank ayidly
that which afterward [i.e., when she went on later in life as an active
di.sciple ot Christ] she poured out in abundance; therein she received
the light, with which afterward she enlightened others."'

La Tour brilliantly deploys the light of the oil lamp to simplify his
composition, repress the extraneous detail, and direct attention to
the most meaningful features of his painting. For all the simplicity
of its subject, it is a very beautiful work. The .softness of the lis^ht
creates an almost palpable atmosphere, and the artist has taken a
sensuous delight in describing the different surfaces it reveals: the
smooth, plump flesh of the young Magdalen, the creamy w hite of
her blouse, the saturated red of her skirt, the various gleams ^iv en
oft by the surfaces ot bone, vellum, and glass. This very high level of aesthetic
accomplishment plays an important part in engaging the spectator's attention and
also suggests something ot the spiritual rapture being experienced by the Magdalen
as she contemplates her recent understanding of what it means to follow Christ.

Because of the strong sense of observation in the painting, for example in
the exquisite wav La Tour de.scribes the surfaces, vokmies, and textures ot the
Magdalen's blouse or carefully renders the lamp, where the dev ice that stops the
wick from falling into the oil is shown clearly and where the black smoke rises so
convincingly, it is reasonable to join the consensus that says this painting is among
his first nocturnal works. The style is not as rarihed and mannered as it became
during the second half of the 1640s. The artist's observations still have a strong basis
in reality, linking this painting w ith the more realistically observed daylight pictures
that preceded it, such as the Penitent Saint Jerome (two versions, Musee des Beaux-
Arts, Grenoble, and Nationalmuseum, Stockholm), The Fortune Teller (Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York), or The Card Sharp (two versions, Kimbell Art Museum,
Fort Worth, and Louvre, l^aris).

La Tour

Flci. loa

Georges de La Tour, Repentant Magdalen,

c. 1638—40, oil on canvas, 45'/4 x jy'A in.

(114.9 X 94.6 cm), National Gallery of Art,

Washinfiton, D.C, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Lund

(i974-52'[2<'72])-

Fig. lob

Georges de La Tour, Magdalen \v\th Two l-Iames,
c. 1640—45, oil on canvas, 5jV« x j6'/4 in.
(136.2 X 93.3 cm), Metropolitan Museum of
Art, New York, gift of Mr and Mrs. Charles
Wrightsman, 1978.

Fig. IOC

Georges de La Tour, Magdalen irir/i the Lamp,
c. 1645—50, oil on can\a.s, 50 Vs x 37 in.
(128.0 X 94.0 cm), Louvre, Paris. Photo:
Cliche des Musees Nationaux.

Notes

1 . jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend
(c. 1275), trans, and ed. Granger Rvan and
Helmut Ripperger ( The Golden Legend of facohu
de Voragine, pt. 2, London: Longmans, Green
and Co., 1941), 355.

The Magdalen nith the Smokmcj Flame is probably La Tour's Hrst image ot this saint.
He repeated the siibjt-ct three more times in autograph paintings. The Repentant
Macjdalen (National Gallerv of Art, Washington, D.C, tig. loa) is a highly poetic work,
different in conception but similar in style to the Los .Angeles painting. Its theme is
slightly altered: La Tour alludes more strongly to the transience of the flesh by
giying the skull such a prominent position, and the fact that the Magdalen is gazing
into the mirror, w here the skull is reflected, seryes to emphasize this aspect of the
subject. The Magdalen with I»o Flames (Metropolitan Museum of Art, Ne\y York, fig.
lob) has more of the abstract quality of the mid-ife4os and suggests more a rejection
of the w orkl, as is indicated by the mirror ot \anity and the discarded je\yelry still
strc\yn on the table and floor. The Magdalen with the Lamp (Louvre, Paris, hg. loc) is
a still later and more austere \ersion of the Los Angeles picture, perhaps painted
in the mid- or eyen late 1640s. Besides the California painting, it is the only other
yersion that is signed. While the composition ot objects on the table and the
positioning of Mary's feet are slightly different, it is the stiffer and more abstract
cjuaiitv of the haiidlina anil overall design that are striking. For example, contrast
the treatment of the Magdalen's blouses in the Los Angeles and Paris \yorks. The
condition of the Louyre's paintina leayes much to be desired, in contrast with the
nearly perfect state ot the Magdalen iiii/i the Smoking Flame.

UnfortiinateK it is not known for whom the Los Angeles painting was originalK
made. Most likely it was done for a patron in Luneyille, but if dating it to the period
of about 1638-40 is correct, it cannot be ruled out that it may have been prepared
in Paris, vyhere the artist was recorded in 1639. Whatever one's religious or philo-
sophical point ot view, the Magdalen with the Smoking Flame remains a very moving
statiment about tlii' human condition and is one of the supreme masterpieces
of the Los Anoeles County Museum ot .■Xrt.

s°

Diana with a Stag and a Dog

II
Jean-Baptiste Tuby i

Italian (naturalizi-il French), 1655-1700

1687

Terra-cotta

lo'/i X i6'/» X 8'/-! in. (26.0 x 42.9 x 21.0 cm)

Inscribed on base: Tubi tct 16S7

Gift ol The Ahmanson hnindation

iVl.78.77

Provenance:

Paris, Alain Moatti (ileaier).

Select Literature:

"Principales acquisitions dcs musees en 1979,"
la chroni(jiie des am, no. 13 J4< supplement to
Gazelle des Beaux-Am, hth period 95 (March
1980): 54, no. 178.

Hran(^ois .Souchal, l-rench Smipiors of the
Scvenlecnth and Eyhieenib Centiiney The Keiqn
of Louis \IV {Oxford: Cassirer, 1987), 5:559-60,
no. bg.

Ihe

Lhe Roman-born Jean-Baptistc Tubv i.s known to have been in Paris bv 1660. His
foreign nationahty did not prevent him from being elected to the Royal Academy
just three years later; indeed his naturalization in 1672 was at the order of Louis XIV.
For nearly twenty years he served as ofjicier da batiments du roi besides teaching at
the Academy and establishing an atelier for bronze casting at the Gobelins. Tuby was
a member of the inspired group of artists and architects who realized tlic splendid
vision of Versailles. Fie also collaborated with Antoine Covse\ox on the tombs of
Jean-Baptiste Colbert and Jules Mazarin.

Throughout his life Tuby enjoyed a close relationship w ith Louis XlV's aesthetic
factotum, the painter Charles Le Brun. It was Tubv who, following Le Brun's
designs, executed the paradigmatic image of Versailles, the spectacular Chariot
of Apollo for the Basin of Apollo at the head of the Grand Canal. Fie was further
charged with producing \'arious sculptures for the fountains and gardens of the
chateau, in particular the large group called Hora. For the Water Parterre, a di\ ided
reflecting pool surrounded by personifications of France's ri\ers, he modeled The
Rhone and The Saone (both 1687). Their composition and stvle bear directly on the
terra-cotta Diana with a Stacj and a Doq.

Although no large-scale version ol the Diana is known, it may ha\e been a project
destined for the gardens ol Versailles, \\here, in an elaborate sequence of fountains
and sculptures, the symbolic identification of Louis XIV w ith the sun-god Apollo
was played out. Apollo's twin sister was the moon-goddess Diana, who was also
goddess of the hunt.

TUBY

Notes

1. Guv Walton, letter to Peter Fusco, i
September 1981. The Cabinet of Diana is one
of t«o small pools also know n as the Cabinets
of the Animals.

2. AnuquHws, Works of An and Imporiani
Renaissance Bromes, Placjucircs and Limo(jcs
Enamels, aui:. eat. (London: Christie'.s, 8 July
1981), no 355.

3. Paris, Ader Picard Tajan sale, 22 November
1987, no. 108. The work is in.scribed "Th. R.
esquisse p le Loiret. becit 1688" and measures
29.0 X 44.0 X 18.0 cm.

4. Guilhem Scherf, letter to author, ;o July
1990, citing Louyre archiycs.

The Diana miiiht have been proposed for the Cabinet of Diana, a .small pool that
served as a transitional motif between the Water Parterre and the Basin of Latona
(or, alternatively, the Baths ot .Apollo).' The representation of Diana in the traditional
pose of a river goddess, reclinina with her ami supportcil by an owrturncd urn
spilling water, would have been especially appropriate in this location. Tuby's
statuette unites the svmbolism of water, the element that nourished and animated
the tormal gardens, with the goddess ol the hunt. As hunting; was a roval iiriyiicae
(enjoyed especially in the woods surroundinsj the wardens), Diana had come to be
ever more closely associated w itb tin- king of France.

The conflation of the two iconojjraphic types, of Diana with a river goddess,
already had a royal tradition in French art. In the iconographic program of Franc^ois
Fs Fontainebleau the many representations of water nymphs held allusions to the
hunt. The earliest known freestanding monumental French sculpture, the marble
Diana of Anet (c. 1^50, Louvre, Paris), was combined with aquatic imagery in the
great fountain of the chateau of Anet. Indeed the composition of the Diana of Anet
is so close to Tubv's Diana that it could casilv be considered an inspiration tor the
terra-cotta, but the cool mannerism of the marble has nothing in common w ith the
inviting, tender appeal of Tubv's statuette.

Tubv's activities in bronze casting at the Gobelins give more than passing interest
to a bronze version of the Los Angeles Diana that was sold at auction in London in
1 98 1.' The museum's sculpture should also be considered in relation to another
terra-cotta of verv similar size and format, The Loiret, bv Thomas Rcgnaudin, which
appeared in Paris in 1987.' The Diana may vet prove to be that yvhich passed at
auction in Paris on November 7, 195 j (Ader sale, no. 60): "Groupe en terre cuite:
Diane couchee pres d'un cerf et d'un chien," inscribed J. B. Tuby, measuring
45. J cm.-*

MLL

I 2 (see also catalogue number 28)

Bacchus and Ariadne

GuiDO Reni

Italian (BolosJna), 1 575-1642

c. 1619—20

Oil on canvas

38 X j4 in. (96.5 X 86.4 cm)

Gift ot The Ahmanson Foundation

M.79.6;

Provenance:

Probably Bologna, Cesare Rinaldi.

Possibly Rome, Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni,
by 1693.

Possibly Rome, Ottoboni sale, 1740.
London, sale, Hogard & Co., 8 March 1769.

England, Nathaniel Curzon, Lord Scarsdale,

by 1769.

London, Thomas Agnevv and Sons (dealer).

Select Lfterature:

D. Stephen Pepper, " 'Bacchus and .Ariadne'
in the Los Angeles Countv IVluseum: The
'Scherzo' as Artistic Mode," The Burlington
Magazine I2f, no. 959 (February 1983): 68—75.

Richard Cocke, "Guido Rcni's 'Bacchus and
Ariadne,'" The Burlington Magazine 126, no. 970
(January 1984): 39.

D. Stephen Pepper, Owdo Rem: .4 Complete
Catalogue of His Works with an lntroductor\ Text
(New York; New York Uni\crsitv Press, 1984),
238—39, no. 66, pi. 92.

Guido Rem l^J^—1642, exh. cat. (Los Angeles:
Los Angeles Countv Museum of .Art, 1988),
218—19, no. 22.

ido Reni, one of the most famous and influential painters in seventeenth-
century Italy, remained an admired model of refined classicism throughout Europe
until well into the nineteenth centurv. Reni, along with Domenichino (cat. no. 47),
was a pupil of Flemish painter Denvs Calvaert (who worked in Bologna) until the
early IJ90S, when he attended the academy founded bv the brothers Annibale and
Agostino Carracci and their cousin Ludovico Carracci.

During the 1580s and ijgos the Carracci changed the direction of Italian painting
from the dominant complexity and sophisticated refinement of the mannerist stvle
to a more solid and classical art based on the study of the masters of the High
Renaissance, especially the idealism ot Raphael, early style of Michelangelo, color of
Titian and Veronese, and frank emotion ot Correggio. They revived the practice ol
drawing constantly from life; an artist who went through their academy understood
every w ay that the human figure could serve as a \ ehicle of physical, emotional,
and moral expression. This study of the human form was tempered by constant
references to the great models of ideal art ot the past, notabh the Renaissance
artists mentioned above as well as antique sculpture. So great was the influence ot
the Carracci and that ot their Bolognese and Roman followers that most ot the
subsequent major developments in figure painting in seventeenth-centurx Italy had
this firm basis. The establishment ot -Annibale's studio in Rome, when he was called
there to decorate the Harnese Gallery in 1595, secured his preeminent position.
Reni too went to Rome, where, in the early iboos, he absorbed the radical,
forceful, and dramatic tenebrist style ot Caravaggio, a painter whose art was also

deeply rooted in the sti

nature. .-Xlthoueh Reni flirted brieflx with Caravacraio's

Reni

strong effects of light and shade and realistic rendering of surfaces (see especially
Reni's Crucifixion of Saint Peter in the Vatican, begun in 1604 soon after his arrival in
Rome), he was drawn more toward the idealizing classicism of the Carracci. In
Bologna he had known Raphael's altarpiece of the Ecstacy of Saint Cecilia (Pinacoteca
Nazionale, Bologna), which remained a model of perfection for him.

Reni soon became a highly successful and sought-after artist, so well did his art
embody the seventeenth-century ideal of classical beautv. Working mainly in Rome
and his native Bologna, he painted altarpieces, private devotional works, frescoes in
churches and palaces, and important secular commissions, such as the Labors of
Hercules (Louvre, Paris), done between 1617 and 1621 for the Gonzagas in Mantua.

Bacchus and Ariadne was painted at this most classical moment of Reni's career,
when he was at the peak of his powers and reputation. Quite dittcrent trom the vast
scale and muscular heroism of the Labors of Hercules, it is a small and refined cabinet
picture, clearly made for the delectation of a cultivated private patron, \\ ho would
have been familiar with this celebrated story from ancient mythology (0\id, Ars
Amatoria 1:^94-627; /1/etomorp/ioses 8:177-81). Reni shows the moment when Bacchus,
wearing his traditional wreath of grapevines, encounters Ariadne, daughter of King
Minos of Crete, abandoned on the shore of the island Naxos by Theseus, w hose
white-sailed ships can be seen disappearing over the horizon. Above her head, high
in the sky, is a ring of stars alluding to Bacchus's pledge to render her name eternal
by bearing her crown up to heaven, where it became the constellation Corona
Borealis. The two figures are studiedly perfect in form, as befits ideal characters
in an ancient myth. Sky and sea seem impossibly blue.

The only certainty about the pro\ enance of this painting is that it was in the
Scarsdale Collection at Kedleston Hall bv 1769, where it remained until it came to
Los Angeles via a London dealer in 1979.' Several copies or versions of the subject
exist or existed (see Pepper 1984), but the museum's superb painting is the only
surviving autograph one and is of the highest quality. It seems quite likely that it is
the painting sold in London in 1769, as it is known that Sir Nathaniel Curzon, first
Lord Scarsdale, was purchasing works of art tor Kedleston at that period.- It also
seems likely to the present writer that the museum's painting was in the collection
of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni and sold in 1740. Although the dimensions in the
Ottoboni sale inventory, five by four palmi (iij.o x 90.2 cm), are a little larger,
the painting could have been trimmed at a later date or measured in its frame. '
Ottoboni was one of the great and discriminating collectors of his day, and both the
quality and the sophisticated approach to the subject matter in Bacchus and Ariadne
are up to his standards. However, a link cannot be established between Ottoboni
and Scarsdale, any more than it can be proven that the painting's first owner was the
Bolognese poet Cesare Rinaldi. But this last hypothesis, first cautiously proposed in
1983 by Stephen Pepper (to whose research this entry is indebted), seems convincing.

Rinaldo Ariosti, writing from Bologna to his master, the Duke of Modena, on
February 21, 1627, mentions a Bacchus and Ariadne bv Reni on the market, which then
belonged to a certain Rinaldi. It is the only mention of such a picture in Reni's
lifetime. The most likely candidate for its ownership is Cesare Rinaldi, a friend and
correspondent of Reni's from at least 161 j. He was one of a circle of sophisticated
collectors and literati that included other Reni patrons in Bologna such as Luigi

Reni

Notes

1. A 1769 cataloijue o( tho collection ot Lord
Scarsdale, Kedleston Hall, recorded the
painting: "Music Room— West Hnd, Guido,
Bacchus and Ariadne." It was not noted bv
Horace Walpole « lien he went to see the
works ot art at Kedleston in 1768. However,
an unspeciheil paint insj ot about the same
dimensions b\ Reni was noted in a manuscript
inventory made in 1761. See Pepper, "'Bacchus
and Ariadne,'" 71—72.

2. Pepper, "'Bacchus and Ariadne,' " 72.

3. Ibid., 7[. Transcriptions of the rele\ant
Ottoboni archi\al papers were supplied to the
museum b\ Protessor Hdward J. Olszewski in
Februarv 1982 and are on file along with his
helptui correspondence.

4_ Pepper, "'Bacchus and .-\riadne,'" 72.

Zambeccari, whose familN- commissioned Reni's celebrated Samson Victorious
(Pinacoteca Nazionalc, Bologna). Count Andrea Barbazzi, the agent who com-
missioned the Labors oj Hercules tor the Duke ot Mantua, was al.so of the circle.
Interestingly, Rinaldi already ouned a painting o( Bacchus and Ariadne (now lost)
by Ludovico Carracci, which hatl ins[)ired a poem b\' his Roman friend, jjoet
and collector Giambattista Marino.

Bacchus and Anadne has been the locus ot some scholarly discussion about its
probable meaning for the artist, its presumed first owner, and their culti\ated circle
in Bologna. Pepper (1983 and 1984) has suggested that the meaning in this and
several other paintings lies in Reni's appropriation of the scherzo (a refined and
learned jest), a category' of literary rhetoric that, \s ith some iron\', suggests in the
characters represented attitudes or beha\ ior that is humorously inapjjropriate to
their situations:

The scene is a seduction, where Anadne. a tear rolling down her cheek, turns away from
Bacchus, but with her open hand clearly accepts his offer. Bacchus is eyen more comical,
presenting himself as a substitute for the faithless Theseus, whose ships can be seen in the
distance: his stance and attitude seem more appropriate to a public orator than to a suitor.
I he effect is to pull the rug out from under the characters, whose rhetoric is sojormal as to
be inappropriate to their actions.'*

Professor Richard Cocke, however, rejects Pepper's arguments, claiming
rather that Reni had carefullv read the 0\ idian source of the storv of Bacchus and
Ariadne and, master of classical idealism that he was, had concentrated their famous
encounter on the shores ot Naxos into the \ery essence of the tale, expressed bv him
in the two figures alone. It certainly is the classical counterpart to Titian's crowded
and rambunctious Bacchus and Ariadne (National Gallerv, London), which follows
Ovid's .\rs Amatoria more literallv and is treated in a tvpicallv Venetian manner, full
of color and mo\ement, as Bacchus's lively train of inebriated follov\ers dances
through the landscape. Titian's painting was in Reni's dav and is today one of the
most famous interpretations of classical mythology in Western art. For Cocke, Reni,
with brilliant economv, balances the distraught Ariadne — "He is gone, the faithless
one; what w ill become of me?" — with the young god Bacchus, w ho presents
himself to her even as the ships of Theseus disappear over the horizon — "Lo, here
am I, a more faithful lo\er; ha\c no lear" Cocke has also shown that Reni's two
figures are based on classical statues well known in that time and relates this artistic
practice of borrow ing to Reni's stated position (as reported by his seventeenth-
centurv biographer. Carlo Cesare Malvasia) that, far from being inspired bv
supernatural \ isions of beauty, his own idea of beauty was formed by years of hard
work studving the classical ideals expressed in ancient sculpture. The present writer
leans toward Cocke's interpretation, so seriously and carefully meditated does Reni's
ideal of beautv appear to be. This is not to deny the artist a degree of wit. He very
skillfullv distills the storv down to its basic elements but does not trv to convince
the \'iewer of the realitv ol the scene. Reni presents the fundamental idea of it,
expressed through classical, rhetorical figures, while Titian, b\ contrast, seems to
travel back to 0\ id's ancient mvthical world, making the observer experience it as
real or at least believable and down-to-earth.

Soap Bubbles

Jean-Simeon Chardin

French, 1699-1779

c- 1733-34

Oil on canvas

23% X 28V4 in. (60.0 X 7j.o cm)

Signed at lower left: J.S. chardin

Gift of The Ahmanson Foundation

M. 79.251

Provenance:

Possibly Paris, Bachc, Brilliant, De Cosse,
Quene sale, 22 April 1776, no. 81.
Possibly Paris, Due de Rohan-Chabot sale,
23 May 1780, no. 26.

Possibly Paris, Claude-Henri Watelet sale,
12 June 1786, no. 10.

Possibly Paris, Dulac sale, 6 April 1810, no. 19.

Possibly Philippe de Kcrhallet, 1912 (document

on Hie in Departement des Peintures, Louvre,

Paris).

Paris, sale, Drouot, 18 June 1973, no. 90.

Paris, Claus Virch (dealer).

Select Literature:

Pierre Rosenberg, Chardin. iSgg-iyjg, exh.
cat. (Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art,
1979), 209.

Pierre Rosenberg, Tout I'oeuvre peini de Chardin
(PSris: Flammarion, 1983), 91, no. 97B.

Pierre Rosenberg, Chardin: .Veii Thoughis,
Franklin D. Murphy Lectures 1 (Kansas City:
Spencer Museum of Art, 1983), 53—54, fig. 55-

Philip Conisbee, Masterpiece in Focus: "Soap
Bubbles" b\ Jean-Simeon Chardin^ exh. cat.
( Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of
Art, 1990).

n 1749 Pierre-Jean Mariette, critic and connoisseur, wrote the earHest bio^aphv
of Chardin. It relates that the artist, \\ ho had established a solid reputation as a
painter of still lifes during the 1720s, was teased by a Friend, portraitist Joseph .\\ed,
for painting only the lowliest types of subjects and not attempting the more difficult
human form. In response to Aved's taunt, Chardin turned to figure painting, making
a few portraits of close acquaintances and scenes from evervdav life. .According to
Mariette, Chardin's first effort at this type of painting was Soap Bubbles.

The museum's picture is one of se\ eral versions of the scene. Stylistically it is
quite close to Chardin's Ladv Sealing a Letter (Staatlichen Schlosser und Garten,
Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin), yN-hich is dated 1733. In both cases the figures are
quite large in relation to the picture space and are modeled boldly. The voung man
in Soap Bubbles may even be the same model as the youth helping to seal the letter
in the Berlin picture. Charles-Nicholas Cochin, in a later biography written in 1779,
said that Chardin's first genre paintings were Woman Drawing Water from an Urn, also
dated 1735, and The Washerwoman (both Nationalmuseum, Stockholm). \Vhate\er the
order of the paintings, something that will probably never be known, 1733 does
seem to be the most likely date for Chardin's turn from still life to human subjects,
for both anecdotal evidence and the style of all the paintings concerned point to
that date.

In 172S Chardin had become a member of the Royal Academy, an institution to
v\hich he was to remain devoted throughout his life and in which he became an
important officeholder He may have wanted to elevate his art from low Iv still lite
to the more respected depiction of the human figure not only because of Aved's
friendly teasing but also to consolidate his position in academic circles. Indeed there

CH ARDIN

Fig. 13a

Jean-Simeon Chardin, Soap Bubbles, c. 1733-34,
oil on canvas, 24 x 24% in. (61.0 x 63.2 cm),
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Catherine D.
Wentworth Fund, 1949 (49.24).

Fig. 15b

Jean-Simeon Chardin, Soap Bubbles, c. 1733-34,

oil on canvas, 36% x 29'/8 in. (93.0 x 74.6 cm).

National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., gift

of Mrs. John W. Simpson, 1942 (1942.5.1

[152]).

is often more to Chardin'.s figure paintings than meets the eye. If on one level they
seem like extensions of the homely and everyday world of his still lifes, on another
they can have deeper meanings. Soap Bubbles, for example, could be just a scene
the artist observed one day in passing, but it also belongs to a long iconographic
tradition in European art, stretching back at least to the sixteenth centurv, wherein
the bubble is an emblem of the transience of human life. The youth may be idling
away his time blowing this bubble (when a version was exhibited at the Paris Salon
in 1739, his occupation was described as "frivolous plav"), but the painting has a
serious mood. It is far from being a scene of carefree, youthful abandon.

Soap Bubbles exists in three versions; the Los Angeles picture, another horizontal
one at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (fig. ija), and a larger, vertical
picture at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (fig. 13b). The New York
and Washington paintings were extensively discussed bv Pierre Rosenberg in his ex-
hibition catalogue of 1979, and he included the Los Angeles one, which was acquired
by the museum after the 1979 exhibition, in his published lecture of 1983 and
catalogue of Chardin's works that appeared the same year All three paintings were
featured in a small exhibition held at the Los Angeles County Museum ol .'\rt in
1990 and are fully discussed in the accompanying publication. It is not necessary to
repeat all the arguments of these several studies, but it is agreed that all three
canvases are from Chardin's hand and were painted at about the same time, in [733
or 1734. As mentioned, Chardin exhibited a version of Soap Bubbles at the Salon of
1739, but it is not known for certain v\hich picture it was. Most likely it was another,
fourth version, which was probably the painting engraved by Pierre Filloeul, whose
print (fig. 13c), in reverse, was advertised in December 1739. It had become normal
practice for engravings to be made of Chardin's figure paintings after their
exhibition at the Salon. Filloeul 's print, however, does not correspond exactly to any
of the extant autograph works: it is closest to the Washington one in the vertical
format, but this treatment does not show any convincing signs (let alone the definite
presence) of the carved relief with putti underneath the window ledge that is quite
clearly reproduced in the engra\ ing. The leaves in the Washington picture seem to
have been added by another hand at a later date. In the New York painting, however,
the fronds are certainly by Chardin and are an integral part ot the work, so the idea
can be ruled out that it is a subsequently cut down section of the engraved picture.
Similarly, technical evidence points to the fact that the Los Angeles can\as was
always horizontal in format, and in any case two horizontal \ersions are recorded in
the eighteenth century. All the e\idence points to a fourth, missing, "original"
painting, one vertical in format, w ithout a decoration of leaves, hut w ith the relief
under the window ledge, that was exhibited in 1739 and then engraved by Filloeul.

The probable companion ot this lost picture was Knucklebones (Baltimore Museum
of Art), which was engraved bv Filloeul in 1739 as the pendant of his Soap Bubbles
engraving. The Baltimore Knucklebones seems to be unique; it is one of the \er\
few figure paintings of the 1730s that Chardin did not repeat. Study ol this work
supports the argument that there is a missing Soap Bubbles. Knucklebones has quite a
tew pentimenti in its design. Some ot these can be seen w ith the naked e\e, others
with the aid of X-radiography. Nearly all of the first versions of Chardin's figure
subjects and still lifes show sucii changes of niiml as he composed. Subsequent

Chardin

Fig. 13c

Pierre Filloeul (after Jean-Simeon Chardin),

Soap Bubbles, 1739, engraving, g'A x jVa in.

(23. f X 18.7 cm), bequest of William P.

Babcock, courtesv Museum of Fine Arts,

Boston.

FlU. 13d

Jean-Simeon Chardin, The Young Sehoolmistress,

^- '733~34> oil on canvas, 24V8 x 28V4 in.

(62.0 X 73.0 cm). National Gallery of Ireland,

Dublin.

Notes

1. Denis Diderot, Salon <je 1769, ed. Jean
Seznec (Diderot: Salons, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1967), 4:83.

2. Rosenberg, Chardin. ib99-lJJ9, 208.

renderings, on the other hand, are almost invariably the same as the finallv resolved
design of the prototype. All three extant versions of 5oap Bubbles are exactly alike in
the dimensions and outlines of the main groiij), from the glass ol soapy liquid and
the bubble-blowing youth to the watching child. The fact that none of them has any
pentimenti is further evidence that none is the "original" picture.

It is not possible among the three surviving versions of Soap Bubbles to establish
a sequence for their execution. They all have the richly impastoed handling and
restrained palette characteristic ol Chardin in the early and mid-iy^os, a date that
is in accord with Mariette's anecdote.

It was not unusual in the eighteenth century for an artist to rejieat a successful
design it there was a market for it. It was really only in the Romantic period that a
high premium was put on originality, that everything an artist produced had to be
an innovation or express a new and unique feeling or idea. Chardin does seem to
have repeated successful images rather often, however, but his contemporaries give
clues as to why this was so. Mariette observed that invention was quite a struggle for
Chardin; indeed the artist did not have the academic training as a draftsman with
a large repertoire of forms at his Hngertips that would have enabletl him to invent
much out ol his own head, so he nearly always hatl to work from observation.
Moreover, Mariette observed that Chardin's technique was quite laborious anil
without facility (which of course can also be one of its attractions); painting did not
come easily to him. This would help explain why, when he did succeed in creating a
satisfactory design, he would exploit its difficult resolution as often as he could in
successive versions. Denis Diderot, the great critic and a wholehearted admirer of
Chardin, put it more aphoristically: "Chardin copies himselt trequentlv, which
makes me think that his works cost him dearly."'

If it is possible to keep track of Chardin's paintings through his lifetime — in
the Salon exhibitions, through know n collections, and in the saleroom — the rapid
decline of interest in his art alter his death in 1779 means that the history of his
works often gets lost or obscured until the revival ol interest in his art during the
1 840s. It is, therefore, often difhcult to link up existing works such as the museum's
picture or the other extant renderings of Soap Bubbles with earlier provenances. The
dimensions ol the Los Angeles painting, however, point to its tentative identification
as a version that is recorded in three sales during the eighteenth century and
possibly one early in the nineteenth century. Just as cautiously the theory can
be advanced that its pendant in all four sales is the ruinously abraded The Young
Schoolmistress at the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin (fig. 13d).

Chardin's employment of pendants adds a richness of meaning to his works.
When Soap Bubbles is joined with Knucklebones (and Rosenberg has suggested that the
latter picture may have been painted as a pendant later in the 1730s), each supports
the other's message, w hich is a \ eiled castigation of idleness (the Baltimore picture
presents a girl playing knucklebones; her work apron and prominently placed
scissors indicate the duties that should occupy her time).' Soap Bubbles and The Young
Schoolmistress would be a contrasting pair ol idleness and industry, of a bad and good
example. In the former the younger child is led astrav by the frivolous bubble-
blow in^ of the youth, while in The Young Schoolmistress the infant learns to read
thanks to the diligence of the older girl.

Adoring Angel

_[4

Annibale Fontana

Italian (Milan), i54o?-87

if83-84

Wax with metal armature on uood liase

21V1 X fe'A X bVa in. (55.2 X ife.2 X 17.5 cm)

w ith base

Gift of The Ahmanson Houmlation

M.80.191

Provenance;

Paris, Alain Moatti (dealer).

Select Literature:

Peter Fusco, "Tv\o Wax Model.s bv Annibale
Fontana," Anwiogia di helle arti, n.s. nos. 21—22
(1984); 40-46.

Patrick de Winter, "Recent Acces.sions of
Italian Renaissance Decorative Arts, ftrt 2,"
The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of An 7j,
no. 4 (April 198b): 165—68, Hi>. 187.

Scott Schaetcr, "Three Centuries ot turopean
Sculpture: Handini to Bartholdi," Apollo 124,
n.s. no. 297 (November 198b): 415-ifa, hg. 2.

'hen this wax Adoring Angel appearcil on the Paris art market, it carried an
attribution to Jacopo Sansovino. In 1980, however, Peter Fusco, then curator ol
European sculpture for the museum, with the help ot Signe Jones, identified it as
a modello bv Annibale Fontana for one of the angels on the facade of Santa Maria
presso San Celso in Milan (tig. 14a). He published it and the other wax angel that
had been rediscovered v\ ith it ( Trumpeting Angel, now in the Cle\ eland Museum of
Art, inv. no. 84.38) in 1984.'

Fontana was the preeminent sculptor in Milan in the second half ot the sixteenth
century; the facade of Santa Maria presso San Celso was, Wolfgang Lotz points out
categorically, the one great Italian church facade of the sixteenth centurv on which
a full didactic program of sculpture was realized.^

Begun in 1493, Santa Maria was under construction for more than fifty vears, with
the sculptors Cristoforo Solari and Amadeo serving as advisors. Only bv 1565 was
the building ready for a facade; this commission was awarded to Galeazzo Alessi of
Genoa. His project, dating from around 1570 and pre.served in the Biblioteca
Ambrosiana in Milan, provided for a rhvthmic .sequence ot relief panels, statues in
niches, and freestanding sculptures, outlined and defined bv pilasters and set off by
decorative carved garlands.^ At the summit five piers were sketched in, ready to
receive the sculptures that would pierce the skyline: a suite of angels flanking an
Assumption of the Virgin. Fontana, then working in the south, and the Florentine
Stoldo Lorenzi were called to Milan to prov ide the sculptures for the facade, but
Lorenzi returned to Florence, leaving Fontana to complete the ensemble. From 1574
until 1587, the year of his death, Fontana designed eleven sculptures for the facade,
and for the interior, the Altar of the Virgin of Miracles (1583-8(1), which comprised
a marble Assumption and silver reliefs.

The museum's Adoring Angel is one of the few surv iv ing wax models ot the

FONTAN A

Flu 14a

Galeazzo Alessi, et al., detail of the upper part
of the facade of Santa Maria presso San Celso,
Milan. Photo: Alinari/Art Resource. The
mu.seum's wax i.s the model for the angel
immediatelv to the left of the Virgin.

Ib^mMi^at^^^^mM^i^imm^

Notes

1. Fusco, 4b, n. 10, cites an article bv Anna
Patrizia Valerio ("Annibale Fontana e il paliotto
delPaltare della Veririne dei Miracoli in Santa
Maria presso San Celso," Paracfone 24, no. 279
[May 1973]: }2— 53) in which she mentions
three terra-cotta (or clay) models recorded

in an in\entorv from i68{ ol the Biblioteca
Anibrosiana in Milan. The same in\entorv,
ho\\e\er, also records "Tre modelli d'Angioli
ritti su piedi, due con una mano tesa in alto,
Taltro in atto di mera\is^lia . . . d'Annibale
Fontana" (Three models ot standing; angeLs,
two with an outstretched hand, the other in
uondiTment ... by Annibale Fontana). Their
medium is unspeciHed. Could it be that the
t\\() models oi angels \\ ith an outstretcheil
hand referred to in this dotument are lor the
trumpeting angels at the summit (which are
not mirror images) and that the third model
"in wonderment" is the Los Angeles wax.' See
Valerio, 44, n. 10.

2. Lu<l\\ig H. Heydenreich and Wollijang Lotz,
Architecture in Italy 1400-1600, trans. Mary
Flottinger (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books,
1974), 294. For the history of the church see
i[o, 292—94.

3. Alessi's sketch is illustrate*! in Heydenreich
and lotz, pi. 314.

4. Valerio, 33-54.

Renaissance. Colored probably with cinnabar or burnt sienna, it is made of beesua.x,
a delicate medium that was thought of originally as just an auxiliary material serving
in the process of creation of a finished sculpture. Much ot the modello's precious-
ncss today is owed to its ephemeral character. Other wax sketches that have been
pre.seryed, bv Sansovino, Michelangelo, Cellini, and Giambologna, must ha\e been
treasured even in their time, not for their material \alue, but as documents of the
creative genius ol their authors. The museum's wax, still on its original wood base,
preserves an imajie just as it was Hnished by the artist's hand.

The figural style of the Adorincj Angel, with its athletic musculature, depends on
the Icijacv ol Michelangelo. Fontana, however, transmuted Michelangelo's influence
with a new lyricism, shown in the softened draperies that sweep about the angel's
body, counterbalancing the diagonals ol the contrapposto. This moving composition
and the expression, alive w ith expectation and wonder, are elements of a stvle that
place Fontana at the daw n of the baroque. He did not li\e to see his Angel (or its
pendant, a mirror image) carried out on the large scale; instead these were carved
alter his death bv Milano Vinicrcati. Unfortunately the spiritual rapture embodied
in the wax model did not survive translation into stone.

The campaign to finish the sculptured decoration ot the facade ot Santa Maria
coincided almost exacth w ith the last years of Milan's renow ned archbishop, Saint
Carlo Borromco (see cat. no. 19). As one ot the great zealots of the Counter-
Retomiation, Borromeo re\ italized the Church's sacred glory. Preaching strict
doctrinal di.scijiline, he had forbidden the representation of apocrvphal subjects,
but Marian imagery was too protoundK ingrained in the popular imagination to
ha\e been affected by an interdiction. To the contrary, the .Assumption ot the \ irgin
could be understood as a svmbol of the Church Triumphant; Borromeo himself had
appro\ec4 Fontana's .'\ltar of the N'irgin ot Miracles, w ith its own Assumption.'*

Ill I

Portrait of Giacomo Dolfin

Titian (Tiziano Vbcellio)

Italian (Venice), c. 1489-1576

c. 1531

Oil on canvas

41V16 X 3j"/i6 in. (104.9 X 91.0 cm)

Inscribed on letter: Al Cl[ ]mo Giacomo
dolfin / 1V1[ ]co D[ ] Prvi / a Vrcinovi
[or Venezia]

Gift of The Ahmanson Foundation

M.81.24

Provenance:

Venice, Giacomo DolHn.

Venice, Danese Cattaneo, by May 1566.

Como, Antonio Canova, until 1822.

England, private collection.

London, sale, Christie's, 2 December 1977,
no. 41.

London, Thomas A^new and Sons (dealer).

Select Literature:

Giorgio Vasari, Le vite (ij68), ed. Gaetano
Milanesi (Le opere, Florence; G. C. Sansoni,

1906), 7:456.

Charles Hope, "Titian's 'Fortait of Giacomo
Dolfin,'" Apollo 115, n.s. no. 241 (March 1982):
l{8-bl.

Ven(

renetian art theorist Lodovico Dolce observed in 1557 that "Titian's works had
won him so great a reputation that there was not a nobleman in Venice who did not
take care to possess some portrait or other invention of his making,"' By the 1550s
Titian was one of the most sought-after portraitists in Europe, a reputation that had
its beginnings in 1532, when he met the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in Bologna.
Charles, probably inspired by a portrait Titian had made of Federico Gonzaga
of Mantua, sat for the painter twice while in Italy and then again in Augsburg in
1548-49, where Titian created the great Emperor Charles V Seated (Alte Pinakothek,
Munich) and The Emperor Charles V at the Battle ofMuhlberg (Prado, Madrid). After the
early 1530s Titian rarely deigned to paint any but the most distinguished sitters from
the ruling houses of Italy and the rest of Catholic Europe. His Portrait of Giacomo
Dolfin, done about 1531, just at the moment the artist was about to achieve European
fame, was one of the last he made for a sitter who was not widely known. However,
the economy of this image, with its intimidating characterization, established a type
of official portrait in Venice, serving as a model during the rest of the sixteenth
century and well into the next.

Professor Charles Hope, whose article cited above serves as the basis for this
entry, convincingly identifies the sitter as Giacomo di Andrea Dolfin (c. 1469-1545),
a man who held a number of legal and administrative positions in Venice and its
dependent towns. Dolfin entered the Maggior Consiglio (Great Council) of Venice in
1494; between about 1513 and 1522 he was Podesta (the Venetian representative in a
subject city) at Noale, San Lorenzo, and probablv Lonigo. In 1526 he was a member
of the Quarantia Criminale and was elected Avvocato per gli Uffici in Rialto. In 1529
he was one of the Consoli dei Mercanti. In 1531—32 Dolfin was a Provveditore at
Orzinuovi, a Venetian fortress near Brescia; in 1540, a Provveditore sopra le
Fabbriche in Padua. In 1544 he was recorded as a Camerlengo in Vicenza. Wearing
his burgundy-colored velvet robes of office, Dolfin is presented as a typical middle-
ranking officeholder of the Venetian Republic. According to Hope the letter he holds

Titian

Notes

1. Lodovico Dolce, Dialotjo delta pnturu di M.
Lodovico Dolce, intitolato I'Aretino (i?57; in
Dolce's "Aretino" and Venetian Art Theory of the
Cinquecento, by Mark W Roskill, New York;
College Art Association/New York University
Press, 1968), 189.

2. William Suida, Le Titien (Paris: A. Weber,
1935), pi. 195-

seems to be addressed to him Jt Or/inuo\i in the office he held in 1551-52: "Al
CI[arissi]mo S[ignor] iaeomo tiolHn [or dolHno) / M[a^nifi]co D[omino] P[] /
a Vrcinovi." A subsequent, closer reading is listed in this entry's caption.
Unfortunately the letter has been somewhat abraded, which makes an exact reading
difficult. Hope's letter "S" (for Signor) is probably a capital "G" (for Giacomo), and
his "P" can be extended to Prvi (for Provveditore). The last word of the inscription
could also read "Venczia." Thus the letter could be addressed to Dolfin in his official
capacity as Provveditore in Or/.inuovi, but it would be just as likely for it to be
addressed to him in Venice. Both interpretations are convincing. In 1551-52 Dolfin
was in his early sixties, and the style of Titian's painting is right for that ilate.

Titian shows his mastery at conveying a sense of the sitter's personal, social, and
political power. Dolfin's image is straightforward, monumental, and dignified. He
forms a powerful and bulky pyramidal shape in a pictorial space that he seems to
dominate with confidence. Titian also conveys this assured air by Dolfin's stance and
the firm grip he has on the letter It is not a very intimate portrait, but Titian gives
the sitter a definite if somewhat stern character befitting his public office. A certain
softening of the haughty air can be detected in Dolfin's action of .seeming to hand
the letter to the viewer. The painting manages to be both somber and sumptuous at
the same time, conveyed through the costume, which is sober in color but opulent
in cut and style, and Titian's characteristically rich and painterly handling. One
wonders it Dolfin realized how fortunate he was to be painted by the artist who
even then was being sought by Emperor Charles V.

When Giorgio Vasari briefly visited Venice in May of 1566, he saw a handful of
collections, including that of sculptor Danese Cattaneo, his Tuscan compatriot. In
Cattaneo's collection Vasari saw "un ritratto di man di Tiziano, d'un gentiluomo da
ca Delfini" (a portrait by the hand of Titian, of a gentleman of the Delfini family).
The painting is next recorded in the nineteenth century, in the collection of another
sculptor, Antonio Canova, where it is noted in an inventory taken after his death in
1822 (this was confirmed by an old label discovered on the back of the painting
when it was cleaned before coming to the museum). It is tempting to speculate that
its appeal to the two sculptors was its monumentality of form. A copy of the
painting, now in the Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, shows a cloth hanging
behind the figure.' When the Los Angeles painting was sold at auction in 1977, it
too had the cloth in the background (illustrated in the sale catalogue). Subsequent
examination revealed it to be a later addition, so it was removed in cleaning.

Lot and His Daughters

Joachim Anthonisz Wtewael

Dutch, 1J66-1638

c. 1595

Oil on canvas

b4 X 81 in. (162.6 X 205.7 cm)

Gift of The Ahmanson Foundation

M.81.53

Provenance:

Possibly Antwerp, "an Italian," by 1604.

Possibly The Hague, Seger Tierens sale,

23 July 1743, no. 114.

Dorking, Surrey, Francis Howard, until igff.

London, sale, Christie's, 25 November 1955,
no. 47.

London, Arcade Gallery, 1955.

Florence, Orselli (dealer), 1963.

Rome and Los Angeles, private collection,

1963—81.

Select Literature:

Carel \an Mandcr, Het ichilderboeck (1604),
trans. Constant \an de Wall (Duich and flemish
Painters: Translation Jwm the Schilderboeck^ New
York: McFarlane, Warde, McFarlane, 1936), 412.

Anne W. Lov\ enthal, Joachim Wtewael and Dutch
Mannerism (Doomspijk: Da\aco Publishers,
1986), 20, 59, 91—92, no. A— 13, 203.

Anne W. Lowenthal, "Lot and His Daughters
as Moral Dilemma," in The Age of Rembrandt:
Studies in Seventeenth-Centur\ Dutch Painting,
Papers in Art Historv from The Pennsylvania
State University, no. 3 (University Park:
Pennsylvania State University, 1988), 12-27,
Hg. I - 1 .

Ltrecht, like other Netherlandish cities, witnessed the emergence of a new stvle
of paintinsj at the end of the sixteenth centurv; manneri.sm, a movement that was
to bring the Northern artistic centers up to date with their Itahan rivals. Taking its
cue from the high maniera of the post-Raphael generation in Florence and Rome,
the new style matched elegant forms and elaborate compositions with erudite
interpretations ot subject matter It appealed primarily to the sophisticated tastes of
the court, especially that of Rudolf II in Prague, which fostered the style through
Bartholomeus Spranger and his circle. In Utrecht its principal exponent was Joachim
Wtewael, who spent the majority of his life there, specializing in religious and
mythological scenes (he also painted genre pictures and portraits). Earlv in his career
Wtewael spent two years each in Italy and France; in both places he absorbed the
mannerist precepts that he would use throughout his career By 1J92 he had
returned to Holland and been accepted by the local artists' guild. Like other Dutch
artists he was also a businessman, acquiring a considerable fortune as a flax
merchant and in real estate. In addition he was a member of the Utrecht tow n
council and an active Contra-Remonstrant.

By the turn of the century Wtewael's reputation was such that Carel van Mander
in his Schilderboeck could judge him "to be worthy ot a place among the best painters
of the Netherlands."' According to the writer, Wtewael had "good judgement and
a keen know ledge, two qualities that do not often combine in an artist," and he
singled out for admiration a version of Lot and Hn Daucjhten that he had seen in
Antwerp in the collection of "an Italian": "it represents Lot and his daughters;
life-size nudes appear in this picture; the rendering ot the fire, the trunks of the

Wtewael

trees, and other details, are very interesting."^ It is unclear whether van Mander is
referring to the museum's picture or the ver\ similar composition recently acquired
by the Hermitage in Leningrad.'

The Los Angeles painting illustrates the well-known story from Genesis 19, which
tells of Lot, who lived in Sodom. When God sent angels to destroy the sinful city,
the virtuous Lot was forewarned and Hed w ith his family before the town was
inundated by fire and brimstone. Lot's wife disobeyed the angels' command not
to look back and was therefore turned into a pillar of salt. Thinking their father
was the last man left in the world, the two daughters believed their only hope of
perpetuating their race was through him: "And the firstborn said unto the younger.
Our lather is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the
manner ot all the earth: Come, let us make our lather drink \\ ine, and we w ill lie
w ith him, that we may preserve .seed of our father." As a consequence of their
incest each daughter bore a son, who in turn founded the tribes of the Ammonites
and Moabites.

Wtewael depicted Lot and his daughters a number of times, not only in the
Leningrad and Los Angeles pictures but also in a canvas in Berlin (Staatliche
Museen), a meticulously finished painting on copper (also Hermitage), and three
draw ing.s.^ In all these versions he interpreted the story as an erotic seduction .scene.
In the Los Angeles work Lot and the two women are shown before the entrance of
the cave where they have taken shelter for the night. The daughters have shed their
clothes and are la\ ishing their attentions on the obviously drunken Lot. In typical
mannerist tashion the figures are elaborately intertw ined, their limbs draped over
each other, their bodies displayed in a varietx of positions. Lot holds a wine cup over
his head, Bacchus-like, as he gropes the breast of one of the women. In respon.se she
reaches over her shoulder to caress his beard. The other daughter proffers a bunch
of grapes. In the right background the cit\ of Sodom burns fiercelx in the night.
Unusually, Lot's w ife is now here in sight.

The exaggeration of pose and composition emploved by Wtewael is mitigated bv
the sharp passages of naturalistic detail. The contorted figure of Lot, for instance,
with its unreconciled anatomy, is in startling contrast to the completely con\ incing
rendering of his foot, w ith its throbbing \eins and dirt-stained toes. Wtewael
demonstrated his talents at imitating nature in the wonderfully tactile still-life
elements: the cheese, butter, and bread behind the daughter at left are as visually

WTK WAEL

Notes

1. van Mander, 412.

2. Ibid., 411—12.

3. The author is uratclul to Dr. Xenia S.
Egorova of the Pushkin Museum for
information about this painting.

4. Lowenthal, "Lot and His Daughters,"
13, 19—20.

alluring a.s anv Dutch tabic |3iccc (sec, for example, cat. no. 39), while the .succuk-nt
basket of fruit in the foreground appears to project into the viewer's space.

in fact, as Anne Lovventhal has shown, the still-life objects surrounding the
individuals have double meanings that give the painting as a whole an ambiguous
message. The grapes in the basket refer to the wine w itb which L.ot is intoxicatccl
but are also a reference to the Eucharist; the cheese and butter at left recall a Dutch
proverb, "Butter with chee.se is a devilish feast," but the nearbv bread might join the
wine as a symbol of the sacrament of Holv Communion.

The repugnant crime committed bv Lot and his daughters v\as the tause of
much discussion among interpreters ot the Bible. Most commentators excused the
characters from their sin bv observing that Lot was drunk and thus did not know
what he was doing and that the daughters onlv wished to perpetuate their family
and could not be accused of lusting atter their father In Wtewael's time John Calvin
reasoned that, while the dilemma of Lot's daughters was understandable, their
transgression could not be excused. Lowenthal argues that the various levels of
meaning inherent in Wtewael's painting served as a "moral dilemma" for the viewer,
requiring a choice among several interpretations.

When confronted w ith the picture todav, the modern viewer mav teel the
religious content is not very high. Lot is cast as a bumpkin, his prettiHed daughters
as harlots. The monumental female nudes are displayed to good effect, one from the
front, the other from the side. Indeed, Wtewael probably intended for male viewers
to envy the position of Lot, presented as he is in the arms ot two naked v\onien
with plenty of food and drink alongside. The hidden meanings and double entendres
perceptible to the careful viewer would have simply added to the delight ot what
wa.s, in the end, a tantalizing display ot the female nude. Certainly it was in keeping
\\ ith the eroticized history paintings of Italian artists like Giorgio Vasari and
Pellegrino Tibaldi that Wtewael would have admired in Rome. In this work,
Wtewael's first large-scale figure painting, he would have con.sciously wished to
emulate his Italian forerunners. He would ha\e had all the more reason to do so if,
as van Mander suggested, the picture was intended for an Italian patron living in
Antwerp.

Saint Peter Preaching
in Jerusalem

22_

Charles Poerson

French, 1609—67

1642

Oil on can\as

50 X n'U in. (76.2 X 61. fe cm)

Gift ot The Ahmanson Houndation

M.81.73

Provenance:

Probably P&ris, Notre-Dame de Paris, Pierre
Le Basticr and Franc^ois Le Quint.

Pari.s, Monsieur Nourri, Conseiller au Grand
Conseil sale, 24 February 17S5, no. Sj.

London, sale, Sotheby's, 20 June 1980, no. 99.

London, Luigi Grassi (dealer).

Select Literature:

Pierre Rosenberg, hrance in the Golden Age:
Seventeenth-Century l-rench Pamtmas in American
Collections, exh. cat. (New York: Metropolitan
Museum of Art, 1982), joi, no. 8j.

kittle i.s knov\ n ot Charles Poerson's early career, but he was one of the many
students of Simon Vouet (cat. no. 31) in the years around 1630. Vouet was the most
important and influential painter in F^ris from the time of his return from Italv in
1627 until his death in 1649. He brought back \\ ith him a knowledge of Italian
painting from the Renaissance to the contemporary Italian baroque and infused this
"grand manner" into French painting. Poerson was one of the first beneficiaries of
this Italianate influence, which can be perceived throughout Saint Peter Preaching
in Jerusalem.

It is not known if Poerson c\er went to Italy himself The present writer is
inclined to believe that he did not, as his art ultimately lacks the cjravnas of Roman
tradition and retains the graceful charm of an artist who still had pro\ incial
attitudes. His son Charles-Franc^ois certainly knew Italy; a mediocre painter but able
administrator, he ser\ed as director of the French Academy in Rome and made that
institution an important feature of French and even European artistic life. The
senior Poerson was heavily invoKed in the Parisian art world, becoming an early
member of the recently created (1648) Roval Academy in 1651 and being named
to the olfice ot rector in 1658.

Poerson has been rather forgotten as an artist; only in recent years ha\e scholars
been able to distinguish his works from those of Vouet (w ith whom he collaborated
on the decoration of the Gallery of Famous Men at the Palais-Royal in Paris),
Hustache Le Sueur (with whom he worked on the royal apartments in the Lou\re),
Laurent de La Hvre, and Philippe de Champaigne. Poerson had a productive
independent career supplying church altarpieces, private devotional works, and
decorations. Among his more significant productions were two works done tor
Notre-Dame de Paris, one in 1642 (fig. 17a), the other in 16^3, and a cycle of six
paintings on the Life of Saint Louis (now lost) lor the Hopital des Quinze-vingts.

When it appeared in the London saleroom in 19S0, Saint Peter Preaching m Jerusalem
was attributed to La Hvre, but it is without a doubt by Poerson and is related to his

POERSON

Fig. 17a

Charles Poerson, Saint Peter Preachincj in
Jeruialeiv, 1642, oil on canvas, 1 jo x 104 in.
(J30.2 X 264.2 cm), Notrc-Damc de Paris.
Photo; Arch. Phot. Paris/S.PA.D.H.M.

lar^c picture of the same subject at Notre-Dame, which is signed and dated 1642.
The latter work is one of a series of large canvases, each about eleven feet high by
ei^ht-and-a-half feet wide, commissioned from numerous artists to decorate the
columns of the nave ot Notre-Dame (Hg. 17b). Nearly every year from 1630 to 1708
the Paris Goldsmiths' Guild, dedicated to Saints Anne and Marcel, presented one
of these large works to the church on the first of May. The painting, known as a
May, hung for a day at the entrance to the cathedral, then for a month opposite
the Chapel ot the Virgin, and finally was placed on one of the pillars of the nave.
Seventy-six of these were completed. They were dispersed at the time of the French
Revolution, and, even though most of them have been located, Poerson's second May
of i653' Saint Paul at Malta, is still lost, although its design is known through an
eighteenth-century engraving by Nicolas Tardieu.

It was considered a great honor to receive one of the May commissions, and
despite the fact that the tee paid was notoriouslv low, distinguished artists were
happy to undertake one. Among Poerson's more important contemporaries. Mays
were painted by La Hyre (1655), Sebastien Bourdon (1643), Gharles Le Brun (1647
and 1651), and Le Sueur (1649). Of course it was good publicitv for artists, as
their works were placed on permanent public display in a prestigious location,
an important consideration in an age before museums.

The design of the Los Angeles picture follows fairlv closelv the larger one that
is still in Notre-Dame, with the exception ot some slight variations in the back-
ground architecture, facial expressions, and costume details. It is impossible to tell
if the smaller painting is a preliminary model, followed in the work at Notre-Dame
in all but minor differences, or if it is the reduced replica, w hich was a required
part of the commission. (The replica was an obligatory gift of gratitude from the
artist who won the commission to the two goldsmiths who presented the May each
year. In 1642 they were Pierre Le Bastier and Fran(;ois Le Quint.) The possibility
cannot be ruled out that the museum's Saint Peter Preaching in Jerusalem fulfilled both
functions, that Poerson presented to the two goldsmiths the model he had carefully
prepared for the finished design. After all, while one would expect a replica done
after the main painting to be absolutely faithful to the original, it is not unusual to
find minor changes between a preparatory model and final work.

The subject is derived from Acts 3, where Saint Peter addresses a crowd after he
and John have healed a lame man at the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem (the giant,
twisted columns, famous in ancient times, indicate his location). With rhetorical
gestures Peter attributes the miracle to his and John's taith in Jesus Christ and
harangues the crowd for ha\ing condemned Christ to death in fa\or ot the common
criminal Barabbas. Some members ot the gathering are skeptical; others are mo\ed
by his words. A Roman soldier is an ominous presence, a contrast with the
scholarly-looking man who seems to be transcribing Peter's words. According to
popular tradition he is Saint Mark, whose Gospel was inspired by Peter's preaching.

POERSON

In Style the painting is close to Vouet; indeed wlien tlie work was sold in 1785, it
was described in the sale catalogue as "in Vouet 's style." It is richh inipastord, and
the overall rhythms of the design are supple and flowing. The tenilencv of the palette
toward gray or pale lilac is Pocrson's own. There is also a gracefulness about his
figures, who twist, turn, swav, and gesture in a sometimes slightly affected way that
is reminiscent of the more decorative traditions of the mannerist st\le that still
lingered in France in the early decades of the 1600s. The famous and more dominant
names in French seventeenth-century painting ha\e been well studied, but the
presence of Poerson's Saint Peter Preaching in Jerusalem in a major public art museum
serves well to draw attention to the fact that many other good and quite typical
painters were working in Paris in the age of C'hampaigne, Le Brun, and Poussin.

Fig. 17b

Anonymous, View of ihc Interior of Notre -Dame ^
mid-seventeenth centurv, oil on i:an\as,
dimensions and location unknow n. The May
of 1642 (fig. 17a) is the first painting on
the right.

Dido and Aeneas

RuTiLio Manetti

Italian (Siena), 1J71— 1659

c. 1630-35

Oil on canvas

;7'/2 X 46'/4 in. (146.1 x 117.5 '^m)

Gi\en anonvmouslv in honor of
The Ahmanson Foundation

M.81.199

Provenance:

Private collection.

London, Matthiesen Fine Art Limited (dealer).

Select Literature:

Important Italian Baroque Paintintjs iSoo—iyoO,
exh. cat. ( London: Matthiesen Fine Art
Limited, 1981), 20—21, no. 6.

i-utiiio Manetti wa.s one of those busv and reliable provincial painters whose
manner was derived from the inno\ations of more important artists in major artistic
centers and who, in certain \^•orks, brouijht an injection of metropolitan excitement
to the art of his hometown. He fulfilled a purely local demand for altarpieces,
decorations, and history paintings in styles reflecting several of the fashions of the
day, some reminiscent of Cara\a^io, others of the Gentileschi, and so on. Manetti
has benefited trom the stimulating resurgence in Italv in the last twenty years of
local interest in native talent, even though he was not one of the innovators in the
history of Italian painting nor e\ en one of those artists w ith a quirkx- and appealing
poetry v\ho sometimes emerges despite (or, more positi\elv and less snobbishly,
because of) a provincial heritage.'

If Siena, where Manetti was born in 1571 and where he spent most ol his lite, was
a less significant citv under late Medici rule in the seventeenth century than it had
been as an independent city-state in medieval times, it still was quite an important
religious center and there was always a lively demand for a good painter or two to
serve the Church, city, and private patrons. Little is known ot his early career. After
completing the altarpiece of the Death of the Blessed Anthonv Patuzi ( Sant'Agostino,
Monticiano) in ifei6, a painting that betrays some knowledge of the advanced art of
Artemisia Gentileschi, who was acti\e in Florence at that time, Manetti likelv went
to Rome. There he was most susceptible to the work of such Italian followers ol
Caravaggio as Orazio Gentileschi (Artemisia's father) and Bartolommeo Manfredi.
However, the sources of his style or styles (he was quite \-ariable) are notoriously
eclectic, complex, and difficult to pinpoint. For example, sometimes his paintings
ha\ e the drama and bold contrasts of light and shade associated more w ith
Caravaggio's Northern followers such as Gerrit van Honthorst and Dirck van
Baburen. At other times they sho\\ an awareness of the more classical vet sensuous
art of Guido Reni. His compositions generally retain something of the crowded
quality associated with the late mannerist style, which had lono been rejected bv the
more ad\anced painters of Rome. Manetti ^\as in any case back in Siena by ib2i and
seems to have passed the rest of his life there.

Manetti

Dido and Aeneas is a mature work, dating from the early to mid- 16 30s. The storv
comes from Virgil's Aeneid (4:562—92) and shows the farewell of Aeneas as he
abandons the distraught anil soon-to-be-suicidal Dido to continue his vovage to
Latium. Two ol her maids-in-waiting whisper with concern about this unwelcome
departure, while an armored soldier waits impatiently for his leader The resolve of
Noies Aeneas is clear in his firm but somewhat impersonal handshake and from the fact

I. Sec Rutilio Manetti 057'-'639), exh. cat. that he is dressed in an elaborate cuirass and plumed helmet,

lena. azzo u ito, 197 ). yl^^ painting illustrates Manetti's eclecticism quite well. The design is based on a

painting of Dido and Aeneai done by Reni about 1626—28, which is now known onlv
through studio copies (Staatliche Gemaldegalerie, Kassel, and Palacio Real, Madrid).
The basic composition and narrative are similar, but Manetti is more anecdotal in
introducing the three subsidiary characters, making his composition more crowded.
The soldier on the left, with shadows playing across his face, is quite like a character
Gucrcino could have invented, while the two female attendants are suggestive of
an artist such as Manfredi. However, the bold handling and impasto and the clear
action of Aeneas and Dido recall Manetti's principal model here, Reni.

It is interesting to consider the painting in the context ot the museum's other
Italian baroque paintings that are discussed in this catalogue. Compare Manetti's
response to Caravaggio and his followers with that of Tanzio da Varallo in his slightlv
earlier and earthier Adoration of the Shepherds with Saints Francis and Carlo Borromeo
(cat. no. 19) or, in extreme contrast, with Guido Reni's polished and highlv refined
mythical scene of Bacchus and Ariadne (cat. no. i2).

Adoration of the Shepherds
with Saints Francis
and Carlo Borromeo

_I9

Tanzio da Varallo (Antonio d'Enrico)

Italian (Lombardy), c. 1575/80-1(13^

c. 1628—50

Oil on canvas

Ti'/a X 59 in. (185.7 X 149.9 cm)

Gift ol The Ahman.son Foundation

M.81.247

Provenance:

London, art market, 1966.

Milan, Algranti (dealer), 1970.

Switzerland, private collection.

London, Mattliie.scn Fine Art Limited (dealer).

Select Literature:

Important Italian Baroi^iic Paintmtjs 1600-I700,
exii. cat. (London: Matthiesen Fine Art
Limited, 1981), 60-63, "o- 22.

Lanzio da Varailo's Adoration of the Shepherds with Saints Francis and Carlo Borromeo is
one of the most vivid and intense old master paintings in the museum's collection.
The energy comes from the fact that the participants loom close to the picture
plane, occupy nearly all of the picture surface (little space remains at the top to give
much real sense of the dark cavern of the stable at left or the landscape at right), and
are all uncompromisingly observed by the artist. Each of the various physiques is
strongly differentiated; each of the figures has distinctive indi\ idual characterization.s.
Borromeo (kneeling at left) is effectively a patent likeness of this near-contemporary
saint v^'ho had died in 1585, while the four young shepherds could well have been
based on the artist's studio assistants.

The strong relicHike effect of this group of people is created not only by their
placement at the Iront of the pictorial space but also by Tanzio's employment of
a sharply angled, almost raking light. This light falls from the top left, sometimes
rather harshlv, across the faces, heads, and hands of the individuals, framing the
folds and different textures of their clothing. Colors are strong and saturated, and
in combination with the lighting, they give the figures a rather odd and forced
presence. For all Tanzio's attention to detail and characterization, hov\ever, the parts
do not add up to a whole that makes the viewer feel present at a real event. Rather
the intensity of emotion is so concentrated through the attention of the saints and
shepherds that the spectator is led by the artist to feel an almost mystical sense of
Christ's divinity, to experience the epiphany.

It is not a joyful adoration. The youngest shepherd, who seems to be the recipient
of the Christ Child's attention and precocious benediction, is clearlv moved, but is
it by a premonition ol the Child's fate later in life? What is the subject of the other
shepherds' conversation? Saint Francis (on the right) is a discomforting and insistent
presence. This is a gaunt, starved, and anguished penitent saint, not the gentle
preacher to the birds and flowers. He displays his stigmatized hand.s, stark reminders
of Christ's later Passion. On the other side Borromeo betrays the pain of a high-
strung intellectual who knows all too well the suffering of the world through v\ hat

ii^

^r ^

kW^^ If' X

^k^^ %

y))^

^'4',

"^^il!- ^: \

•^ '

^litM^ ^Fi

L.*-^
^

&V M*^ >^fl^^^^H

ill sk \%i^

if!

^yB

fi^ltta

^^^B ~ I^^^^^^^^^v

_ fii

•

^ ^H^ ^^^^K^^^^P .^^ -

(,|^^^^ ...Mif^^friP!

^ wV

MpV^ »^^^i •

Ifl

/ 1 y^

t 1

(,i "T^m^s

x^p^

« 1^ r ^

k ¥

i, . ..i^'^ -:"' 1

■"ci

Ta N Z 1 O

Fig. 19a

Tanzio da Varallo, Siudv of ibe Virgin, red chalk
heightened with white on pink prepared
paper, 7'Vi6 x f'Vib in. (19.8 x 15.1 cm),
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gift
of The .'\hmanson Foundation (M.87.109).

he has scon ol it in the slums of .Milan and i-x|XTii-nc(.(l in tin- life of tin- mind and
imagination, it is a mi-lanchoK' -occasion, tcmporcd hv an air of tender solicitude for
the Child, displavetl atop a basket in all his naked vulnerablHtv.

Nothing is known ot this painting's history before its appearance on the art
market in 1966. For styHstic rea.sons most scholars agree that it can be dated to
around 1628-30 and must have been made as an altarpiece for a church or cha|)el
in the area of Varallo in Piedmont, where Tanzio was working at the time. He
sometimes used the same compositional ideas in more than one painting. In the
Museo C'i\ ico in Turin there is a much smaller can\as on a theme similar to that of
the Los Angeles picture, but with only twii shepherds and w ithout Saint Francis.
The arrangement of the figures is \ cry close although necessarily simpler. The
museum's work is in turn like another altarpiece, the Virgin Adored by Saint Carlo
Borromeo and Saint Francis (Pinacoteca, Varallo), which is known from documentary
evidence to have been painted bv 1628 for the Oratorio di San Carlo at Sabbia. Again
it is a simpler, more iconic image, with the saints on either side of the Virgin and
Child in a symmetrical design reminiscent of the High Renaissance.

Antonio d'Enrico, called Tanzio da Varallo, was born in Alagna, Piedmont,
between 1^75 and ij8o. Almost nothing is known of his early years, but in 1600
he and his brother Melchiorre, a fresco painter, were given a permit to lea\e their
native region in order to tra\el wherever they needed to practice their art and to
journey to Rome for the Jubilee of Pope Clement VIII. It is quite likely that Tanzio
spent some time in Rome, \\here he may have been attracted bv the earthy realism
and bold use of light and shade of Caravaggio. It has also been suggested that he
traveled and worked as far south as Naples, but there is no proof of this. Nor is
anything else known for certain about this early phase of Tanzio's life and art until
he emerges as a mature painter, documented as working on frescoes of Christ before
Pilate in a chapel on the Sacro Monte at Varallo in 1616-17 and on a Washinq of the
Hands that was completed in another chapel in 1619. He continued to work at Varallo
through the 1620s, and the Sabbia altarpiece mentioned above was installed bv 1628.

The scries of chapels at Varallo are an interesting phenomenon in the historv of
Northern Italian religious art. Founded in i486 by the Blessed Bernardino Caimi, the
original idea of the Sacro Monte was to reconstruct the Holy Places of ftilestine.
Inside the \arious chapels constructed for this purpose, the walls were decorated
with frescoes and the spaces were filled w ith life-size sculptures usually made of
terra-cotta and painted with a vivid naturalism. Glass eyes and real hair added to
the uncanny sense of actuality of these tableaux. Peering into the shrines, the \ isitor
or pilgrim felt almost present at the various scenes of Christ's Passion, acted out
b\' the naturalistic figures before the painted backgrounds. Perhaps the greatest of
these chapels was that of the Crucifixion, by Gaudenzio Ferrari, made between ij2o
and 1550.

After a period when activity was dormant, there was a re\ ival of interest in
the concept ot the Sacro Monte in the 1570.S, as a particular manifestation of the
Counter-Reformation in this northern corner of Italy. The region, in the foothills of
the Alps on the border with Switzerland, was as much German-speaking as Italian.
The Protestant Reformation became \ery strong here in the sixteenth century

Tanzio

Detail

Noles

1. For the Louvre drawing see Acquisitions
1984-1989, exh. cat. (Paris: Musce du Louvre,
1990), 32, no. 19; for the Picrpont Morgan
Library draw ing see Tanzio Jo Vorollo, exh. cat.
(Turin: Palazzo Madama, 1959), 50, no. 44,
pi. 141.

and won many converts. Indeed ever since the twelfth century there had been a
movement of fundamentahst reHgious protest resistant to the dictates of the Roman
Church in the Waldensian valleys near Turin. The authorities of the Catholic
Church, led in Piedmont and Lombardy by Cardinal and Archbishop Carlo
Borromeo of Milan, adopted various strategies to protect the status quo of the

Church and to combat such heresies. One approach was
to intensify the propagandistic use of religious images.
Borromeo resumed the development of the Sacro Monte
at Varallo (chapels continued to be added until 1765),
and others were developed in the late sixteenth and earlv
seventeenth centuries at Arona, Crea, and Varese. These
special artistic features of the region, on the front line
of the war against heresv and Protestantism, were vivid
reminders of Christ's suffering and a testament to the
powerful role of religious art.

It is not difHcult to appreciate that Tanzio's rather
hard, sculptural sense of form, bright color, vivid realism,
and intensity of feeling owe quite a lot to this vigorous
local artistic tradition, not least because he worked at
Varallo after returning from his suggested travels south.
The Hgures in his Adoration have the hard surface qualitv
ot painted sculpture: their space is too cramped to be
quite convincing, and thev are displayed against a fiat
hackurountl. It is almost as if Tanzio was peering into a
chapel at Varallo and depicting one of the tableaux.
Certainly his experience of v\orking there affected the concept and style of this
altarpicce, and its gloomy intensity can be better understood in the context of these
historical and cultural circumstances.

The presence of the Milanese Borromeo in the Los Angeles altarpiece is not
unusual in Lombard painting of this period, because he was such an important
figure in Northern Italian religious life durinsj the Counter-Retormation. He
effectively led the movement in this region not only b\ encouraging the creation and
dissemination ot new and more emotionally persuasive religious imagery as an aid to
piety but also by stimulating the construction of new churches and monasteries and
by attending to the pastoral care of the poor and needy Borromeo led an exemplary
life of austerity and self-denial and placed great emphasis on acts of charity and
care as an answer to the Protestant accusation that Catholics indulged in luxurious
materialism. His ascetic moral and religious fervor is conveyed in Tanzio's portrait,
and much of that intensity of feeling carries over into the painting as a whole.

In 1987 the museum acquired a very fine drawing by Tanzio (Hg. 19a; purchased
at Christie's, London, 4 January 1987, no. 57), which shows a figure of the Virgin
quite similar to the one in the painting. There is another drawing of the Vii^in
in the Louv re, Paris, while in the Picrpont Morsjan Librarx, New York, there is a
drawing of Saint Francis that could be preparatory for both the Los Angeles painting
and the Sabbia altarpiece discussed above.'

Fragment from the Cassone Panel Marco Zoppo (Marco di Ruggero)
"Shooting at Father's Corpse" Italian (Krrara), 1452-78

c. 1462

Tempera on panel

2o'/> X lyVi in. (52.1 x 69.9 cm)

Giit ot I loward Aiinianson, Jr.

M. Si. 259. 1

Provenance:

New York, Hricli (Jallerv, by 1940.
Nev\ York, l)u\een Brothers, bv 1959.
Los An^ele.s, Ho«anl Abnian.son.
Newport Beach, IVlrs. Denis SuHivan.
Los Angeles, Howard Ahmanson, Jr

Select Literature:

Roberto Lonjihi, "Amplianienti nell'othcina
ferrarese (1940)," and "Nuovi amplianienti
(1940— {{)," in Officma jcrrarcsc (Florence:
Sansoni, 1968), 139-40, 184, hgs. 527, 329.

Wolfgang Stechow, " 'Shooting at Father's
Corpse': A Note on the Hazards of Faulty
Iconography," The Art Bulletin 37, no. 1 (March

Eberhard Ruhmer, Marco Zoppo (Vicenza: Neri
Pozza, 1966), 63, no. 32.

Lilian Armstrong, The Pamtmcji and Dramngi
oj Marco Zoppo (Ncv\ York: Garland Publishing,
'976). 348—49, no. 4, 451, 479, Hg. 10.

Larco di Ruggero, known as Marco Zoppo, v\as born in Cento (near Bologna)
in 1432. He is documented in Padua between 1455 and 1455, during which time he
was adopted as a son by noted Paduan painter Francesco Squarcione. The young
Andrea Mantegna was also adopted bv Squarcione but departed after a \ iolent
quarrel in 1448. Zoppo broke his adoption agreement in 145 j and fled to Venice.
Vasari relates that Mantegna and Zoppo v\ere friends; in anv case Mantegna, bv far
the stronger artistic personality, probably had some influence on Zoppo. Both artists,
however, v\erc profoundlv influenced bv Donatello, who worked in Padua from 1445
to 14J3. From these \arious .sources Zoppo developed a hard-looking and linear
style, typical of his time and place, w hich was probably softened by his experience
of the art ot the Bellini family in Venice. He is recorded in Bologna during 1461 and
1462 but by the end of that decade was back in Venice, where he died in 1478.

Zoppo's surviving oeuvre is relativelv small, principallv comprising three
altarpieces, of which the .1/aJonna and Child with Saints (San Clemente del Collegio di
Spagna, Bologna) is still complete, while the two others, for Santa Giusta, Venice,
and San Gio\anni Battista, Pesaro, were dismembered and are dispersed. In
addition there survive a handful of small private devotional works and manuscript
illuminations and draw ings, including an important group ot twentv-six sheets at
the British Museum in London.

The Los Angeles work is the left halt ot a long panel that was cut at an unknow n
date before 1940, probably long ago. The right half is in a private collection in
Florence (hg. 20a). Onh' when the two parts are put together does the narrative
scene with which thev are decorated become clear, making their separation
especially regrettable. Roberto Longhi v\as the first to recognize that the tv\o panels

ZOPPO

Fig. 2oa

Marco Zoppo, Fragment from the Cassone Panel
"Shooting at father's Corpse." c. 1462, tempera
on panel, ii'A x 26'/> in. (54.0 x 67.3 cm),
private collection, Florence.

belonged together as one, in an article originally publi.shed in 1940. The si/c and
proportion of the whole panel indicates that it almost certainly formed the side
decoration of a cassone, a long linen or clothes chest that was a traditional marriage
gift from parents to children in Renaissance Italy. Here the meaning of the narrati\ e
extols filial piety, an appropriate subject for a cassone.

In the museum's segment a group of standing men, somewhat eclectically and
eyen exotically dressed, are gathered around a more ornately dressed, kinglike
seated man who holds a scepter in one hand and seems to point in judgment with
the other, lb the right, younger men wearing hose and padded costumes look at the
youth with his back turned, who seems to be the general focus ot attention. A bow

ZOPPO

'^r^M

Fig. 2ob

Marco Zoppo, Five Oneniah and a Roman SoUicr
1460s or 1470s, pen anti ink, 8V4 x bVib in.
(22.2 X 16.1 cm), British Mu.seum, London
(cat. no. 1920-2-14-1 [12 recto]).

Fig. 20c

Marco Zoppo, Ihrce Naiads and a Youtbjul
Hunier, 1460s or 1470s, pen and ink, S'A x
b'/i6 in. (22.2 X 16.1 cm), British Museum,
London (cat. no. 1920-2-14-1 [22 recto]).

and arro\\ are discarded at his feet, and he seems to be engaged in a dialogue with
the king/judge. In the Florence segment tuo more young men are vigorously
shooting arrows at the corpse of an old man, w ho is tied to a column at the extreme
right. The scene takes place in an Italian Renaissance courtyard or piazza; in the
background a group of spectators watches the event.

The subject is a rare one in Renaissance art and was correctly identified by
Wolfgang Stechow as representing Shooting at Father's Corpse. Longhi and some
other scholars had wrongly identified it as the Martvrdom of Saint Christopher.
Stechow shows that the subject originated in the Babvlonian Talmud and bv the
thirteenth century had migrated and been assimilated into a Christian context,
\\ here it became a judgment of King Solomon. The storv is that in a dispute over
inheritance several sons (in this case, three) are ordered b\' the judge/King .Solomon
to shoot arrows at their father's corpse. While the illegitimate or purelv venal sons
(depending on the version of the story) proceed to desecrate the dead body, the true
son, out of respect and filial piety, refuses to do so and is awarded the inheritance
This is the moment depicted bv Zoppo.

The style suggests a relatively early date in Zoppo's career, probablv in the earK
1460S. The v\ iry outlines of the figures and the beautitullv obser\ed and dra\\ n
nude lorrn of the deceased father show Zoppo's absorption ot Squarcione's and
Mantegna's art, while the clear, boxlike space plotted by the squared pavement
shows that he understood the new pictorial ideas that had been developed in
Florence in the early decades of the century. Some of his personages are quite
reminiscent of Domenico Veneziano or even Piero della Franceses, so solidlv and
carefully are they positioned in space

Professor Lilian Armstrong, in an unpublished article on the Los Angeles panel,
has compared the type of the figures, especiallv the exoticallv dressed man at the
extreme left and the \ irtuous son at the extreme right, with drawings b\- Zoppo at
the British Museum (figs. 20b and 20c). Whether or not the artist actually referred
to these draw ings for his painting, if they were made a little later, or if the
characters in the panel and drawings were adapted from a common model is not
know n. Whatever the case, it is an unusual and e\en moving experience to be able
to come so close to Zoppo's working methods, tor it is rare that paintings and
drawings dating from the middle decades of the fifteenth centur\ ( in themselves
so rare) can be so nearlv related.

Armstrong has also draw n attention to the fact that Zoppo was working on
six cassone panels for the Gonzaga familv in Mantua in 1462-63, a commission
documented in the only sur\ i\ing letter from the artist. Unlortunatelv there is no
conclusive evidence to link the Los Angeles and Florence works with this fascinating
commission, but perhaps a document w ill be found one da\ that firmlv connects
artist, patron, subject, and panels.

Landscape at Vaucresson

Edouard Vuillard

French, 1868-1940

c. 1907

Oil on canvas

13 X i8'/a in. (ji-o X 4b. o cm)

Signed at lower riaht; H. Vuillard

Gift ot Howard Alimanson, Jr

M.8i.2{9.2

Provenance;

tn^land, Dean ol York.

Paris, Galerie C'harpenticr, 1950.

London, Arthur Tooth.

Los Angeles, Howard Ahmanson.

Newport Beach, Mrs. Denis Sullivan.

Los Angeles, Howard Ahmanson, Jr.

Select Literature:

Auiour dc /900, exh. cat. (PSris: tialcrie
Charpentier, i9{o), no. 188.

w„

hen this small painting was exhibited in 19J0, it was called Landscape ai
Vaucresson and dated 1907. There is little reason to doubt the title or date, but it is
not easy to identify precisely the view painted by Vuillard. The tow n of Vaucresson,
a suburb outside Paris in the rolling hills near Versailles, was a popular escape from
the city and a favored locale for Vuillard during World War L The artist and his
mother usually stayed with their intimate friends, Jos and Lucy Hessel, who lived in
a number ot \ illas at Vaucresson during these years. The gabled house nestled at the
edge of the woods in the upper right of the painting may be one of them. Vuillard
himself rented a villa in the town during the 1920s and 1930s, but relatively few
landscapes of this small scale are known from this later period.

In 1900, one year after the disbandment of the Nabis, the avant-garde group of
artists of \\ hich Vuillard was a founding member, he tra\ek'd to Switzerland, where
he staved tor two years, spending time with Felix Vallotton and Odilon Redon, also
charter members of the group. The occasion was something of a Nabis reunion, for
they were later joined by other members, including Pierre Bonnard and K.-X.
Roussel.' It was at Romanel, near Lausanne, that Vuillard painted a number of small
landscapes, quickly and freshly realized, of the surrounding countryside and lake.
These pictures, remarkable for their concentration and focus, are careful
compositional studies that explore the relationship of color and line without
neglecting the traditional landscape concerns of depth and atmosphere.

Upon his return to France, Vuillard continued, though infrequently this kind
of fresh landscape study. The intimate scale ot Landscape at Vaucresson belies the
complexity and sophistication w ith \\ hich he rendered this aspect of the French
countryside outside Paris. The view is taken from a high vantage point, trom a hill
whose crest cur\'es across the foreground, its sun-drenched slopes studded with
rocks and bushes. From there the ground drops away from the viewer, descends to
the vallev floor, and then rolls up to form a gentle hill in the distance. The far side of
the hill is lined by a copse of thick woods, its foliage masking several houses whose

Notes

I. Belinda Tlionison, VinllarJ (New '^ork:

Abbeville, 1988), hi, (,4.

V II I L L A R D

R-d-tiied roots peck tlirough in .se\cral places. The area in front of the trees is not
wild countryside, hut the cultivated land of the farniliouse or \ ilia at the upper
right. There are neatly divided garden.s, which are patterned around a grou|) of
outbuildings and divided hv a rutted patii at center; a reser\oir, whose paK- hlue
surface reflects the skv; and a row ot low-lving greenhou.ses at the riaht edge,
evidence ot the |5roducti\ itv of tiie locale.

Vuillard's sophisticated evocation ot space and form is so understated that the
perspective is at hrst difhcult to read. The artist created a delicate, harmonious
composition that is knitted together bv the umber ground that breathes through the
surface ot the |)icture. His technique- was anything but fastiilious: the brushstrokes
arc juxtaposed haphazardly regardless of the sense of space the\ ostensibly define.
This comes through most clearh- in the trees; their contour is carved out b\ the
pale blue dashes ot the sk\, which at certain points overlap the trees. The result is
a collapsing ot the tlistance between near antl tar and an enhancing ot the sen.se
of the painting as a pattern of color tones of equal intensit\, delicateb balanced.

Even at this small scale Vuillard's predilection tor pattern and decoration asserts
itself. Like the large decorative wall panels that had lu-en the governing aesthetic of
the Nabis — "There are no such things as pictures, there is only decoration," Dutch
Nabis |)ainter Jan Verkade had avowed in the early 1890s — Landscape at Vaiicresson
abandons conventional perspectival devices, compositional focu.s, and clarity of
subject, concerns that Vuillard had reviled when he was a student at the Ecolc des
Beaux-Arts in the i88o.s. He explored instead the weave of patterns suggested by the
cultivated gardens and fields and the synchrony ot umbers, olive greens, and tirra-
cotta reds that emerge throughout the composition. The resulting image has none ot
the impersonal traces of a formula or painterly exercise but instead strikes a sensitive
balance between the aesthetic demands ot the task at hand and the lov ing attention
and delicate evocation ot a familiar place, often v isited and well loved.

View of VetbeuH

Claude Monet

French, 1840-1926

1880

Oil on canvas

31% X 25VH in. (Si.o X 65.1 cm)

Stamped at lower rioht: Claude Monet

Gift <il Howard Alimanson, Jn

M.81.259. j

Provenance:

Givernv, Michel Monet.

Paris, Dr Jean Stehelin, hv [947.

London, Wildenstcin & Co. (dealer).

I.os Ansjeles, Hov\ard Ahmanson.

Newport Beach, Mrs. Denis Sullivan.

Los Angeles, Howard Ahmanson, Jr

Select Literature:

Daniel Wildenstein, Claude \lonei. Bioi^raphie et
catalogue ranonne (Lausanne: La Bibliotheque
des Arts, 1974), 1:572, no. boj.

jatc in the summer ot 1878 Claude Monet, hi.s wile, C'amille, and their two
sons, Jean and Michel, moved to the village of Vetheuil on the bank-s of the Seine,
between Mantes and Vernon to the northwest ot Paris, "a ra\ ishinsj place" as Monet
called it in a letter o( September i to his friend, the collector Hu^ene Murer. Situated
convenientlv near Paris, the \ illage was nestled between hills on a sweeping cur\e
of the river and was edoed w ith small wooded islands. Much more rural in aspect
than the increasingly suburban \illage of Argenteuil w hence the Monets had moved,
Vetheuil, with its hills, meadows, woods, and river islands, ottered much pictorial
variety to Monet. Dri\en in part by financial necessity, the Monets shared a house
w ith their friends lamest and Alice Hoschede and the Hoschedes' six children. The
three years at Vetheuil were productive ones; Monet began by selling views of the
village and the Seine to such supportive friends as painter Gustave Caillebotte, critic
Theodore Duret, and doctor Georges de Bellio.

These fev\ years follow ing the artistic, if not Hnancial, success of Monet's seminal
Argenteuil period were a time ot crisis tor the painter. In addition to his hnancial
difficulties Monet distanced himself from the other impressionist painters; it was
only out ot Hnancial necessity and a certain sense ot obligation that lie agreed to
contribute to their fourth group exhibition in .April ot 1879. In 18S0 he finally broke
with the other impressionists and succeeded in exhibiting at the Salon rather than
with his old colleagues at their fifth group show. In these years Monet relied less
and less on the income earned from works sold cheaply to a tew understanding
sutjporters but allowed dealer Paul Durand-Ruel to manage his affairs. There was a
domestic crisis too. Ever since the move to Vetheuil, Monet had been conhding in
letters to Dr de Bellio his concern for the health of Camille, w hich had been poor
since the birtii of Michel in Marcii of 1878. fier untimely death in September of
1879 was a great blow 1 hat autumn Monet did not paint much outdoors but
concentrated on still lites ot flowers, fruits, and dead game.

Monet

Till- winter ot 1879-80 was oni' ot the hardest ever known in tht- l^aris region, so
cold that the Seine froze over eompletclv. The breakup ot the ice in January and the
resuhiniJ tloes on the river inspired a remarkable series ot paintinjjs bv Monet. Their
bleak beauty has sometimes been associated with his state ot mind during this
period of mourning for Camiile. Nothing the artist said or wrote confirms this,
hov\c\er It thi're is an\ truth to the storv, then perhaps thi- following spring, when
the museum's painting was probably executed, the artist was coming out of his
misery and enjoying a sense of emotional warmth and the promise of renewal. Alice
Hoschcde, v\ho v\as eventually to become Monet's second wife, was already
occupying a more signiticant place in his lite.

View of Vethcuil is a panoramic landscape, w hen- the artist looks dow n from a
nearby hillside to the \ illage bv the river and then across to the far hills. There
is a rich \arietv ot brushwork, which conveys a sense ot the sun dancing across
the land.scape, w bile tlecks ot warm color suggest the Hrst flowers ot spring. This
jMinting remained in Monet's possession until his death and passed with his estate
to Michel Monet. Before the son placed it on the market, it was gi\en the stamped
studio signature at lower right. The work is a tvpical example ot Monet's art at this
transitional phase ot his career, betvseen his pioneering years at .Argenteuil and the
more settled artistic and personal lite he was soon to enjov at Gnernv trom the carlv
1880s onward.

A Norman Milkmaid at Greville

Jean-Fran<;ois Millet

Fr-iuIi, 1814-75

1S71

Oil tm cardboard

ji'/' X 2i^A in. (80.0 X 55. h nn)

Ciitt ot Howard Aliniansoii, Jr

M.Si. 259.4

Provenance:

Paris, l^ul niirand-RiicI (dialir), 1S71.

Paris, Laurent Ritliard Collection, In 1S7S.

Ni-u York, Mr J. M. Rliodcs, 1902.

New York, Paul Durand-Riicl (dralor), 1902.

New York, Charles IM. Sehuab, 1902.

NcH '^ork, sale, Tobias, Fischer and Co., 24
April 1940, no. 49 (bouaht in.').

Westport, Connecticut, Hdward H. Schwab,
1940.

New York, Kleinbert;er Galleries, 1941.

Boston, Vose Gallery, 1942.

Boston, Robert C. Vo.se, Jr, 1942.

New York and London, John Nicholson
(dealer), 1943.

London, Arthur Tooth Gallerv, 1957.

Los Angeles, Howard Alinianson.

Newport Beach, Mrs. Denis Sulli\an.

Lo.s Angeles, Howard .'\hmanson, Jr.

Select Literature:

Htiennc Moreau-Ni-lalon, I/1//1/ nuonic par lui-
memc (Paris. Henri [aureus, 1921), yiu I2h,
129, KsT. 2<i9.

Robert I.. Herbert, '"la lailiere norniamU' a
Greville' de J.-K Millet," la rcmc Jii loinrc jo,
no. I (1980): 14—20, lit;, ij.

n the summer of 1870 Jean-Francois Millet decided to take his family and flee
the troubled atmosphere of the Paris region during the uphcax als of the Franco-
Prussian Wan He returned to his birthplace, the hamlet of Gruchv at the village of
Greville in Normandy. Millet had been liv ing in Paris and at the village of Barbi/on
in the Forest of Fontainebleau more or less continuousK since the late 1S50S. He had
been back to Greville only occasionally during those years, in 1844, 1845, and in 1855,
when his mother died. The longer visit ot 1870-71 was a moving one tor the artist. It
brought back many memories, as he saw again the simjjle and rugged places ot his
childhood, the green fields and hills, stone walls and ancient cottages, gee.se and sheep,
and peasant population of this remote corner of France overlooking the Atlantic.

A Norman Milkmaid a: Greville was inspired by this return to the scenes ot Milk't's
childhood. It shows a solidly built peasant girl wearing homespun clothes and
wooden shoes carrying on her back a canne (urn) full ot milk; the vessel is sealed
w ith biuiches ot leayes. This type ot urn was typical ot the region; Millet had
proudly inherited a couple from his mother The weight ot the milk container can
be sensed through the tension ot the cord that is wrapjx'd around the girl's torearm
and passes over her ca[)ped head to the handle ot the jug. She has caretully balanced

Millet

her hoily, witli lni- K-lt liaiul on lur hip to takr thr \\i-ia|it. The milkmaiil is roniina
down a path that winds across a gently sloping hillside. She is partialK silhouetted
against a sunset sky, hut there is enough amhient light to make out the teatuivs of
her face and eostume and to allow the artist to model her form fullv in the round.
She is monumental in appearance, not only heeaust' slu' is posed against the sky, hut
also heeause the \ iewer is jilaeed quite low in relation to her adxaneinsj HsJure. H\
coneeix ing the milkmaid in this simplihed, monumental, and dominating way. Millet
idealized and ga\e grandeur to someone whose lite on the land must really have heen
one ol hard toil. The hurden ol her daily round is clear, hul at the same time it is
presentt'd w ith integrity, ilignit\, and e\en nohility

Millet treated the theme of the milkmaid .several times throughout his career;
Rohert Herhert has discussed the different versions fully in the article i iteil ahove.
He reproduces a lost drawing of the early 1840s, which was Millet's hrst attempt
at the subject early in his career, when In- was interi'sted in rococo art. It shows a
rather hlowsy female, a descendant of the flirtatious t\pes depicted In Boucher and
Hragonard in the eighteenth century .'\round 184CS, however, a year of revolution and
social upheaval in France, Millet began to treat rural and peasant themes in a more
realistic way Works such as his famous Winmmcr (National Gallery, London), shown
at the Paris Salon ol 1848, mingle his svmpathy for country folk, a cirtain anger at
their lives of relentless toil, and an admiration for their stoicism, dignity, and moral
rectitude. There is no iloubt where his sympathies la\, so moving are his images of
rural labor.

Alter 1849 Millet spent most of his time at the \illaac of Barbi/.on, awav from the
venalities ot Paris and closer to nature and the humble shepherds and woodcutters
of Fontainebleau. He was one of a group of artist.s, known as the Barbi/on School,
who turned their hacks on ofHcial academic art, the quarrels of Classicists and
Romantics, and petty bourgeois genre .scenes. Painters such as Millet and his friends
Narcisse Virgile Diaz, Charles-l:mile Jacque, and Theodore Rousseau wanttil to
bring some ol the authenticity of nature into their works. Although their art was
challenging and radical in 1848-49 and took quite a few years to find acceptance
in official artistic circles in France, it soon found a sympathetic audience among
thinking |)eo|ilc who came to admire these images of rural life at a time when
industrialization and urban ex|Mnsion were beginning to change traditional values
and ways of living.

.4 !^orman Milkmaid at Grcvillc |)robably came to the United States in the last
decades ot the nineteenth century, although there is no documentary e\ idence to
support this. The Frenchman Paul Durand-Ruel, who acted as asjent for the painting
in 187 1 and 1902, had been a well-known dealer in Paris since the iSbos and in New
York since 1888. It was Easterners, above all Bostonians, who wvre Millet's principal
supporters during his litetime, and his reputation was certainly well established in
America by the early 1870s, owing in large part to the help of Durand-Ruel.

In 1848 or 1849 Millet made a series of drawings of milkmaid.s, leading to a small
oil painting that is now in the Princeton University Art Gallerv. Although small in
scale, it is in his new, more realistic manner. The design anticipates the Los Angeles
picture, excej^t that the earlier worker is turned the other way and holds the
supporting thong in her hand rather than w rappina it around her torearm. Millet

Millet

Rturncd to tin- thome aijain lx-t\\ct-n 1851 and 1H55, notably in an oil that shows the
milkmaid rctiirniniJ hv moonlight (University ot Birmingham, Barber Institute of
Art). In another painting done in the early i8feos (Pala/zo Communale, Milan), Millet
shows the girl tor the first time carrying the traditional Norman canne, identihable
because of its side handle; this milkmaid walks home in the cool and mistv light of
early morning. In 1874, the year before his death. Millet painted his last Milkmaid
(Louvre, Paris); it is an unHnished picture, in his somber late manner, where the
w orker has an almost tragic air of grandeur She is shown in a rather sketchy form
against a strong sunset sky. It is a haunting image, perhaps rendered the more
moving because it is know n to be one of Millet's last work.s.

Saint Michael Casting Satan
into Hell

Circle of Domenico Antonio Vaccaro

Italian (Naples), ibSo-1750

c. i70f-25

Polvrhronn' x\ui)il « itii "lass

52'/.' X 27% X 24'/! in.
(133.4 X b9.2 X h2.9 cm)

Gift of The Alimanson Foumlatimi

M.82.7

Provenance:

Spain, probably gilt of the Viceroy of Napji
to his daughter in the Convent of the
Religiosas Agustinas in .Salamanca.

Spain, Convent of the Religio.sas A^ustina.s
until 1938.

Spain, private collection.

Lugano, Siivano Lodi, ami Rome, Hnzo
Costantini (dealers).

Select Literature:

Antonio Garcia Boiza, La iqksia \ convenio Je
MM. Aijiisiinas Jc Siildmanca, Hilosolia v Letra.s,
vol. I, no. I (Salamanca: Unixersitvof
Salamanca, 1945), ji (also illustrated).

,M\ar Cion/aUv-Palat ios, "Un capolavoro della
plastica napoletana barocca," Amoloqiu Ji hclle
am, n.s. no.s. 21-22 (1984): 118.

Alvar Gonzalcz-ftlacios et al., CniUa del sciccnto
a Napoli, exh. cat. (Naples: Electa, 1984), 226,
318-19 (as Francesco Picano).

Alvar Gonzalez-Palacios, // lempio del tjmio: Le
arti decorative in Italia fra classicumi e hawcco
(Milan: Longancsi & Co., 1984), i:2oh, hg. 473,
268 (as Francesco Picano).

Ursula Schlegel, Die nalienischcn Rild»erke des
77. I'nd 18. Jahrlnindcris, E^^^'e^bunqen von
1978 bis 19SS (Berlin: Mann, 1988), (14 (as
Francesco Picano).

Ihi:

^hi.s multicolored, gilded wood .sculpture, ornamented with bit.s of in.set glass,
is composed of forty pieces; the flames and rocks of the base are only roughly
joined. It comes from the Consent of the Religiosas Agustinas in Salamanca, whose
collections were dispersed during the Spanish Civil War. This convent was founded
bv the Count of Monterrey, Viceroy of Naples, who was said to ha\ e made a gift of
the Saint Michael when his daughter became a member of the religious community.'
The sculpture represents the clima.x of the "war in heaven" recounted in Revelation
12:7-9, in vvhich the Archangel Michael defeats the legions of rebel angels led bv
Satan and casts them out of heaven.

This cosmic battle has long exercised a particular fascination for the visual arts,
inspiring .some of the great masterpieces of European painting and sculpture. Two
of the most signiHcant examples are Raphael's painting commissioned for Frani^ois I
(1J18, Louvre, Paris) and the over-life-size bronze bv Hans Reichle (1603-6, Augsburg
Arsenal). During the Counter-Reformation, Saint Michael's victory was represented
with increasing frequency, as it symbolized the triumph of the Catholic Church over
heresy. It could be understood further as a universal allegorv of virtue overcoming
evil, with the archangel's celestial beauty overwhelming the monstrosity of Satan,
who was represented from Raphael's time onward less as a dragon, as he is referred
to in Revelation, than as a demon with human features.

Vaccaro

Fig. 24a

Gian Domenico Vinactia, Somi Michael with the
Dragon, ibgi, silver, dimensions unavailable.
Treasury of San Gennaro, Naples. Photo:
Alinari/Art Resource.

Fit;. 24b

Attributed to Lorenzo Vaccaro, Saini Michael
Defeating Saian, 1685—1700, silver, silver-gilt,
and wood, h; 26 in. (fefa.o cm) with ba.se,
Staatliche Museen, Berlin (inv. no. 21—78).

"•^^^

It was surely one, it not two, paintings by the Neapolitan artist Luca Giordano
together with the altarpiece by Guido Reni in Santa Maria della Concezione
in Rome (before 1636) that set a formal prototype for representations of the
metaphysical adversaries in southern Italy, where the subject was treated over and
over again in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Giordano's two pictures are
preserved today in Berlin (probably 1684, Staatliche Museen) and Vienna (late 1650s,
Kunsthistorisches Museum); the Vienna painting portrays a Saint Michael that may
easily have been a direct inspiration for the saint in the Los Angeles sculpture.^

Saint Michael was declared one of the patron saints of Naples in 1691. In that
year the Congregazione dei Settantatre Sacerdoti of the parish of San Gennaro
commissioned a silver statue of Saint Michael overcoming the dragon for the
Treasury of San Gennaro (Hg. 24a). Although there is still some question about its
authorship, it is usually given to Lorenzo Vaccaro (1655—1706).^ On the basis of this
attribution a related series of slightly smaller silver statuettes of Saint Michael
overcoming Satan (Staatliche Museen, Berlin, fig. 24b; Germanisches National-
museum, Nuremberg; art market, Munich; and Museo Municipal, Salamanca) has
also been attributed to Lorenzo or his son Domenico Antonio Vaccaro.'' Of these it
is the example in Salamanca that relates most directly to yet another, grander version
in silver in the Rothschild Collection (Paris), which is in turn virtually identical, but
for its material, to the Los Angeles Saint Michael.

Alvar Gonzalez- Palacios has written that the Los Angeles sculpture is a copy of
the Rothschild silver and is that which is mentioned in a document of 1705. This
document records a commission to the otherwise little-known Neapolitan sculptor
Francesco Picano to make a polychrome wood "Saint Michael and the Dragon"
after a model by Lorenzo Vaccaro.^ Consequently the Rothschild group would be
considered the original by Lorenzo Vaccaro. However, this document refers precisely
to a Saint Michael overcoming a dragon, not Satan. Notwithstanding this, Ursula
Schlegel has supported the attributions proposed by Gonzalez-Palacios.^

Vaccaro

Sotes

1. Gonzalez-ftlacios (// lempiodel gusio, i:2bS),
citing Garcia Boiza, states that it v\as a gift
ot the nephew of the viceroy, « hile in

an undated letter to Peter Fusco, Manuel
Gonzalez-1 opez writes that the nuns who sold
the sculpture in i9j8 told the new owner that
a \ icerov s;a\e it to the convent when his
daughter joined their community.

2. Hrich Schleier, "Der Heilige Michael: ein
unhekanntes Hauptwerk luta Giordanos,"
Pantheon 29, no. b (Novemher/Decenihcr 1971):
{lo— 18.

3. tlio and Corrado Catello, La cappclh Jcl
lewro di San Gennaro (Naples: Banco di Napoli,
1977), 84, 146, n. 92. Gian Domenico Vinaccia,
one of Lorenzo Vaccaro's main competitors,
carried out the commission. The authors
emphasize that this occurred at a time w hen
Vinaccia was in open discord with Vaccaro,
and that Vinaccia always used his ow n models.
Gonzalez-Palacios, lollowed hv Schlegel,
attributes the model for the San Gennaro
sculpture to Lorenzo Vaccaro, although
Gonzalez-Palacios believes the original design
to be bv Luca Giordano (see note 7).

4. Ferdinando Bologna, "A SiKer Sculpture
Ascribed to Domenico Antonio Vaccaro," I ht:
Burlington Magazine 121, no. 913 (April 1979):
220—25. Bologna attributes the Berlin statuette
to Domenico .Antonio Vaccaro; the Munich
and Nuremberg examples to his studio. See
Gonzalez-Palacios, "Domenico Antonio
Vaccarci's St Michael?" The Burlinijlon Magazine
121, no. 917 (August 1979): fi6, fig. 64, 518, lor
the Salamanca sculpture and a rejection of
Bologna's attributions. Schlegel, 64, attributes
the Berlin statuette to Lorenzo Vaccaro.

5. Gonzalez-Flalacios, II tempio del gusto, i:2b8.
The San Gennaro sculpture represents Saint
Michael and the Dragon.

b. Schlegel, 64.

7. Gonzalcv-Palacios, "Un capolavoro della
plastica napoletana barocca," 122; // tempio del
qusto, i:2bb— 67. In the latter Gonzalez-Palacios
suggests attributing the original design to Luca
Giordano, the model to Lorenzo Vaccaro, and
the execution ol the finished sculpture to
Vinaccia.

8. Franco Mancini, // Presepe napoletano: nella
collezione Lugenio Catello, Forma e Colore, tux
47 (Florence: Sadea, ighi), 1.

9. Schlegel, b2.

10. Mancini, 2.

1 he San Gennaro Saint Michael with the Dracjon is of capital importance for the
attribution of the Roth.schikl and Los Angeles sculptures.^ The elongated torso,
idealized teature.s, morphology of the wings, and pose (in particular the position
of the left arm, its dow nward gesture rationalized but obscured b\ the Archangel's
shield, absent from the Rothschild and Los Angeles Hgures) demonstrate that
it must be directK' related to these two sculptures. However, their more open
compositions and delicate proportions would suggest a date somewhat later than
1691. The style ot the Los Angeles Saint Michael points directly to the exquisite
delicacy so characteristic ot the Neapolitan rococo ot the succeeding century.

Furthermore, the museum's Saint Michael is related to another type of sculpture
w hose lull flowering occurred in Naples in the eighteenth century, the creche figure.
These doll-like Htjures are made up ot components of poKchromed carved wood or
terra-cotta, which were assembled and articulated w ith hinges, then padded and
dressed in fanciful fabrics and trimming. Grouped together, thev made fabulous
tableaux vivants, usually representing the Nativity. "* In her analysis of the Berlin Saint
Michael, Schlegel discusses how the silver statuettes can be understood in terms ot
the production ot Neapolitan creche figures: the silver sculptures too are assembled
from numerous components (some ot which are cast from the same mold) with
varying degrees ot Hnish and stmietimes gilded or combined with a ditTerent
material (bronze, tor example) for coloristic effects. Thus, Schlegel writes, the
statuettes resemble the creche figures not only in technique but al.so in principle.''
It is worth noting in this context that creche Hgures were also commissioned by
the aristocracy and from major artists, among them Giuseppe Picano and Lorenzo
Vaccaro.'" Having originated as popular art, thev became court art as well. This
correspondence between the creche Hgures and the silver statuettes should be
contemplated with special regard to the Los Angeles Saint Michael because it too is
made ot manv components and because it may be a replica in polychrome wood of a
silver group, the Rothschild Saint Michael Ovcrcommcj Satan.

Indeed the splendor of a Saint Michael in silver would in any circumstances but
those found in Naples around 1700 make it unlikely that it would have a wood
twin ot equal beauty Naples, however, had a lono tradition ot polychrome wood
sculpture, and this tradition survived, intact but brilliantly transformed at a level
of sophistication rivaling that of the arts in more noble materials. Rarely has this
achievement been shown to greater advantatje than in the museum's Saint Michael,
where a composition ot twirling pinwheels, li^htlv stabilized, has been colored as
in a kaleidoscope and touched w ith jewels ot glass.

MLL

The Death of Lucretia

LuDOVico Mazzanti

Italian (Rome), ibSh-1775

<-■ i7i5-?7

Oil on canxas

7r X 56 in. (iSo.j x 142.2 cm)

Ciitt ot Thi" AliniansDti F-oiindation

M.82.75

Provenance:

Probably Naj^Jos, Prince- of Arasjon.

No« York, Walter P. Cbrvslor Collection.

New York, private mllcction.

New York, Rejaee Collection.

New York, Cbri.stopbe ]atut (dealer).

Select Literature:

Paola Santiicci, l.udovico Ma/zanti (1686-ljys)
(L'Aquila: Japadre hditore, 1980), 119, no. bo,
169—70.

rery little is known about Mazzanti's life and career, but he was evidently a \erv
successhil and esteemed artist, having been s^ranted the papal title ofcavaliere,
awarded to only the most outstanding artists, as well as the title o( come, pos.siblv
by the Grand Duke of Tuscanv. In 1744 he was elected a member of the exclusive
Academy of Saint Luke. Born in Rome, Mazzanti was apprenticed at a very young
age to the great decorative painter Giovanni Battista Gaulli. Gaulli's style combined
the precocious baroque elements of Correggio, the sixteenth-century Hmilian
painter, w ith the refined classicism of Carlo Maratta, Gaulli's contemporary,
influences that are felt in the early works of Mazzanti, such as his Assumption of the
Virgin, painted for the ceiling of Sant'Ignazio in Rome. Mazzanti worked primarily in
Rome and Viterbo but made two extensi\e trips to Naples, from 1726 to 1731 and
from 175 J to 1757, where he worked with Francesco Solimena.

The Death of Lucretia was unknown in the scholarly literature before its appearance
on the art market and acquisition by the museum. Mazzanti's notebook of 1770,
preserved in the archive in Orvieto, lists a "Suicide of Lucretia" in the collection
of the Prince of Aragon, along with several other works by the artist, including
a "Sacrifice of Hercules," which may ha\ e been a pendant to the Lucretia. The
notebook mentions a second painting of Lucretia, "painted in Naples," belonging to
the Sciviman family in Venice. It seems entirely likely that these two pictures refer
to the Los Angeles work and another ot Lucretia, now in the Crocker Art Museum
in Sacramento (fig. 2ja).'

The two \ersions are \ery similar in composition and details, although the Los
Angeles painting is considerably larger and the head of Lucretia is more sharply
turned to the lett in it than in the painting in Sacramento. The latter also includes
a statue of a draped figure in a niche in the left background. The exact relationship
between the two \ariants is uncertain, and it is not clear which one Mazzanti
painted first. The Los Angeles painting is more finished in execution, its composition
better resolved, suggesting that it came after the Crocker version. The Sacramento
picture seems too large to be considered a modello, however.

Mazzanti

1 \.c

Fig. 2 {a

Ludovico Mazzanti, The Death of Lucretia,

c. 1735, oil on canvas, jg'/s x Zg'A in.

(99.4 X 74.3 cm), copyright 1872, Crocker

Collection, Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento,

California (CAM 1872.349).

>lotes

1. Santucci, 169-70; Roger D. Clisbv, Crocker
An Museum Handbook of Paintings (Sacramento;
Crocker Art Museum, 1979), 43—44, 119,

no. 42.

2. Santucci, 113, fig. 50.

If tin- Prince of Aragon commissioned the painting now in Los Angeles, it was
most likely during the artist's second sojourn in Naples. The crisp, Huttering
draperies, upraised elbow of Lucretia, and difficult perspective of her head closely
relate to figures in the Expulsion ofHeliodonis, which Mazzanti painted in the
Neapolitan Churth of the Giroloniini in 173(1, when he was under tlu' iiiMuence
ot Solimena. Moreover the painting compares very closely in the disposition of
the figure and the nature of the setting and its furnishings to Mazzanti's/osep/i
jiiJ Potiphar's Wife (private collection, Rome), which Santucci dates to the years
1758-40.'

Lucrctia was the wife of Tarquinius Collatinus, one of the commanders of
the tyrannical King Tarcjuinius Su|XTbus, who ruled Rome. Collatinus boasted
ot his wife's virtuousness and taithtulness, in contrast with the foolishness and
unchasteness of the wives of his kinsmen. Smitten by Lucretia's great beauty and
industrv, Sextus Tarquiniu.s, the king's son, stole into her bedchamber and raped her
at knife-point. The next morning Lucretia summoned her father and husband and,
after demanding that they avenge her honor, stabbed herself to death. Outraged,
Collatinus and his comrades were inspired to drive out the evil king, laying the
foundations for the Roman republic.

Mazzanti depicts Lucretia's death on an epic scale suitable to the story Her
monumental figure, posed in dramatic contrapposto, dominates the com|30sition.
The heroine twists in agony, turning her head to the heavens as she plunges the
dagger into her breast. The viewer's sense of her agitation is increased by the
electric folds of the draperies, which crackle about her form as it drixen by a
swirling w ind. Yet in Mazzanti's rendition of the story almost all ot Lucretia's moral
righteousness and heroic self-sacrifice is hidden beneath a veneer of sexual allure.
The artist eroticizes the story by painting an attractive Lucretia, en deshabille, in a
provocative and inviting setting. The bed on v\hich she was assaulted is covered w ith
billowing robes and plump pillows; the furniture boasts a sculpted harpy and a
leering satyr head. Rather than emphasizing the social and political ramifications of
Lucretia's action, the painting concentrates on the seductive charms ot the woman's
great beauty. Lucretia is cloistered alone in her bedroom, w here her suicide is
enacted in a personal rather than public context.

Mazzanti's painting, like most depictions of the story in Renaissance and baroque
art, treats the fate of Lucretia more for decorati\e than didactic purposes. The
closest prototype for this full-length Lucretia is Guido Rent's large Death of Lucretia
in the Neues Palais in Potsdam. In the eighteenth century educated patrons like
the Prince of Aragon and his intimates would ha\e been familiar with Lucretia's
tragic story but also drawn to such a painting for its dynamic composition, the
intrinsic beauty of its painted surface, and its appeal to certain tastes in eroticism.

At the same time, hov\ever, Mazzanti re\eals a certain sympathy for the heroine.
For all the lurid references to the rape, Lucretia is shown as assertive and bold as
she prepares to die for her principles. In the sensitive depiction of her face Mazzanti
has, perhaps more than most artists, attempted to evoke her conflicting feelings as
she turns to the gods for strength.

103

Study of an Oriental Head for
"The Marriage at Cana"

Gaetano Gandolfi

Italian (Bologna), 1754-1802

c. 17ht>-7{

Oil on can%as

19 X li'Vii, in. (48.5 X J5.4 cm)

Gitt ot The Alimanson Fminilation

M. 82. 199

Provenance:

Italv, private collection.

London, Matthiesen Fine Art liniiteil (lUaler).

Select Literature:
Unpublished.

lactano GandolH was the most talented member ot a lamilv ot artists that
dominated Bolosincsc paintinsJ in the second half of the eighteenth eentur\. Harlv
in his life he stuilied \\ ith his elder brother, Ubaldo; he later was a pupil ot the
sculptor-anatomist trcole Lelli at the Accademia Clementina in Bologna. In 1760,
under the auspices of an important early patron, Bolo^nese merchant Antonio
Buratti, Gaetano and LIbaldo traveled to Venice tor a turther vear ot stud\. In
Venice, Gaetano was deepK impressed bv the art of Sebastiano Ricci and Gio\anni
Battista Tiepolo, painters whose fluent brushwork and effortless technique had a
dramatic impact on his art.

Upon his rtturn to Bolojjna, Gaetano soon established himself as the city's leading
painter and be^jan what would bv a lonjj and productive career. He produced
altarpieces and trescoes tor the C hurch and the Bolosinese aristocrac\ but was be.st
appreciated tor his draw ings and oil sketches; he also e.\ccuted a small number ot
etchings.

The unpublished Stiid\ of an Oncnial HcnJ shows GamlolH at his most
accomplished, as a painter ot loose and spontaneous oil sketches. The painting
was produced in conjunction w ith one ot the artist's major commissions, the
monumental Marriage at Cana, which was jiainted tor the retectory ot the con-
\ent ot San .SaKatore in Bologna and is now in the Pinacoteca Na/ionale, Bologna
(hg. 26a). This painting, dated 1775 and measuring about twentv-two feet across,
occupicil the artist tor some ten \ears. The Los .\ngeles oil sketch (along with three
preparatorx tlrawings and a modcllo, the latter which is now in the Walters .Art
Gallery, Baltimore) is one ot several studies made tor the larger work.'

One of the artist's most ambitious productions, the jiainting tor San SaKatore
contains more than fortN' Hgures situated in an elaborate architectural setting. The
focus of the composition is the resplendent figure of Christ, w hose gesture to the
stewards across the table changes the water in their amphorae into wine, lb guide
him in his elaborate design, GandolH turneil to the \enetian paintings he had
studied earlier, basing this composition on Veronese's famous Fcasi in the Houx 0/ Levi
in the .Accademia in \enice. GandolH drew inspiration as well trom such contemjxi-

104

Gandolfi

rarii's as Rioci and tlii' French expatriate- Pierre SLililevras. Around the table where
Christ pertornis his miracle, GandolH posed his Hsjures in a ijreat variitv ot positions,
creatinsj somethinsJ of a sunima ot academic pose, gesture, and anatomical tore-
shortening, demonstrating the proHciencv \\ ith which he understooil the principles
of history painting. For all its ambition, ho\\i\er. The Marnage at Cana leaves the
Sotcs viewer somewhat cold, so high-blown is its drama and spectacular its effects.

[. Rdcrico Ziri, lialian Paiminf^s in the Waken j^^^p sympathetic are the indi\idual reactions that Gandolh painted on the faces

.In (jj//iTi (Baitimori: Walters Art Gallerv, r i ■' , -i • > • i -r-i i i i i

, „ ' ot tlie witnesses to Clirist s miracle. I he artist must riave exploretl these expressions

197b). J:9?J-5!. ""■ 44-. pi- 2**9- ' '

in drawn and painted studies, but only the museum's example has surfaced. It
depicts the head of the turbaned Oriental who stands at the far left of the-
composition, looking C]ui//icall\ at Christ as he pertomis the transubstantiation.
These tyijcs ot exotic characters \scrc in\ariablv included in such scenes tor local
color; Gandolti's observer is verv similar to the one that appears in Sublcvras's
Banquet in the House of Simon the Pharisee, paintetl in 1737 tor the monastery at Asti
and now in the Lou\ re in I^aris. Concentrating on the single head allowed Gandolfi
to free himself from the tussiniss and preciosity that characterizes the Hnal painting.
With his brush loaded with paint, he car\ed out the form ot the hiad from the dark
background, a tew long brushstrokes created the tokls ot the turban, and the flowing
beard was maik' palpable by lea\ing a rich impasto. The composition is held together
by the cragg\ hand, halt in shadow, which juts in from the lower right.

The oil sketch may have been a preliminary study through which Gan<lolh
investigated the particular reaction ot this okl man, who.se .sense of doubt may
be lessening under the bright light of Christ's hak). It mav well be, however, that
this "study" was created after the large picture was Hnished. .-\s a composition it
works extremely well in its own right, and as a genre tvjje it follows a tradition of
ixiintiiigs ot w i/ened old men jiroduced by artists from Rembramlt to Ricci. The
aged Oriental is certainK one of the most successful figures in I he Marnacje at tana,
and Gandolh might ha\e wished to exjiloit the energies and ideas that he expended
on the commission by reusing its best parts. .As an indi\iilual jwinting the .SiuJi of
an Oriental Head would ha\e found a sxnijiathetic audience in those amateurs who
appreciated a good, Hred-off sketch that showed the painter at his most creativ e and
spontaneous.

Gandolfi

Flu. 26a

Gaetano GandolH, The Marriage at Cana^ '775,
oil on canvas, 2o8"/io x 2b-/^/\i, in. (55°° ''
679.0 cm), Pinacotcca Nazionalc, Bologna.

107

Piazza San Marco Looking
South and West

Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal)

Italian (Venice), 1697-1768

1763

Oil on canvas

22'A X 40'/' in. (fb.5 X 102.9 i-m)

Signed on back: lo Antonio Canal, (lotto i

Canaletto, fecit. 1763.

Gift of The Alimanson Foundation

M.83.39

Provenance:

Hngland, the Honorable Mrs. John Ashley,
by 190b.

London, Duveen Brothers (dealer).

New York, William P. Clyde sale, American
Art Association, 25 March 1931, no. 148.

Bound Brook, New Jersey, Dr Benjamin
Borow.

New York, sale, Sotheby's, 27 March I9fe3,
no. 83 (withdrawn).

London, sale, Sotheby's, 30 June 1971, no. 98.

London, Herner and Wengraf (dealer).

Milan, Nehmad.

Possibly Zurich, Dino Labri.

London, sale, Sotheby's, i November 1978,
no. 50 (bought in).

London, Harari & Johns Ltd. (dealer).

Select Literature:

W. G. Constable, Canaletto, 2d ed., rev. by J. G.
Links (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976),
2:2io— 11, no. 54*.

J. G. Links, Canaletto (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1982), 206-7, p'- 191*. 209, 211.

Andre Corboz, Canaletto: Una Venezia
immaginana (Milan: .Mheri tiecta, 1985), 2:740,
no. P4{i.

Katharine Baetjer and J. G. Links, Canaletto,
exh. cat. (New York; Metropolitan Museum
of ,^rt, 1989), 14, 53, 62, 274—75, no. 84-

Ihi:

Jiis view is taken from the Campo San Basso, at the side ot the Church of San
Marco, the arches of which appear at the extreme left in the painting. In this
extraordinarv panorama of the Piazza San Marco, Canaletto has sew n together
several viewpoints, leaving the observer \\ ith a \ irtualiv encvclopedic rendering ot
Venice's most famous square. Through the arch of San Marco is a view across the
Piazzetta to the column of Saint Theodore and the lagoon beyond; from there the
eye sweeps across the t\\ in facades of the Library and the Procuratie Vecchie, one in
brilliant sunlight, the other in shadow, at the apex of which stands the Campanile of
San Marco. At the far cm\ of the Piazza is the facade of San Geminiano, followed bv
the Procuratie Nuove, its dramatic length broken bv the shadow of the Campanile.
The composition culminates \\ ith the Torre dell'Orologio, sparkling in sunlight in
the right foreground. Ihroughout the Piazza, Canaletto has painted the strollers,
tourists, merchants, and children who always populate his pictures and who serve
to draw the eye in and around the scene.

One of Canaletto's last paintings. Piazza ian Marco Lookmcj South and West, with
its all-encompassing composition and fulsome detail, was the culmination of the
artist's forty-hve-vear career as the most brilliant and admired N'enetian vcJiiia
(view) painter. The natural beautv ot the \enetian topography had always been an
inspiration to artist.s, and the citvscape frequently appeared as backdrops in the
pictures of earlier artists such as Gentile Bellini, \ ittore Carpaccio, and Jacopo

108

Canaletto

Fig. 27a

Canaletto, .Ifeiri", c. 1742, etching, 17 'A x
22'/4 in. (45.1 X {6.f cm), Los Angeles Countv
Museum of .'Vrt, gift ol The .Ahmanson
Houndation (M. 85.118).

Tintoretto. In the late se\ cnteenth tenturv there arose a tradition of view painting
that took as its primary subject matter the depiction of Venice and Venetian life.
The first successful practitioners ot this nev\ category of painting were Gaspar \an
Wittel and Luca Carlevaris. In the eighteenth century Canaletto developed and
perfected \ iew painting, eventually becoming famous throughout Hurope.

The artist was born in Venice in 1697; at an early age he was apprenticed to his
father, a theater set designer Canaletto made a trip to Rome in 1719 but was back
in Venice the next year, where he \Nas listed as a painter From very early on in his
career he was patronized by foreign art collectors and visitors to Venice; he was
especially popular in the 1720s and 1730s with British collectors who visited the city
as part of their grand tour Canaletto's paintings served as beautiful and valuable
sou\ cnirs of their trip. These tourists were encouraged in their purchases by
expatriate businessmen and art collectors Owen McSwiney and Joseph Smith. Such
transactions hastened Canaletto's growing reputation abroad; bv the mid- 1740s,
however, English demand for his pictures had diminished and the artist lelt it
necessary to diversify his repertoire by painting capriccios, whimsical pictures that
combined fanciful elements with topographical sites. During this period Canaletto
also produced a large number of etchings, which reached a \\ ide audience. His
view of Mestre (fig. 27a) demonstrates his fine skills as a draftsman, and its wide-
open vista shares the perspectival complexity of his paintings.

In 1746 Canaletto traveled to London, where his career was gi\en a boost by such
illustrious patrons as the Duke of Richmond and Sir Hugh Smithson (later Duke of
Northumberland); for them and others Canaletto painted views of the cit\ as \\ell
as of their country seats. Canaletto stayed in England for ten years, producing both
\eduta paintings and capriccios, and was a profound influence on a generation of
British view painters like Samuel Scott and William James.

Canaletto returned to his native city in 1756 and was eventually elected to the
Venetian Academy in September of 1765, after having been passed over the previous
January. The same year he painted Piazza San Marco Looking South and West, inscribing
the back, "lo Antonio Canal, detto il Canaletto, fecit. 1763." (I .Antonio Canal, called
Canaletto, made this. 1763). This unusually formal inscription suggested to J. G.
Links that the artist had intended to present the painting to the .■\cademy as his
reception piece. No doubt the academicians deemed a \ iew painting unacceptable,
for Canaletto evidently \\ ithdrew the painting, instead presenting, two \ears later,
the more fanciful Capnccio: A Colonnade Opening on to the Courtyard of a Palace, which
still hangs in the Gallerie dellWccademia in Venice.'

Academic prejudice may indeed ha\e played a role in Canaletto's decision to
withdraw the Piazza San Marco. As a "mere" recording of nature, an ostensibly
objective veduta painting, in contrast with a morally elevating picture in the
historical genre, would ha\ e been \ ie\\ed w ith skepticism bv members of the
Academy A capriccio, howe\er, was closer to the academic ideal of painting
as a liberal art, since it relied on the artist's powers of in\ention and creati\e
manipulation of motifs.

The irony is that Canaletto's \ie\\ paintings are rareK, if e\er, objecti\e
representations; he invariably rearranged actuality for aesthetic purposes. .As Andre
Corbo/ lias demonstrated in his monumental study ot Canaletto's oeuvre, the

Canaletto

Notes

1. Links, I9J, pi. 188, 209, 211.

2. Ibid., loj— 6, Ho. 95.
]. iliid. r7— 19, ti". II.

4. L'oiistahlo, 2:2o8— 10, nos. 55~54-

[xiiiitor c()ntinuall\ took lihi-rtios witli the topography of the titv in onler to bi-ttcr
compose his pictures or to incliKle a larjJcr number of Venice's popular sisjhts. His
capriccios of Venice, in v\ hich he « himsicallv repositioned such landmarks as the
Hagpoles or the horses ot San Marco, are onlv the most ob\ ious examples of \\ hat
was always, in tin- end, an imaiJinative and proyocative reima^in^ ot the city.

In Pm//M San Marco Canaletto did not rearrange the scene as nun h as hi- simply
included more than the human eye could possibly see from the northeast corner ot
tbi' square. The painter contlated two ot his most popular \iews, the Piazza looking
west and the Piazzetta looking south, into one ijrand picture. In thi' process he
amplified the l-'iazza so that it became a \ast plain, stretchina sublimeK to the
horizon, dotteil with innumerable passersbv. The s|x-ctator is thus presented with
seyeral yicvypoints and multiple points of interest, and the effect of looking at (and
around) the picture is akin to the experience of the tourist in the square itselt,
whose eye continuallv mo\es in n'sponse to the niLiltitude ot sitjhts and sounds.
As it to remind the onlooker ot the capricious naturi- ot the picture, Canaletto
painted weeds and moss throwing trom the arches ot San Marco.

The extent to which Canaletto employed the aid ot mechanical de\i(.es and
o|)tical instrLiments to create these spectacular \iews has caused undue debate. In
the Museo Correr in Venice there is a small camera obscura upon which is w ritti-n
Canaletto's name, and seyeral eighteenth-century sources mention him as ha\ ing
used this primitiye instrument as a guide to framing his yiews.- Logic demanils that
Canaletto's interest in perspectiye and optical phenomena would ha\e led him to
experiment with such a device; the |5anoramic \ iew ot the Pia/./.a San Marco is akin to
that seen through a wide-angle or Hsh-eye lens. Neyertheless by this time in his lite
Canaletto was wholly adept at perspectixe, a science he had long ago mastered in
his father's theater design studio. As Links has shown, the perspecti\al dynamism
ot Canaletto's paintings, which otten ba\e \anishing points "ottstage" to the right
or left, is a design tactic preferred for theater sets, such as those ot Giusep|5e (Jalli
Bibiena, a member ot a family ot inno\atiye stage designers.'

Canaletto vyould haye had no trouble working out the comjjiex spatial
relationships ot the buildings in this picture. Piay/a San Marco is in tact one ot three
paintings by the artist that captures a sweeping, wide-angle yiew ot tlu' square
(the others are in the Cleyeland Museum of Art and the Wadsvyorth Atheneum,
Hartford).'' The complex angles and difficult foreshortenings that are among the
most appealing attributes of these paintings had been resoKed by the artist in a
series of drawings (there is a large group at Windsor Castle) that were then
incorporated into his designs tor the paintings.

Yet despite all the tricks of perspectiye and whimsical rearrangement.s. Piazza
San Marco is characterized most by its yi\id portrayal ot the locale, the conyincing
evocation of the mood and atmosphere ot the tow n square seen late in the da\. It
was this attentix eness to the details of architecture, the nuances of light and shadow,
and the life of the city that most inspired the kudos of Canaletto's contemporaries.
The artist's unparalleled capturing of the effects of sunlight, whether retlecting ott
the ripples in a canal or, as here, bathing a white facade w ith its warmth, \yas \yhat
distinguished his hand from those of his ri\als and imitators.

2o (see also catalogue number i2)

Portrait of Cardinal
Roberto Ubaldino

GuiDO Reni

Italian (Bolo^jna), 1575-1642

c. 1625

Oil on can\as

77'/; X 58 '/4 in. (i9b.q X 149.2 cm)

Inscribed on letter in .sitter's hand: All lllnio et

Rs mo S^ / Cardinalle Vbaldino; on letter on

table: All" lllmo Ro / Sig. Card Vbaldi

Gift of The Ahmanson Foundation

M. 8^.109

Provenance:

Bologna, Roberto Ubaldino, then bv
descent to his taniiK in Rome or Florence.

tngland, Dr. Somerville, 1821.

England, George James Welborc, Baron Uo\er

Hngland, Georgiana Howard, Lady Dover

Fnsjiand, Flenrv, Third Viscount Clilden.

Hngland, Henry George, Fourth Viscount

CliWen.

London, sale, Christie's, 6 Mav 189J, no. 29

(bought in).

London, sale, Robinson and Fisher, 25 Mav

1895, no. 7JI.

London, Sabin (dealer), 1895.

Newport, Rhode Island, Robert Goelet sale,
{-6 December 1947 (withdrawn).

Newport, Rhode Island, Salve Regina College,

until 1982.

New York, sale, Sotheby's, 21 January 1982,

no. 87.

Rome, Bracaglic (dealer).

London, R&D. Colnaghi & Co. Ltd. (dealer).

Select Literature:

D. Stephen Pepper, Guido Rem. A Compleie
Catalogue of His Works nttb an Introducton Text
(New York: New York University Press, 1984),
251, no. 101, pi. 12b.

The Ai^e of Correggto and the Carracci: tmthan
Painting of the Si.\teenth and Seventeenth Centuries,
exh. cat. (Washington, DC: National Gallery
of Art, 1986), 511-12, no. 181.

Guido Rem lS7S-l(>42, exh. cat. (Los Angeles:
Los Angeles County Museum ol .Art, 1988),
244—46, no. 57.

[uido Rcni, in tlicorv at least, preterred not to paint portraits. Invited to France
to capture the likeness of Louis XIll for a significant financial consideration, "he
replied that he was not a painter of portraits."' Malvasia's storv of Reni's relusal is
probably also to be read as an Italian gesture against France and French aspirations
to cultural dominance as well as an indication of Reni's standing, important enough
to refuse one of the most powerful rulers in Europe. .-Mthough the biographer does
go on to list thirteen portraits Reni did paint, ot faniiK members, fellow artists,
writers, members ot the nobilitv, and important prelates, he does not mention the
Portrait of Cardinal Roberto Ubaldino, one of Reni's greatest. Probably .Malvasia just did
not know it.

A painter such as Reni, a leading master in the Bolognese-Roman tradition ot
classical idealism, would have seen himself as an artist elevated aliove the mere
depiction of natural appearances. Flowever, when he painted Cardinal Ubaldino,
he nevertheless produced one of the finest and most vivid tomial portraits ot his
century. Ubaldino is seated in a red velvet armchair, which he has just moved awav
troni Ills writiiiij table. On the desk is an inkwell beariiiij his cc)at-ot-arms and

Reni

Detail

Notes

I. Carlo Cesare Malvasia, The Life ofCuiJo Rem
(1678), trans. Catherine and Robert Enggass,
(University Park: Pennsylvania State University
Press, 1980), 113.

cardinal's insignia. He is turning his attention from his correspondence — one letter
is on the table and another in his hand is addressed to him — to look steadiiv out of
the picture's space. His presence is very directly conveyed, and his features, isolated
against the dark purplish red ot the curtain, are rendered with sensitivitv Ubaldino
looks stern in his otHcial role, but both the plav of light that so delicatelv models
his face and the sympathetic expression in his eves give him a real
human presence, even it it is all a little cool and calculated. While
Reni proves his astonishing ability as a naturalistic observer, not
only in the face but also in the virtuoso treatment of the surfaces
ot velvet, silk, and lace, he reveals the power of his conceptual,
idealizing side as an artist.

This grand picture is in the tradition of papal and roval portraits
established in the sixteenth century by Raphael and Titian, the
two artists Reni admired most. The high, straight-backed chair,
oversize table, grand swag of gilt-bordered drapery, and arcade with
a glimpse ot parkland beyond are all designed to convey a sense of
the importance of this somewhat intimidating sitter, w ho is working
in his study in some grand palace. The light red, watered silk of
the cassock and mozzetta, with their shimmering highlights, is a
brilliant foil for the punta in aria lace, creamy white paint flicked
on with an amazing dexterity of the wrist. As well as Raphael
and Titian, van Dvck seems to have been an inspiration or even a
challenge to Reni. It is difficult to imagine that Reni was not aware
ot van Dyck's great Portrait of Cardinal Bentivoglio (Pitti Palace,
Florence), completed only in 1625. Ubaldino's pale, plump, tleshy, and beautitully
manicured hands are almost a tribute to the Flemish master.

Rather little is known about Ubaldino. He was grand-nephew of Pope Leo XI
Medici and cardinal legate in Bologna from 1623 to 1627. He probably commissioned
the portrait on the occasion of the Jubilee year of 162 j. At that time Reni was well
established as the leading painter in his native Bologna. Shortly thereafter a cop\- was
commissioned and executed in Reni's studio, in order to be sent back to Florence,
the sitter's native city. The copy, with a full inscription identitving the artist and the
sitter, was seen and admired in Florence by art historian Filippo Baldinucci in about
1690. Until the remarkable rediscovery of the present painting in 1982, the copy,
endorsed by Baldinucci, was assumed to be the original. The duplicate, recorded
in England since i86j, was in the home ot Benjamin Guiness at Mignano, Italy, by
1940 but unfortunately was destroyed during the bombardment of Monte Cassino
in 1945. Most ot the recent literature on the museum's painting discusses its recent
rediscovery and its relation to the copy, all of \vhich is succinctly summed up in
Stephen Pepper's 1 984 catalogue raisonnc.

114

The Mystic Marriage of Saint
Catherine

Bartolome Esteban Murillo

Spanish, 1617—82

1680-82

Oil on c'an\as

28 X 20'/; in. (71, 1 X i;2. 1 tni)

Gift ot Tlir Ahnianson hniiidation

M.Sj.ibS

Provenance:

Possililv Puerto dc Santa Maria, Spain,
Marques do la Canada.

Cadiz, Scba.stian Martinez, bv 1794.

Cadiz, Manuel de Le\ ra.

London, Captain Davis, bv iSig.

The Netherlands, Otto Bernel.

The Netherlands, W. Hekkin^.

San Hrancisco, Irving M. Scott Collection.

New York, sale, American Art Galleries,
6 February 1906, no. 31 (bought in).

San Francisco, lr\ing M. Scott Collection,
then by family descent.

New York, .sale, Sotheby's, 20 January 1983,
no. 86.

New York, P & D. Colnaghi & Co. Ltd.
(dealer).

Select Literature:

Jonathan Brown, Miinllo and His Drawinqi, exh.
cat. (Princeton: Princeton University Art
Museum, 1976), 54-3^, Hu. 10, 184, 190, no. 33.

Diego Angulo Iniguez, Murillo (Madrid: Kspasa-
Calpe, S. A., 1981), 2:245, no. 291a, 5: pl. 427.

^urillo was born in Seville, where he trained with Juan del Castillo, a relative
of his mother An early biographer, Antonio Palomino, says the artist traveled to
Madrid earlv in his career, where he met Velazquez, but there is no proof of this;
Murillo apparently spent his entire career in Seville, where he cofounded the local
art academy and operated a flourishing workshop.

Seville in the seventeenth century was a city in decline. Natural and economic
disasters had tarnished its once impeccable reputation as a cultural and economic
center Murillo's remarkable paintings of beggar children, such as the Street Urchin
(1645-50, Louvre, Paris), are an indication of the poverty prevalent in the citv. Many
of his religious works, for example Saint Thomas of Villanueva Giving Mrm to the Poor of
around 1668 (Museo de Bellas Artes, Seville), celebrate the role the Church plaved in
aiding the poor and destitute. In Seville the Church was the center of social and
cultural life; consequently the great majority of Murillo's pictures are religious in
content. One of his favorite subjects was the Immaculate Conception, w hich he
painted some twenty-two times. He also painted genre scenes and was one of the
century's most brilliant portraitists. In the 1660s he completed his greatest \\orks,
the two large cycles for the Capuchin monastery and the Hospital de la Caridad in
Seville.'

Murillo's last project was the retable for the Capuchin Church of Saint Catherine
in Cadiz (fig. 29a). The commission was recorded in the artist's will, drawn up on

M LI R I I L O

April j, i(-.S2, wliiTiiii 111' states that he is "painting a large canvas tor tlie eonvcnt of
the Capuchins in Cadiz and four other smaller canvases, for which I will he paid
nine hundred pesos."- The museum's oil sketch is the modcllo for the large can\a.s
mentioned hv the painter, which took as its suhject the Mystic Marriage of Saint
Catherine. The altarpicce cventuaiiv contained six jiaintings in total: the Saint
Catherine in the central panel, a lunette depiiting Ciod the lather, and lour flanking
pictures of Saint Michael, the Ckiardian Angel, Saint Joseph, and Saint f-ranci.s.
Recently the ensemhie was dismantled and the canvases placed in the Museo de
Bellas Artes in Cadi/..

In fact Murillo |Minted only part of the retahle. The |iroject was interrupted by

Fig. 29a

Bartolome Hsteban Murillo and Francisco
Menese.s Osorio, Saint Catherine Altarptece,
Capuchin Church of Saint Catherine, Cadiz,
c. 1682, oil on canvas, central painting (The
Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine): 17S .\ iji'/i i
(452.1 X 334.0 cm). Photo: Anipliacione.s y
Reproducciones Mas.

M II R I L 1 O

his death in 1682, and Murillo's assistant, Francisco Mcncscs Osorio, is assumed
to have completed the project (the painting of Saint Francis is signed bv him).
Accordinsj to most scholars Murillo bcijan the central panel of the Saint Catherine,
sketching in the sjenera! outlines ot the torms, but Meneses finished the work upon
his master's death.' In painting the main picture, Meneses would have referred to
Notes the modello, which is entirely by Murillo. Murillo explored the subject in several

1. Antonio Domi'ngnez Ortiz, "Murillo's drawing.s, one of which is in a private collection in hngland; it shows in essence

Sc\i\W" in lianolonK htchan Murillo l6iy— 1682, 1 i- 1 ■ . -r-i 1 • 1 1 1 1 1 1 ■ 1 l li

.,,,,, , , „ , the nnal composition. I he artist ttwn painted the oil sketch, which was probablv

txli. cat. (Madrid; Musco del Prado, 1982), ' ' ' ■

2g_jg presented to Father Francisco de Valvcrde, the Provincial of the Cadiz Capuchins

2. Ans;ulo Ihigiuv, 2:94. and the man who had commissioned the altarpiece. Only after his approval could
5. Ibid., 1:87-97, 2:95-97. work begin.

In composition the Hnished altarpiece differs little from the modello. The most
notable change is in the position ot the arm of the ant^el at the tar left, which hangs
at the side in the Hnal painting but is held to the breast in the sketch. Mene.ses
added .several angels to the upper area of the altarpiece as well. In style and
technique, however, the tv\o works are worlds apart. The oil sketch is painted
in light, delicate pa.ssagcs of paint that flow freely throughout the composition,
dissolving around some forms while highlighting others. Murillo concentrated on the
mystical exchange of the principal Hsjures in the foreground, lea\ ing the attendant
angels and the cascade ot putti to merge into the atmosphere. The painter's bra\ ura
brushwork is everywhere apparent, noticeably in the tall of draperies, as in Saint
Catherine's ca.scading cope. In contrast, Meneses's handling is taut, his torms ruled
by contour and clearly dehned; this clarity was necessary tor the large altarpiece to
read well from the congregation below.

The Golden Lcqend ot Jacobus de Voragine tells the story of Saint Catherine ot
Alexandria, who was martyred by the fourth-centur\ emperor Maxentius tor her
attempts to con\ert his subjects. A tourteenth-centurv legend described how
Catherine, while jiraving before an image ot the Madonna and Child, en\ isioned that
Christ turned to her, placing a ring on her finger as a sign ot her spiritual betrothal
to God. This episode subsequently became a popular subject in painting. Murillo
depicts the \ ision as it it were occurring in a cathedral: at the steps before the high
altar the Virgin and Child, attended h\ angels and cherubs, float on a cloud upon
which they have descended from heaven; the little Christ Child holds the ring,
w hich he is about to place on the Hnger of Catherine, w ho kneels on the steps. The
viewer is clearK meant to recognize the \ isual parallel ot this .scene to the ritual ot
the priest ailministering Communion. In the foreground Murillo painted the symbols
of Catherine's martyrdom: the spiked wheel that a thunderbolt from heaven
destroyed while she was tied to it and the sword w ith which she was beheaded.

118

Death of a Gladiator

Jean-Simon Berthelemy

French, 1745-1811

'773

Oil on canvas

4o'A X 5j'/.' in. (102.2 X 135.9 cm)

Signed at upper lett: Berthelemy / 1773

Gift of The Ahmanson Foundation

M.83.169

Provenance:

Possibly Paris, Berthelemv sale, 8 April 1811,
under no. 15.

Private collection.

New York, Walter P Chrysler, Jr, Collection.

New York, Christophe Janet (dealer).

Select Literature:

Marc Sandoz, /can-Simon bcnhekmv lJ4'i-lSn
(Paris: Hditart-Quatre Chemins, 1979), 41, 71,
85, no. 27, 86, no. 3 J [?], 89, no. 37.

Nathalie Voile, /ccin-.S'/mon Berthelemv (I743-
iSliy. Peinire d'hisioirc (Paris: Arthena, 1979),
ji-52, 78, nos. 34—55, 81, no. 43.

A„

..long with Jacques-Louis David, Jean-Simon Berthelemy was one of the great
French neoclassical painters working in Paris in the last decades of the eighteenth
century. He was born in Laon but at an early age moved to the capital, v\here he
entered the studio of Noel Halle. Under Halle's sponsorship Berthelemy became
a student at the Royal Academy and won the coveted Prix de Rome in 1767. This
allowed him to finish his artistic training at the French Academv in Rome, where
he studied from 1770 to 1774.

Upon his return to Paris, Berthelemy was accepted as a member of the Academy
in 1781 (the same year as David) with his Apollo and Sarpedon (Musee Saint-Didier,
Langres). Throughout his career he exhibited regularly at the official Salons and
received numerous royal and imperial commissions. His most famous painting is the
large Manlius Torquatus Condemning His Son to Death (Musee des Beaux-Art.s, Tours),
which was exhibited at the Salon of 178^ alongside David's Oath of the Horatii.

Death of a Gladiator, signed and dated 1775, is the only extant painting that was
executed by Berthelemy during his sojourn in Rome. He arrived there in October of
1770 and took up lodgings in the French Academy, which was located in the Palazzo
Mancini. The cultural milieu of the city during this period was ideal for an artist
like Berthelemv, whose impending career as a history painter was predicated on
a thorough know ledge of old master painting and ancient art.

Like all voung artists at the Academy, Berthelemy v\as expected to perform
certain tasks in fulfillment of his education. These included executing copies of
the great masterpieces of Renaissance and baroque art as well as making drawings
after the antique. In addition, in order to master the depiction of human anatomy,
students were required to paint studies after the nude model. Death of a Gladiator is
an example of the latter Called academies, these works were intended as fully realized
pictures in their ov\ n right, which would indicate the progress the artist was making.
Such works would be sent back to Paris each year to be evaluated by the director of
the Academy'

119

Berthelemy

Notes

1. Philip Conisbee, Painting in Eighteenth-
Century France (Ithaca; Cornell University
Press, 1981), 18-20.

2. Anatole de Montai^lon and Jules Guittrcv,
Correspondance des directems de VAcademie de
France a Rome (Paris: Libraire de la Societe de
I'Histoire de I'Art Fran<;ais, 1902), 12:597-98,
no. 6561.

3. Montaiglon and Guitfrey (1904), 13:31,
no. 6536.

4. Sandoz, 89.

Berthelemy's mastery of anatomy and his ease \\ ith the (hfticulties of
foreshortening are clearly apparent in Death of a Gladiator. The picture is confidently
painted, and the artist has called attention to his tlucnt hrushwork and \ibrant
coloristic effects. The handling of the lighting, which bathes the model in a rich
chiaroscuro, is equally proficient, and such details as the subtle passages ot red
that retlcct off the drapery onto the flesh of the figure signal the hand of an
accomplished painter To enli\en the subject, Berthelemy added an antique setting
and accessories, giving the figure a context. The gladiator, leaning against a shield,
is posed before the base of a column; a sword has dropped troni his hand. The
transformation from a picture like this to a full-scale historv painting would not
be difficult to imagine.

Charles-Joseph Natoire, the director of the Hrench Academy in Rome, in a letter
of September 9, 1772, to the Marquis de Marigny, the siirintendant des batiments in
Paris, expressed satisfaction w ith the progress Berthelemy vvas making, concluding
that "he is well on the way to distinguishing himself in his art."' When Death cif a
Gladiator was shipped back to Paris in September of 1774, Natoire wrote enthusias-
tically to the Abbe Terrav, Marignv's successor, "I have the honor of sending you
three large painted academies, two by Berthelemy and one by Suvee, which appear
to me to have much merit."^

Indeed what would have impressed Berthelemy's superiors more than the
painter's obvious mastery of technique and anatomy would have been his convincing
evocation of the attitude of the dNing warrior, the pathos of the heroically exhausted
body as it releases a final breath. What Natoire and Terray were looking for in
a work like Death of a Gladiator were the signs that the artist had mastered the
painting of the "passions," the difficult task of displaying through pose, gesture, and
facial expression the figure's state of mind. Only then could the painter be expected
to carry out the full-scale narrative canvases he was being trained to do.

Berthelemy was evidently pleased with Death of a Gladiator, tor he chose to
include it in the group of pictures he exhibited at the Salon ot 1777 soon after his
agrewent (probationary acceptance) into the Academy Judging from comments in
the press, Death of a Gladiator was a critical success, the writers admiring just those
qualities that the Academy was trying to instill in its students. The Annee htteraire
appreciated the painting's "good sense of design," commenting that the artist had
clearly studied nature "\v hich he renders w ith a hapjiy facility." The Journal de Pans
thought Death of a Gladiator did Berthelemy honor and "should convince him that
nature is the mother ot the arts.""*

Virginia da Vezzo, the Artist's
Wife, as the Magdalen

Simon Vouet

French, 1590—1649

C. Ih27

Oil on canvas

40 X ji in. ([or.b x 78.7 cm)

Gift ot TIk- Alimansoii Hoiindation

M.8j.2oi

Provenance:

hngland, Aldcmian T. Holrovd, hy about i860.

Kngland, a religious institution.

1 ancasliirc, local auction.

London, Trafalgar (.lallcrics (dealer).

Select Literature:

Arnauid Brejon de La\ergnee, "Four New
Hainting.s by Simon Vouet," the Burlmcjion
Magazine 124, no. 956 (November 1982):
685—89, Hg. j4

Mariiena Mosco, ecL, La Maddakna ira iacro e
projano I Horence: La Casa Usher, 1 986 ), 251,

hg. 1.

'imon Vouet was one of the most inHuential French painters of his time. His
career can be divided into two major periods, the Hrst spent in Italv, the second in
France. After traininsJ \\ ith his father, minor painter Laurent Vouet, the twentv-
three-year-old .Simon traveled to Italv in ifei2. He soon settled in Rome, the artistic
capital of Catholic Furopc and the hub of a lar^e international communitv ot artists.

In Rome painters such as Annibale Carracci and Cara\aggio had laid the
foundations of seventeenth-centurv Italian paintinij, and artists of Vouet's generation
were explorinsj and developing the implications of these innovative achievements.
Vouet studied both the monumental sjrandeur of Carracci's classical forms and the
earthv realism and dramatic lisjht and shade ot Caravaggio. In 1617 King Louis XIII
of France besjan to support the vouns? painter in Rome w ith a roval pension. Soon
Vouet won imjjortant commissions to execute works for Roman churches and
private patrons, and his reputation grew to rival those of native Italian painters. In
1624 he was honored by Roman artists, who elected him principal of the Academv
ot Saint Luke.

Having spent some fourteen years in Rome studving and then working
independently, Vouet was recalled to Paris in 1627 bv Louis XIII, who conferred
on the artist the official title ot premier pemne du roi. The French ruler wanted the
now -famous painter back in Paris to devote his talents to the roval service and to
add to the artistic |5restige ot his native land. Vouet's arrival in Paris transformed
the artistic lite ot the citv from that ot a relativelv prov incial backwater to one that
was .soon to rival Rome as a glittering center ot creativ itv and innovation, a model
for the rest ot Furope. He was to be one ot the influential founding members of
the Roval .Academv in 1(148.

While it has been argued that Viri^inid Jo Vezzo. ilie Artist's Wife, as the MnijJalen was
executed shortlv after Vouet's return to France, scholars now generallv agree that
the style of the painting, w ith its saturated colors, strong, rich brushwork, and forms
boldly modeletl bv light and shadow, points to an execution date at the end ot

122

VOUET

Vouet's Roman sojourn, most likely in 1626 or 1627. By this time Vouet had been
exposed to the work of a variety of contemporary Italian painters, such as Bolognese
master Guido Reni and the "Neapolitan Guido Reni," Massimo Stanzione. The
painting's warm and lyrical atmosphere is created by the golden light and creamy
impasto that Vouet may have learned from his fellow artists.

Drawing on these various sources in Italian early baroque painting, Vouet,
by the end of his Roman period, had developed a sumptuous, personal poetry The
masterpiece of this style is his Time Vanquished by Hope, Love, and Beauty (1627, Prado,
Madrid), whose stylistic features correspond closely to the Los Angeles picture.
Indeed for the figure of Venus in the Prado's picture Vouet used the same model
as for the Magdalen, his wife, Virginia da Vezzo, whose features can be recognized
from a portrait engraved by Claude Mellan in 1626. Vouet had married this
celebrated beauty, who was also a painter, the same year Some of the warmth and
earthiness of the Magdalen comes from the fact that Vouet cast his recent w ifc in this
role, which gi\es the work a playful eroticism. Her attitude, the manner in which
she twirls her long hair in her fingers, and the way she looks out know ingly at the
spectator pro\ ide quite a contrast v\ ith Georges de La Tour's meditative and
repentant /WagJa/en with the Smoking Flame (cat. no. 10).

In Christian iconography the Magdalen's long hair and jar of ointment refer to
the Gospels (for example, see Luke 7:56-50), where it is recorded that during a
supper at the house of Simon the Pharisee, Mary washed Christ's feet w ith tears,
dried them w ith her hair, and anointed them w ith ointment in an act of repentance
(see also cat. no. 49). This religious mes.sage is undercut by the sensuality of Vouet's
image. The ambivalence is well expressed in the way the Magdalen plays w ith her
hair; is she teasing with it in a suggestive way or do her fingers indicate that she is
going to cut it off in penance?

The Los Angeles work was probably made for the enjoyment of a pri\ate
collector, v\ho \ery likely knew the artist and his wife. However, there is no firm
c\ idence that the painting, as has been suggested by some scholars, is the Magdalen
that once belonged to the celebrated Roman patron Cassiano dal Pozzo, who was
a friend of Vouet and his spouse.

124

Saint Thomas

Pierre Le Gros ii

French (acti\c Rome), 1666-1719

1703-5

Terra-cotta

1T% X i8'/2 X lo'A in. (69. f x 47.0 x 27.3 cm)

Purchased with funds pro\ided b\ William
Randolph Hearst, The Ahmanson Foundation,
Chandis Securities Company, B. Gerald Cantor,
Camilla Chandler Frost, Anna Bing Arnold,
an anon\mous donor, Du\een Brothers, Inc.,
Mr and Mrs. William Preston Harrison,
Mr and Mrs. Pierre Sicard, Colonel and
Mrs. Georjie J. Dennis, and Julia Off

84.1

PROVENANCE:

London, Cvril Humphris (dealer).

Select Literature:

Scott Schaefer, "Three Centuries of Huropcan
Sculpture: Bandini to Bartholdi," Apollo 1 24,
n.s. no. 297 (November 1986): 415—16, Kg. 5.

Ihi:

.his terra-cotta is a modello for the gigantic (over Hfteen feet high) marble Saint
Thomas (1705-11, Hg. pa), one of a series of twelve sculptures of apostles
commissioned to Hll the tabernacles built in the mid-seventeenth century down
the nave of San Giovanni in Laterano in Rome. The Latcran, one of Rome's oldest,
largest, and most venerated churches, is the cathedral of the pope in his capacity
as bishop of Rome.

By the seventeenth century the Constantinian basilica of the Lateran had decayed
into a seriously dilapidated state. In 1646, with the Jubilee year of i6jo approaching.
Pope Innocent X ordered Francesco Borromini to renovate the church. This great
architect of the Italian baroque devised a scheme in which alternating pairs of the
numerous small piers of the early church were encased in what became enormous
tabernacles in a massivelv articulated arcade leading down the nave (fig. B2b).' In
this way much of the fabric of the early church was di.sguised but not destroyed.
The tabernacles were designed in white and multicolored marble, their pediments
bulging out from the plane of the arcade, with multiple .sculptural effects to be
achieved through \ariegated architectural profiles, decorative relief carving, and
monumental statues for the niches. Borromini's personal interest in the play of light
in architecture found a sublime opportunity here, as his commission was intended
for a Jubilee under Rome's winter sun. The sculptures in the niches would be
illuminated by shafts of raking light.'

The statues of the apostles were not, however, carried out until a half-century
after the Jubilee. In 1699 Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili was named archpriest of the
Lateran; the following vear his friend Clement XI was elected pope. The cardinal,
a connoisseur of the arts, supported by the pope, set about seeing the work in the
Lateran to completion. The expensi\e, colossal sculptures, each to be car\ed from

"25

Le Gros

Fig. 32a

Pierre Le Gros II, Saint Thomas, 170J— m,
marble, h; approx. 180 in. (457.2 cm), San
Giovanni in Laterano, Rome. Photo: Alinari/
Art Resource.

Fig. 32b

Martino del Don, Inteiioi of San Giovanni in
Laterano. Rome, watercolor and gouache over
pencil, ij'/ib X 19V16 in. (34-1 x 49.0 cm),
Cleveland Museum of Art, gift of the
Reverend and Mrs. Danila Pascu (CMA 81.228).
The marble Saint Thomas (fig. 32a) is in the
second niche on the right.

Notes

1 . Rudolf Wittkower, Art and Architecture in Italy
1600— J750, 3d ed. (Harmondsvvorth: Penguin
Books, 1973), 140, 290.

2. Marcello Fagiolo and Maria Luisa Madonna,
L'Arte degh anni santi: Roma lSOO-lSys< ^^
cat. (Rome: Wazzo Venezia, 1984): 37—39,
figs. i(\v), i(x).

3. For information on Le Gros and the marble
Saint Thomas see: Pierre d'Espezel, "Notes
historiques sur roeu\re et la vie de Pierre 11
Le Gros," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 6th period i2
(July-December 1934): 154; Frederick den
Breeder, "The Lateran Apostles: The Major
Sculpture Commission in Eighteenth-Century
Rome," Apollo 8{, n.s. no. 63 (May 1967): 360—
65, fig. 4; Robert Hnggass, Earh Eighteenth-
Century Sculpture in Rome ( Uni\ersitv ftrk:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 1976),
1:124—31, 142—43, 2: figs. 135—38; and Francois
Souchal, French Sculptors of the Seventeenth and
Eighteenth Centuries (Oxford: Cassirer, 1981), 2:
273—74, 288—89, no. 24.

a single block of marble, were subsidized by an international subscription. The kino
of Portugal, Pedro II, paid for the statue ot Saint Thomas, the apostle who is said
to have brought Christianity to Portus^uese India. The commission was awarded to
Pierre Le Gros II, a French artist who lound himself, even as a student at the French
Academy in Rome, celebrated as one of the greatest .sculptors in the Eternal City.'

Le Gros, the son of a sculptor, was also trained in design by his uncle, the
engrayer Jean Lepautre. In 1690 the suriniendant des batiments du roi, the Marquis de
Louvois, sent Le Gros to study at the French Academy in Rome. Supported by a
royal stipend, the artist was to have worked exclusively for the Crown, but instead
he surreptitiously competed for, and won, the commission for a multihgured group
in marble, Religion Casting Down Heresy, for the chapel of Saint Ignatius Loyola in the
Jesuits' church of the Gesu. This sculpture, in its asymmetry, turbulence, and broken
silhouettes, differed considerably from the grand, unified character of the baroque
of the preceding century. Le Gros went on to win the competition lor the central
figure of this chapel, the huge silver statue of Saint Ignatius (destroyed in 1798). His
other great commissions, the altar of Saint Luigi Gonzaga in SantTgnazio and the
Saint Filippo Neri in San Girolamo della Carita, share a theatrical animation and
capriciousness that herald the fantasy of the rococo.

The terra-cotta Saint Thomas is understandably more animated than the
monumental marble that was realized from it. Le Gros's predilection for complex
groupings is manifested in the little angel crouching beside the apostle in the terra-
cotta (omitted from the marble). The slab with the cross, a symbol of the divine
palace built by Saint Thomas that was revealed to King Gundaphous ol India in a
dream, is treated much more decoratively in the terra-cotta. And the book, symbol
of the apostolic message, has been replaced in the marble by the architect's rule,
thereby reducing the breadth of the silhouette and weakening the dramatic diagonal
of the saint's gesture. In the terra-cotta the figure of Saint Thomas twists more
dynamically, the facial expression is more intense, and the rendering of creases and
folds is accomplished with a driving force that makes the whole composition seem
to unfurl like a magnificent banner in the wind.

MLL

127

Noah's Sacrifice afier the Deluge

Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione

Italian (Genoa), 1609-63/6^

Oil on carnas

jj'A X 76'/i in. (140.3 .\ 193.7 cm)

Gilt of The Ahmanson Foundation

M. 84.18

Provenance:

Probably Mantua, Carlo 11 Gonzaga, then by

descent.

Althorp, Northampton, the Honorable John
Spencer, by 1742, then by descent to the Earl
Spencer, until 1984.
New York, Wildenstein & Co. (dealer).

Select Literature:

Ann Percy, Gwvanm Benedetto Casiighone: Master
Draughtsman of the Italian Baroque, exh. cat.
(Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art,
1971). 57, n. 124.

II Genio di G. B. Castiglione: II Grechetio, exh. cat.
(Genoa: Sagep Editrice, 1990), 64, 147.

Ihe

^he Old Testament stories of Abraham, Jacob, and Noah were among Castiglione's
favorite subjects, for they permitted him to exploit his skill at painting large caravans
of people and animals laden down with supplies as they travel the landscape. Noah's
Sacrifice after the Deluge is one of the most complex and elaborate compositions of
this sort. It takes as its ostensible theme an episode rare in art, when Noah gives
thanks to God for safe passage during the flood (Genesis 8: 20— 21). As is usual with
these pictures, however, the actual event is relegated to the distant background.
Instead interest is focused on the flawlessly painted melange of animals, pots and
pans, traveling cases, and clothing, the cargo just unloaded from the ark, whose
prow rests on the rocky bluff at the upper right.' Castiglione often repeated the
same animals and groupings of objects in several paintings on a similar subject:
many of those that appear in this picture are also included in The Animah Leaving the
Ark (c. 1655, Galleria di Palazzo Bianco, Genoa) and The Sacrifice ofSoah (c. i6jo— j{,
Musee des Beaux-Arts, Nantes), the latter being closest in composition to the Los
Angeles version.^

Castiglione was one of the brightest talents to emerge in seventeenth-centur\
Genoa, which laid claim to a flourishing native artistic tradition. During his lifetime
Genoa was still a vital international port that, with its unique location at the
crossroads of Europe, had intimate economic and artistic ties with Spain and the
North. The great trading families that ruled the citv turned to Flemish painters
as the chief means of expressing their ideological pretensions in art; Rubens and,
in particular, van Dyck, with whom Castiglione studied in the 16 20s, painted
these w ealthy patrons in a number of grandiose portraits. But there was an
equal fascination among Genoese connoisseurs with the low -life painting of the
hamboccianti , those Flemish and North Italian artists who specialized in the depiction
of peasant life, rustic kitchens, still lifes, and animals. Castiglione would have been
particularlv responsive to these latter influences, especially the work of Sinibaldo
Scorza, w ith whom he may have studied. The biblical pastoral subjects of the
Bassano family in sixteenth-century Venice had a profound effect on his stvle
as v\ell.

128

jy »"*f*Ji5j5srrv^,

,3'^"Pr»-^

in^

--.ii*^

<c\ ■■''

^'»'~-/&J'

?ti

rar

\. i*

%r'#^l

.*^'^ \

Castiglione

Detail

By 1632 Castiglione was in Rome, intent on completing his artistic education.
There he was in contact with the circle of Cassiano dal Pozzo, the antiquarian
and patron of Poussin, although stylistically Castiglione seems to have been most
taken with Pietro Testa, another favored artist of dal Pozzo. Under the influence of
these painters Castiglione turned to the creation of pastorals, idealized landscapes

inspired by the Roman campagna, with its antique
associations. He visited Naples in 1635 but by
the end of the decade had returned to his native
city, painting a number of pictures for Genoese
churches and palaces during the 1640s.

After a second stav in Rome from 1647 to i6ji
Castiglione worked for the court at Mantua and,
except for trips to Venice, Parma, and Genoa,
apparently stayed there for the remainder of his
life. It was presumablv in Mantua that he painted
Noah's Sacrifice ajter the Deluge. On the basis of
style a number of works with such subjects can be
dated to the i6jos, including the Nantes picture
Indeed an inventory of the ducal collections taken
around 1700 lists "Un quadro iungo 3 brae, sul
camino col sacrifizio di Noe, latto da Giovanni
Benedetto Castiglioni" (A picture 5 braccie
[approximately 7j inches] long over the fireplace
\\ ith the sacrifice of Noah, made bv Giovanni
Iknedetto Castiglione).' These dimensions match
the Los Angeles painting better than any of the
other extant versions of the subject.

Noah s Sacrifice after the Deluge admirablv
demonstrates the eclecticism Castiglione had
pcrtected bv this stage in his career, combining the subject matter of the
bamboccianti and the Bassani with the grandiose pictorial strategies of the Flemish
baroque. The aggregation of beasts, paired "two and two," masks an elaborate and
refined handling of space and organization of form. The focus is the looming hulk
ot the cow at center, its head languorously lilted to meet the eye ot the \ iewer, the
strong diagonal traced by its back providing a stabilizing force within the disarray
of the foreground elements. This surge is held in check bv the framing trees at left
and the man at right, whose head turns attention back into the center of the image.

130

Castiglione

Notes

1. Pentimenti indicate that Castiglione
originally positioned the ark in the middle
ground below the rocky bluff.

2. // Genio di G. B. Castiglione, 63-64, no. 4.

3. Carlo d'Arco, Delle artt e degli arrefict di
Mantova (Mantua: n.p., 1857), 2:[8g.

Within thi.s framework the viewer can easily become absorbed in the plethora
of natural and man-made objects displayed in the foreground. Castiglione carefully
placed these objects close to the picture plane, inviting viewers to appreciate the
differences in form, color, and texture. Shown are the supplies that sustained Noah's
family during the months in the ark: water jugs, flasks of wine, blankets, lanterns,
baskets of food, and chests of clothes. The creatures Noah saved ("Every beast,
e\erv creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after
their kinds, went forth out of the ark") are juxtaposed to celebrate God's inhnite
creativity. One senses in the picturesque disorder, which assumes the orchestrated
casualness of a still life by Hrans Snyders, Castiglione's desire to impress the viewer
with his sheer command in the painting of such variety. The animals themselves are
aware of their status as objects of display; the Jacob ram, cow, donkey, rabbits, and
kittens all return the viewer's gaze.

Despite the obvious visual delight of Noah's Sacrifice, the picture never degenerates
into a meaningless feat of painterly dexterity and never loses its biblical context.
Castiglione has gone to some trouble to set the scene and evoke the moment. It is
clear the flood waters have just receded. Seashells litter the left foreground; the pale
corpses of drowned sinners are scattered across the grassy knoll at right. The sky
is still strewn with clouds, as if the rains had just ceased, but the bright light
that illuminates the entire landscape signals the dawn of a new era. This cycle of
destruction and rebirth is symbolized in the pair of trees at left, one dead, its trunk
split, the other growing up out of the composition in full foliage.

hi the distance Noah and his family are kneeling before the altar, preparing the
sacriHcial lambs for the pyre. God appears in the smoky trail above, his hand raised
in blessing as he promises never again to curse the ground for man's sake. Instead
man would now have dominion over all living things on earth. Indeed the sheer
abundance of animals and the wealth of material goods that are displayed to such
good effect assume the essence of God's new covenant with Noah: "Be fruitful, and
multiplv, and replenish the earth." Soon the rainbow would appear in the moisture-
laden sky, symbolic of the new age, and Noah and his family would begin the
regeneration of the human race.

13'

Saint Veronica with the Veil

Mattia Preti (II Cavaliere Calabrese)

Italian (Naples), 1615-99

Oil on canvas

39'/! X 29'/2 in. (100. J X 74.9 cm)
Gift ol The Ahnianson Hounilation
M. 84.20

Provenance:

Rome, Cardinal Carlo Barbcrini, bv 1692-1704.

Private collection.

New York, French & Company (dealer).

Select Literature:

Marilvn Aronberg Lavin, Seventeenih-Ceniurv
Barbenni Documents and Imentones of Art (New
York: New York University Press, 1975), 432,
no. n7.

Painting in Saples l6o6—IJO^: Caravacjifio to
Giordano, supp. to the exh. cat., bv Sheldon
Grossman (Washington, D.C.: National Gallcrv
of Art, 1983), [5-6].

X reti was born in Calabria, a province of the kingdom of Naples, hence his
nickname. His early training is unknown, but apparently by 1630 he was already an
established painter. That year he set up a studio in Rome with his older brother,
Gregorio. In Rome, Preti studied the art of Guercino and Caravaggio, which was
to have a decisive impact on the development ot his stvle. He traveled vvidelv, to
Florence, Bologna, and Venice, but remained based in Rome; there he painted a
fresco cycle of the life ot Saint Andrew (Sant'Andrea della Valle) in 1650-51. In 1655
he was elected to the Academy ol Saint Luke.

The next two years were spent in Modena, after which Preti went to Naples,
where he remained until 1661. In the seventeenth centurv Naples was a dominion of
the Spanish Hapsburgs and a major center for the Counter-Reformatory Church. It
hosted a vital community of artists as well, united in their admiration of Caravaggio,
who had worked in the city in 1606-7. These local artists, organized into the
Corporazione dci pinon napoleiani, were often hostile to outside painters, and Preti
was no exception; his work in Naples was incessantly attacked, especialK by Luca
Giordano, who criticized the darkness of Preti's paintings and what he saw as the
vulgarity of the figures.' In the year Preti arrived, however, Naples was in the throes
of a devastating plague that claimed the lives of more than halt the population,
including some of the most talented local painters. Preti soon found himself the
leading artist in town and over the course of four years received numerous private
and public commissions. His masterwork of this period is the fresco cycle painted in
the nave of San Pietro a Maiella, the Life of San Pieiro Cekslino and Santa Caterina di
Alessandria (1657-59).

Preti's moving Saint Veronica with the Veil was probably painted during this
Neapolitan sojourn. It conforms to the manner he adopted in response to painters
like Jusepe de Ribera and Giovanni Battista Caracciolo, who had based their art on
Caravaggio's incisive realism and dramatic treatment ot light and shade. Like Preti's
full-length Samt Sebastian (Mu.sco di Capodimonte, Naples), painted in 1657 for

IJ2

Preti

Notes

1. George Hersey, "Mattia Preti, 1613— 1699,"
in A Taste for Angels: Neapolitan Painting in North
America (650-J750, exh. cat. (New Haven: Yale
University Art Gallery, 1987), 87—90.

2. Lavin, 432, no. 117.

tho church of .San Soba.stiano, Saini Veronica presents it.s subject before a dark
backsjround, theatrically spotlit from above. The effect gives the .saint a formidable
plasticity as she seemingly emerges from the can\as to present the sudarium to the
viewer. Veronica gazes heavenward, tears rolling softly down her cheeks, as she
acknowledges the divine .source that illuminates her.

Preti's style was eclectic, influenced by a variety of painters he had studied on his
trips in Italy The strong modeling of the saint's face recalls the Bolognese classicism
of Domenichino (cat. no. 47), while the fluently painted drapery harks back to
the Venetian tradition. The theatrical effects of light and shadow accentuate the
miraculous genesis of the Holy Face, but the simple composition, softened by
beautiful passages of paint and convincing, naturalistic details, is more suited to
the painting's intimate size and theme.

Veronica was one of the holy women who accompanied Christ to Calvary. She
wiped his brow with her veil, which miraculously became imprinted with his image.
According to one legend Veronica took her veil to Rome, where it cured the
Emperor Tiberius of an illness. Consequently the saint's cult was verv strong in
Rome; her veil and subsequent representations of it were worshiped for their
healing powers. The veil had special meaning for artists as well since it was
considered to represent the true image of Christ's likeness; in fact the saint's name
derives from the Latin phrase vera icon.

Although images of Saint Veronica were relatively scarce in the se\enteenth
century (Zurbaran painted several pictures of the veil alone), Preti followed the
accepted manner of depicting Christ's face in reddish brown tones, like a Byzantine
icon. Jesus stares out at the \iewer from the folds of the cloth, the crown of thorns
visible around his bro\\. The small scale of the picture and, for Preti, its unusually
subdued and meditative qualities indicate that the painting v\as intended for pri\ate
devotion.

Although undoubtedly painted in Naples, Saint Veronica was most likely intended
for a Roman patron. The painting is first mentioned in an in\entorv of the Palazzo
Barberini in Rome that was drawn up at the end of the seventeenth century at the
behest of Cardinal Carlo Barberini: "Una S.ta Veronica con Volto S.to in mano con
velo bianco in Testa di Tela di p.mi: 4: Cornice dorata del Cav.le Calabrese" (A Saint
Veronica \\ ith the Holy Face in her hand and a v\hite veil on her head, on can\as, 4
palmi [approximately 35 inches], in a gilt frame by the Cavalier Calabrese).' A poorly
conser\ed copy of the Los Angeles painting exists in the ftlais Fesch in .-^jaccio,
Corsica.

Around 1660 Preti returned to Rome; the following year he settled in Malta.
There he spent the last forty years of his life, producing a great number of pictures
for local patrons as well as for export to Italy.

'34

Jupiter and Danae

Hendrick Goltzius

Duuh, 1558—1617

1603

Oil on canvas

68'/4 X 78V4 in. (173.4 " 200.0 cm)

Signed at lower left, along lid of chest:
HGoltzius. ANNO.1603.

Gift of The Ahmanson Foundation

M. 84.191

Provenance:

Leiden, Bartholomeus Ferreris, by 1604.

Possibly Leiden, Hendrick Ferreris, after 1622.

Amsterdam, Jeronimus Tonneman, until 1750,
then by descent to his mother, Maria xan
Breusegom, 1750—52.

Amsterdam, Tonneman sale, 21 October 1754,
no. 6.

Amsterdam, Gerrct Braamcamp, 1754-71.

Amsterdam, Braamcamp sale, 4 June 176(5,
no. 1 (bought in).

Amsterdam, Braamcamp sale, 31 July 1771,
no. 66.

Amsterdam, Jan Lucas van der Dussen sale,
31 October 1774, no. 4.

Amsterdam, Cornells Ploos \an Amstel.

Silesia, Sajian Castle, Peter von Courland,
by 1778, then by descent to his daughter,
Dorothea Princess Biron of Courland, in 1845.

Paris, Due de Talleyrand-Valen^ay-Sagan sale,
Georges Petit, 2 December 1899, no. 31.

Paris, Vicomte Chabert de Vatolla, by 1912.

tngland, private collection.

Zurich, art market, by 1914.

Stockholm, Fritzes (dealer).

Stockholm, Claes Adolf Tamm, 1918—33.

Stockholm, sale, Svensk-Franska
Konstgalleriet, 4-5 October 1933, no. 37.

Stockholm, Dr Runnquist, 1933—35.

Stockholm, sale, Bukowski's, 11-12 April 1935,
no. 80.

Stockholm, Nordgren (dealer).

New York, Suzanne's Studio Inc., by 1974.

Los Angeles, Eugene Allen, 1974-84.

San Francfsco, sale, ButterKeld and Butterfield,
8 November 1984, no. 2072.

Select Literature:

Carel van Mander, Hei Schilderhoeck (1604),

trans. Constant van de Wall (Dutch and Flemish

Painlers: Translation from the Schilderhoeck,

New York: McFarlane, Warde, McFarlane,

1936). 370, 498, no. 32.

Otto Hirschmann, Hendrick Goltzius als maler

1600-161J (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff,

1916), 42-46, 73-74. no. 5, fig 7.

Erwin Panofsky, "Der gefesselte Eros (Zur

Genealogie von Rembrandts Danae)," Oud-

Holland 50, nos. 1—6(1933): 210—11, fig. 22.

Lawrence W. Nichols, "Onsterfelijkheid in
smetteloos naakt," Openbaar Kunstbezit 29, no. 5
(October 1985): 158, 160-61, fig. 15 (in reverse).

Ben Broos, Great Dutch Paintings Jrom America,
exh. cat. (The Hague: Mauritshuis, 1990),
238-44, no. 22.

^endrick Goltzius achieved international fame at the end of the sixteenth
century as Europe's premier engraver and draft.sman. Around 1600 he turned to
oil painting and was subsequently quite influential to the development of history
painting in the Netherlands.

Born in Miihlbracht on the German border, Goltzius was trained as a glass
painter in his father's studio and later studied engraving with Dutch humanist and
statesman Dirck Volkertsz Coornhert. In 1577 he followed Coornhert to Haarlem,
where he set up his own print shop five years later. Soon thereafter Goltzius met the
painters Carel \an Mander and Cornells van Haarlem, who introduced him to the
paintings of another Fleming, Bartholomeus Spranger. Goltzius engraved many of

135

GOLTZIUS

Fig. 35a

Jacob Matham (aher Abraham Bloemaert),
Jupiter and Danae\ 1610, engraving, 7"/i6 x
10 in. (19.5 X 2^.4 cm), Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York, gift of Harrv G.
Friedman, 1958, bv exchange, 1970(1970.577.1).

Spranger's compositions, which v\ere a distillation of the Roman mannerist style
Spranger had formed in Italy and perfected at the courts of Vienna and Prague.'

in the earlv ijSos van Mander, with Goltzius and van Haarlem, established the
Haarlem Academy, an association of artists drawn to mannerism and eager to initiate
a Northern school of painting to rival the Italian model. Van Mander's treatises laid
the foundations for the Academy, propagating the preeminence of history painting
based on the art of Spranger and the Italian mannerists.' His Scbilderboeck, published
in 1604, combined theoretical writings \yith biogra|)hies of artists and also included
an interpretation of 0\ id's Metamorphoses, which van Mander advised artists to use
for subject matter. The Haarlem style was disseminated through Goltzius's prints,
w hich circulated throughout Europe.

Goltzius made a fruitful trip to Italy in the early 1 jgos, where he visited all of the
major art centers, especially Rome and Venice. Shortly after his return to Haarlem
he took up painting, probablv at the suggestion of \an Mander. The latter reports
that Goltzius's first commission was a small painting on copper depicting the
Crucifixion, "a good study, well conceived, definite, and beautifully painted."' This
picture has been lost; in fact less than fifty paintings by Goltzius are known. All of
these are history paintings, divided between biblical scenes, mythological subjects,
and allegories.* Jupiter and Danae is one of his most important sur\ i\ing works and
among his largest. Soon after it was painted, it was described b\' \an Mander in his
Schilderboeck :

In 1603, Goltzius painted, on a large canvas, a nude and recumbent figure of Danae, life-
size. She is sleeping, and her pose is beautiful. The carnation is painted marvellously, as is
the modelling. The work reflects his great study of outline and anatomical construction of
the body. There is in this picture, a shrewd old woman with a glowing face, and ajigure of
.\lercury. I cannot describe the lovely little angels that arejiying with gifts. The picture is
beautijulh composed and could not be improved m any way. This painting is at Leyden with
Sr Bartholomeus Ferreris, a collector; it can be seen in his art-room. ^

Danae was the daughter of Acrisius, the king of Argos. Upon learning from the
Delphic oracle that he would be killed by his daughter's son, the king banished
Danae to a tower to hide her from suitors. Smitten by Danae's great bcautx', Jupiter
visited her in the form ot a shower of gold, entering her chamber through the cracks
in the ceiling; from their union was concei\ed the hero Perseus. Perseus, after many
adventures (see cat. no. 36), eventually killed his grandfather by accident, thus
fulfilling the prophecy.

The episode is mentioned only briefly by Ovid (Metamorphoses 4:611), but Goltzius
followed tradition by depicting Danae in an opulent bedchamber attended bv her
maid as Jupiter rains down accompanied by his eagle. The drops of gold turn to
coins as they descend, clattering to the floor or being caught in the maid's cup. Tv\o
putti at the right pull back the canopy, revealing the sleeping Danae, while at the
left a pair of amorini fly in with gifts. In the center Mercury signals Jupiter with his
caduceus.

The subject of Danae was a popular one among Dutch artists in the seventeenth
century. Joachim Wtewael painted a meticulously finished \ersion on copper
(Louvre, Paris), and there are other depictions by Spranger, Cornelis Ketel, and

•37

GOLTZIUS

i'ZJl BO^'XN GOUT.

Fig. j^b

Hendritk Goltzius, The Artist's Emblem, 1609,

pen and brown ink, 6 x j'/j in. (15.2 x 8.9 cm),

Art Mu.scum, Sacramento, California (CAM

1871.145).

Fig. 3JC

Titian, Venus and Cupid unh a Lute Player,
c. 1565-70, oil on canvas, 65 x 82'/u, in.
(165.0 X 209.4 cm), Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York (56.29).

Abraham Bloemaert. Bloemaert's design, engraved by Goltzius's son-in-law, Jacob
Matham, in 1610 (fig. 35a), is iconographically very similar to Goltzius's painting.
Matham also treated the subject in a drawing (private collection, London), which
combines elements of Goltzius's painting with his own engraving after Bloemaert.

Van Mander explained the meaning of the myth in his Wikgginghe op den
Metamorphosis (Interpretation of the Metamorphoses), which was published w ith the
Schilderboeck: "Undoubtedly Jupiter seduced and cheated his girlfriend and her nurse
with lavish gifts of gold. We may well say that gold, lo\ed and desired e\eryv\here,
conquers everything . . . climbs the highest walls . . . smashes the strongest
ties . . . stains the purest hearts . . . destroys chastity, virtue, fidelity, honor, and
good laws and everything else that man ought to value higher than his own life."^

This is an unusual reading of the myth, breaking sharply with the standard
interpretation of Ovid, which was codified in the fourteenth century in the Ovid
moralisee. This annotated version drew parallels between the ancient fables and the
stories of the Bible. Thus Danae, hidden from suitors in a tower like Saint Barbara,
is celebrated for her chastitv, and her miraculous impregnation is likened to that of
the Virgin Mary.^ For van Mander the humanist, however, the Metamorphoses served
better to reveal truths concerning human nature and social customs. He saw in the
story of Jupiter and Danac a warning against human greed and the corrupting
power of money, especially in matters of love. By transforming himself into a shower
of gold, Jupiter gained illicit entrance into Danae's affections.

Goltzius was well aware of van Mander's interpretation of the Ovidian myths. It
was at the latter's suggestion that he designed in 1589 a scries of fiftv-two prints
based on the Metamorphoses. The story of Danae was not included in the series, but in
the Los Angeles painting Goltzius plavs \'an Mander's cvnical appraisal of the stor^'
off against the more \irtuous Christian interpretation. Here Danae is voung and
virginal, oblivious to her imminent fate. The crystal cup at her side is a svmbol of
her purity. She presents an easy target for the \\ ilv Jupiter, whose lustv designs on
her are manifest in the riot of accoutrements and ancillarv figures that fill the room.
The gifts surrounding Danae are indeed la\ish, and there is no doubt that her pure
heart will be stained and her chastity and virtue destroyed. The unusual appearance
of Mercury, god of commerce, underscores the idea of mercenary' love. It is further
emphasized by the crone, who acts the role of the procuress, holding the cup of
money as she gently awakens her charge. These elements reappear, as Lawrence
Nichols has pointed out, in Goltzius's The Artist's Emblem, which he repeated in
several drawings. The one illustrated here (fig. 35b) features an o\erflo\\ing pot ot
gold coins in which is thrust a caduceus surmounted by a seraphim. .At the top of
the print Goltzius inscribed his personal motto, Eer Boven Golt (Honor abo\e Gold).
Gold has clearly won out over honor in the painting, howexer, and ever\\\here are
signs of immoderation and rapacious beha\ ior: in the tiny Bacchus that tops the
golden Pronk cup at the lower right, the overflowing, ornate chest, and the swelling
money bags flov\n in by the amorini. Goltzius's Danae, demure or not, conforms
more to the recumbent Venus type than to other artists' depictions of her.

Goltzius clearly remembered Titian's celebrated pictures of the goddess of love,
such as Venus and Cuptd utth a Late Plaver (Metropolitan Museum of .Art, New ^ork,
fig. 55c). This seems the better comparison than Titian's own versions ot Danae,

158

GOLTZIUS

Detail

Notes

1. Pieter van Thiel, "Late Dutch Mannerism,"
in Gods, Saints and Heroes: Dutch Painting in the
Age of Rembrandt , exh. cat. (Washington, D.C.:
National Gallery of Art, 1980), 77.

2. Nichols, If 7.

3. van Mander, 368—69.

4. Nichols, If 7.

f. van Mander, 370.

6. Gods, Saints and Heroes, 92.

7. Panofsky, 203—7.

8. van Mander, 368.

which Goltzius surely knew as well. Titian's Venus, like Goltzius's Danae, is laid on
a bed billowing with cushions; both women are tilted forward as if presented for
the spectator's delight.

Van Mander remarked on the deep impact Venetian art had on Goltzius,
particularly "the fine modelling and chiaroscuro by Titian, in the beautiful textures
and silks in works by Veronese and those by other Venetian masters."** Danaij's

elegantly proportioned figure, painted in glow ing colors and warm
shadows that melt around her form, is far removed from the
marmoreal contortionists depicted in most contemporary history
paintings in Holland, like the ones in Wtewael's Lot and His Daughters
(cat. no. 16). Van Mander appreciated these features of the painting,
pointing to Goltzius's obvious mastery ot drawing and anatomy and
praising especially the composition ot the picture. In the Scbilderboeck
van Mander recommended studying from nature and carefully
planning compositions. He apparently welcomed Goltzius's turn away
from the mannerist excesses of Spranger and van Haarlem, embracing
instead the appealing mix of classicism and naturalism characteristic
of the Venetian Renaissance. In this respect the figure of Danae
heralds a new direction in painting in the Netherlands, one that
would find its culmination in Rembrandt's extraordinarily personal
representation of the subject in 1656 (Hermitage, Leningrad).

As noted, van Mander relates that the first owner o( Jupiter and
Danae was Bartholomeus Ferreris, an important collector and friend
of van Mander, who dedicated the section on Italian artists in the
Scbilderboeck to him. Whether h'erreris commissioned the work from
Goltzius or purchased it later is unknown, but he was no doubt
drawn to the Titianesque qualities of the picture, with its warm,
rich colors and glowing nude. In the eighteenth century the painting belonged to
Jeronimus Tonneman of Amsterdam; it later was in private collections in France and
England before being sold in Sweden. The painting, surely Goltzius's masterpiece,
was last seen publicly in Stockholm in 193J before its rediscovery in 1984 in a Los
Angeles warehouse.

139

Andromeda Chained to the Rock

Sir Anthony van Dyck

Flemish, 1^99-1641

1637-38

Oil on canvas

84'A X 52 in. (2153 X 132.1 cm)

Gift of The .-Miman.son Foundation

M.S5.80

Provenance:

Possibly London, collection ot the artist.

Possibly England, Harl of Pembroke.

England, Liunmore I'ark, Earl of Dunmore,
by 1834.

London, T. Humphrey Ward.

Paris, Charles Sedelmeyer (dealer), 1900.

Paris, Eugene Fischoff, 1901.

New York, Clement A. Griscom sale, ."Xmerican
Art Galleries, 26—27 February 1914, no. 28.

New York, Vanderlip Collection.

New York, sale, Christie's, 12 January 1978,
no. {6 (withdrawn).

Connecticut, Dudley Schoales, until 1984.

New York, Christophe Janet (dealer).

Select Literature:

Gusta\' Friedrich Waagen, Galleries and Cabmeti
of An in Greai Bniain (London: John iMurray,
1857). 457-

Lionel Cust, Anihom van D\ck: An Hnwrical
Study of His Life and Works (London: George
Bell and Sons, 1900), 221, no. 91.

xid, in his Meiamorphoses (4:665—759), tells the storv of Andromeda, the
daughter of King Cepheus and Queen Cassiopeia oJ Ethiopia. The mother's claims
to beauty so angered the Nereids that Neptune sent a sea monster to raNage the
kingdom. To free the country from this scourge, Cepheus was forced to sacrifice
Andromeda. Van Dvck depicted the moment the terrified Andromeda, chained to
a rock near the monster's lair, is rescued from her fate bv Perseus, who flies abo\e
on his w inged horse, Pegasus. The sea monster can be seen thrashing about in the
waves below. The subject was a popular one among artists of the sixteenth and
se\ enteenth centuries, offering the challenge of portraying the female nude in
distress. Both Rubens and Rembrandt painted the storv of Perseus and .Andromeda,
but this is the onK known example by van Dvck, who rarely painted mythological
pictures.

Anthony van Dvck \\as born in .-Antwerp in 1J99 and as earlv as 161S was
accepted into the Guild of Saint Luke; the same year he is recorded as an assistant
in the studio of Rubens. After traveling to England with his mentor in i6;o, van
Dyck set off for Italy in ib2i, spending the next seven years there. In Italv he worked
in Genoa, Rome, and Venice, where he was profoundlv affected bv the art of Titian.
Like Rubens, van Dvck became one of the most successful and distinguished
painters of the seventeenth century. He tra\eled w idelv and enjoved the patronage
of the major courts of Europe, painting religious pictures as well as portraits.
On the basis of his international reputation van Dvck was called to England bv
King Charles I in 1632, remaining there, except for brief trips to Europ)e, until his

140

VAN DYCK

Fig. 36a

Sir Anthony \an Dvck, Cupid and Pivche,
c. 1638, oil on canvas, 78'/2 x 75'/.' in.
(199.4 X 191.8 cm), Kensington Palace, Royal
Collection, London. Photo: National Gallery,
London.

death in 1641. Van Dvck's effect on the development of art in England cannot be
overestimated, and the influence of his stvle, particularly \\ ith regard to portraiture,
resonated well into the nineteenth century. Soon after his arrival at the court of
Charles, \an Dvck was appointed "principalle ftvnter in ordinary to their Majesties,'
and in 1633 he was knighted. He enjoved exclusi\e rights in painting the monarch
and the roval family, and his output in England is distinguished especialK h\ his
dynamic equestrian portraits of Charles as well as portraits ol the aristocracy. In
mid-seventeenth-centurv England there was little demand tor the large-scale
historical painting that flourished on the Continent, and \an Dvck painted only a
handful of subject pictures during his years in London. Prior to the reappearance
ot Andromeda Chained to the Rock, only one mythological painting from the artist's
period in England was known. This was the Cupid and Psvche (Royal Collection,
London, hg. 36a), a picture commissioned by Charles in the late 1630s for the
King's Gallery at Whitehall.'

142

VAN DyCK

Fiu. 36b

Titian, Perseus and Andromeda, 1554—56, oil on
canvas, 72 x jSVib in. (182.9 " 'S^-g cm),
Wallace Collection, London.

Notes

1. Christopher Brown, Van Dyck (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1983), 186-88,
fig. 187.

2. The author is grateful to Dr Brown for
sending a draft of an article he is preparing
on the painting.

Stvlisticallv Andromeda compares well with Cupid and Psyche, and there can be little
iloulit that it was painted at the same time, around 1657-38. In each the somber
earth tones of the landscape elements pro\ ide a niuti'd background lor the softly
modeled Forms of the hgures. In both paintings \an Dyck accented the composition
with passages of brilliantly painted drapery; the highly saturated metallic blue of
tiie cloth around Andromeda appears to be the same studio prop used for the
drapery of the sleeping Psyche. In the London picture, however, the figures are
smaller and more integrated with the landscape setting than in the Los Angeles
painting, where the statuesque female form dominates the composition. Here van
Dyck turned for inspiration to Titian's Perseus and Andromeda of 1554-56 (fig. 36b),
now in the Wallace Collection, London, but which at the time was owned by van
Dyck himself, one of nineteen pictures a.scribed to the Venetian painter that he
posses.scd. The soft, painterly traces of the brush and the warm, tactile evocation
of flesh are direct responses to the sensuous pas.sages of paint in the Titian, but
\\hereas Titian's painting gives equal emphasis to both Perseus and Andromeda, van
Dyck concentrated on the form of the woman, extracting in effect Titian's nude and
adapting her pose to fit the extreme verticality of the picture. In the Titian the
threat to the heroine is immediate and real, and the intervention of Perseus comes
in the nick of time; van Dyck, however, banished Perseus to the distant sky, and
the miniature sea monster presents little danger to the heroine. As Christopher
Brown indicates, van Dyck showed minimal interest in the narrative moment, and
consequently the pose of Andromeda is unclear, her head turned away from the
action. '

This fascination with the nude figure at the expense of a persuasive iconographic
structure results from the fact that the features of Andromeda represent Margaret
Lemon, van Dyck's mistress in London until 1659, when he married Mary Ruthven,
one of the queen's ladies-in-waiting. Several depictions of Margaret by van Dyck,
including a portrait painting in the Royal Collection, compare closely w ith the
woman posed as Andromeda. Given the personal relationship between the artist
and model, it is extremely likely that the painting was a private work done for
himself or his mistress.

Van Dyck used the mythical story as a pretext to paint a portrait of his lover on a
grand scale usually reserved for his images of English court society (but in this
instance the sitter wears no clothes). The effect is on a par with Rubens's celebrated
painting of Helene Fourment in a fur wrap, known as Het Pelsken ( Kunsthistorisches
Museum, Vienna). Van Dyck's picture, like Rubens's painting, is best understood
when the personal feelings behind it are known.

143

Hagar and the Angel

PlETER LaSTMAN

Dutch, 1583-1655

1614

Oil on panel

20 X 26% in. (50.8 X 68.3 cm)

Signed at lower left, on rock: PL / 1614

Purchased w ith lunds provided by The

Ahmanson Foundation, Mr and Mrs. Stewart

Resnick, Anna Bing Arnold, Dr. Armand

Hammer, and Edward Carter in honor of

Kenneth Donahue

M. 85.117

Provenance:

Paris, private collection.

Paris, Didier-Aaron.

New York, Frederick Mont (dealer), until 1976.

Los Angeles, Mr and Mrs. Bernard Solomon
(on loan to the museum until 1985).

New York, sale, Sotheby's, 6 June 1985, no. 76.

Select Literature:
Unpublished.

A ieter Lastman was the leading artist in Amsterdam in the generation before
Rembrandt. Primarily a painter of biblical scenes, he was the dominant influence on
a group of artists, sometimes referred to as the "Pre-Rembrandtists," who were
instrumental in breaking with the sophisticated and exaggerated forms of the
Northern mannerists (exemplified by Joachim Wtewael, cat. no. 16). Such artists as
Jan Pynas and Claes Cornelisz Moeyaert instead forged a style based on naturalistic
detail and narrative clarity, inspired by the art of Cara\aggio and the German
expatriate Adam Elsheimer, whose v\orks several of them had seen in Italy.'

Lastman himself was in Italy in 1605-4, ^^here he most likely \isited Venice and
Rome. By 1607 he was back in Amsterdam, apparently staying there the rest of his
life. His large and active studio trained a number of artists, including Jan Lievens
and Rembrandt, who spent six months with Lastman in 1622—25. Lastman painted
few works on commission, preferring to work for the burgeoning Dutch art market.
When he died in 1655, he was lauded as being among Holland's greatest artists.

Hagar and the Angel, signed and dated 1614, is an excellent example of the type of
small, carefully composed, and brilliantly polished religious picture through which
Lastman gained his reputation. Its clear dramatic structure and appealing naturalism
recall the new Italian style of Caravaggio, w hile its small format and meticulous
finish are indebted to the intimate cabinet paintings of Elsheimer

Genesis 21:9-21 tells of Abraham's banishment of his slave Hagar and their
illegitimate son, Ishmael, to the u ilds of Beersheba. The mother and child soon ran
out of water, and Hagar, not wanting to watch her son die, laid him under a bush.
An angel then appeared to her and asked: "What aileth thee, Hagar? Fear not; for
God hath heard the \oice of the lad w here he is." Explaining that God intended for
Ishmael to found a great nation, the angel then revealed a source of water from
which Hagar and Ishmael could drink.

144

Lastman

Flu. j7a

Pieter Lastman, Huiyur <jnd ihe Ancjel, iboo,
pen, dark brown ink, anil blue, purplish
brov\n, and gray uasli heightened u ith
white, g7i6 x if"/ie in. (24.3 x 39.8 cm), Yale
University Art Gallery, New Haven (1961. 64.6).

Notes

1. Astrid Tumpel, et al.. The Pre-Rcmhrandiim
exh. cat. (Sacramento; Crocker Art Gallery,
1974). ■5-43-

Lastman concentrated on the essential elements of the story and organized the
composition to maximize the inherent drama of the last-minute saKation. The
exchange between Hagar and the angel is the central tocus, and the dialogue
between them is revealed within a dynamic of pose, gesture, and glance. Hagar is
depicted leaning back from the picture plane, sprawled against a rock in a position
that echoes the Htfully sleeping Ishmael. The angel of mercv counterbalances
Hagar's pose; he surges toward the viewer, the arresting foreshortening of his bodv
directly counterposing the tired resignation of Hagar's apathetic torm. His energetic
gestures — one mu.scular arm reaching out to indicate the dying Ishmael, the other
cocked and aimed at the heavens — visualize the saving grace of God and make
Hagar's heavy arms and splaved, inarticulate finijers all the more leaden and useless.

The clear narrative structure ot Hogar and the Angel, coupled \\ ith convincing
Hgures in a naturalistic setting, show Lastman as a master of history painting, while
the work demonstrates his skills as a painter of landscape and still lite as well. Ot
particular beauty is the fecund vine growing rapaciously behind Hagar Its juicy truit,
glistening with dew, provides the only relief from the arid wasteland the characters
inhabit. It is possible that Lastman intended this visually appealing detail as a symbol
of the well that would soon be revealed by God.

Hagar and the Angel is a recent addition to Lastman's oeuvre, having been in a
private collection in Los Angeles before it was acquired bv the museum in 1985.
Its early history is unknown, but in style and composition the painting is closely
related to several of Lastman's small biblical pictures, such as the Expulsion of Hagar
from 1612 (Kunsthalle, Hamburg) or the larger Tobias Catching the Fish trom 1613
(Gemeentelijk Museum, Leeuwarden). The latter is particularly similar in the
gestural interchange ot the principal characters and the use ot a \ ista on the lett
to open up the scene.

These characteristics appeared in nascent torm in a drawing bv Lastman from
1600 that also illustrates the story of Hagar and the .Angel (Yale University Art
Gallery, New Haven, Hg. 37a). In this earlier rendition Lastman rather awkwardly
used the mannerist device of placing the figures completely to one side and leaving
the other side open to a distant landscape. There is little ot the urgency that
characterizes the Los Angeles painting, and Lastman neglected to include the dying
Ishmael. By the time he painted the museum's panel, Lastman had completely
rejected the mannerist con\entions that characterize the 'lale draw ing. He was now
responding to the new naturalistic painting he had seen in Italy. The innovations he
mastered and introduced to Dutch ])ainters in Holland would see their greatest
expression in the art of Rembrandt.

146

Madonna and Child

_38

Jacopo Bellini

Italian (Venice), c. 1400-1470/71

c. 1465

Oil on panel

27V16 X 18'/; in. (69.7 X 47.0 cm)

Inscribed in rondels: M.P e.v; on halo;
*,we*m-\ria*i;ratia*plena*ix)minus*te[cum]

Gitt of The Ahmanson Foundation

M, 85.223

Provenance:

France, pri\ate collection.

Monaco, sale, Sotheby's, 25 June 1984,
no. 3332.

New York, Piero Corsini (dealer).

Select Literature:

Keith Christiansen, "Venetian Painting of the
Early Quattrocento," /lpo//o 125, n.s. no. 301
(March 1987): 171, pi. {, 174, 176-77.

Colin Fisler, The Genius oj jacopo Bellini: The
Compkle Painlings and Drawings (Nev\ York:
Abrams, 1989), 46, 56, Kg. 41, 298, 514.

jacopo Bellini was the patriarch of the most important artistic dynasty in Renais-
sance Venice. His sons Gio\anni and Gentile became the leading Venetian painters
of the late fifteenth century. Little is known about Jacopo's early life; he was
evidently born in Venice about 1400 and is first recorded as a painter in 1424.
According to Vasari, Bellini was a student of Gentile da Fabriano, the premier
exponent of the courtlv International Gothic style. It is likely that during the early
1420S Bellini was in Florence as an apprentice in Gentile's studio, although he may
have kno\\ n him as early as 1408-14, when the latter was in Venice.

Following his apprenticeship with Gentile, Bellini worked for the Este court
in Ferrara; it was there in 1441 that he bested Pisanello in a competition to make
a portrait of Lionello d'Este. The court in Mantua attracted some of the most
celebrated figures in Italy, and it is likely that Bellini met there the great humanist
and theorist Leon Battista Alberti. (Bellini's Annunciation, painted in 1444 for the
church of San Alessandro in Brescia, shows an understanding of Albertian principles
of one-point perspective.) By 1452 Bellini was back in Venice; for the remainder of
his career he worked on numerous public and private commissions in the Veneto.
Many of his paintings are lost, but his artistic personality is knov\n through two
extraordinary drawing albums (Louvre, Paris, and British Museum, London). These
huge collections of sketches, which may have also served as model books for
paintings, demonstrate his absorption of Renaissance innovations in the study of
science, nature, and the antique.

This beautiful and well-preserved Madonna and Child is a recent addition to
Bellini's oeuvre. It captures to a remarkable degree the artist's proclivity for
blending archaic and naturalistic forms in his small, private devotional pictures.
Bellini presents the Madonna in half-length against a black background, cradling
in her arms the small Christ Child, who snuggles closer, tugging on his mother's
mantle. Yet, Bellini cannot break completely free from the Gothic devotion to
pattern and ornamentation he learned during his apprenticeship \\ ith Gentile: the

'47

Bellini

dark background emphasizes the contours of the figures, while the repeated folds of
the draperies take on a decorative interest of their own. The artist intensified the
surface adornment by painting utterly Hat, gold halos on the Madonna and Child and
rondels in the upper corners. The rondels are inscribed with Greek initials, "M.P"
and "0.V," meaning "Mother of God." The Virgin's hak) bears, in Latin, the angel
Gabriel's salutation to Mary during the Annunciation (Luke 1:28); "Hail Mary, full
of grace, the Lord is with thee."

This Byzantine decorative quality is softened in the work by the surprisingly
volumetric forms of the figures. Bellini's usual practice in such pictures was to place
the Virgin frontally, eyeing the viewer, with the Child standing before her on a
parapet (an example is the Madonna and Child in the Galleria dell'Accadcmia, Lovere)
or held stiffly in her arms (such as the Madonna and Child in the Uffizi Gallery,
Florence).' The result was invariably a static composition that denied the solidity of
masses in favor of the contours of forms. In this painting, however, the Virgin has
been turned three-quarters to the right, away from the viewer, to the embrace of
her son. Her right shoulder projects strongly, as does Jesus's left knee, and the
complex overlapping of arms, legs, and hands creates a subtle but nonetheless
palpable plasticity that is unique in Bellini's Madonna panels. The resulting
naturalism lends the picture an intimacy and sweetness that is stronger and more
appealing than in other renditions of the theme.

The sculptural quality that is the distinguishing feature of the work is a good
example of the interchange of ideas between sculptors and painters in the
quattrocento. In the fifteenth century the influence most often flowed from the
sculptor's chisel to the painter's brush; the naturalism and .solidity of forms found in
Masaccio's paintings, for example, owe their innovations to the works of Donatelio,
the greatest Italian sculptor of the century.^ In Venice, where the archaic Byzantine
tradition had a stronger hold on artists, such influence was less pronounced. A rare
exception is a famous drawing by Bellini, datable to the 14JOS, in the Louvre album
(R.F. 1J56, Index 74); inscribed "Mater Omnium" by the artist, it depicts a standing
Madonna, flanked by two musical angels, holding the Christ Child. ^ The drawing
was clearly inspired by full-length public sculptures of the Madonna and Child
readily known to Bellini, such as the one in the Mascoli Chapel in San Marco,
Venice, which dates from around 1430.

Bellini's Madonna and Child is his only known painting based on an identifiable
sculptural prototype. Its composition was drawn directly from a relief by Donatelio,
known through several copies, such as the one illustrated here (fig. 38a). (A partially
autograph version, datable to around 1425, was recently identified in the Armenian
S.S.R. Art Gallery, Yerevan; its composition is closer still to the Bellini."*) Bellini
turned to the Donatelio relief for the salient features of his painting, such as the
placement of the hands and the tender embrace of the mother and child. It is
in the volumetric falls of drapery, however, which circumscribe the anatomical
forms beneath, that the museum's painting assumes the dynamic palpability of
its .sculptural model.

The uniqueness of the painting compared with Bellini's other treatments of the
theme has led to some debate over the picture's date. Colin Eisler suggests it was
painted in the early 14J0S, on the basis of the painting's relationship to the Mater

149

B H 1, L I N I

FlU. 58a

Stvle ol Donatcllo, Viiijin and LhilJ, c 1425,

polvchrome stucco relief, 51 x 2^'/n in.

(7S.7 X 63.8 cm), bv courtesv ot the Board ot

Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum,

London.

Notes

1. Eisler, 55, Hg. j8, 57, Ho. 4;.

2. Paul Joannides, "Masaccio, Masolino and
'Minor' Sculpture," Paragone j8, no. 451
(September 1987): 5-24, e.specially 4—5, 20,
n. 10, plates 2-3.

J. hisler, 284. pi. ij8, 503.
4. Charles .Verv, "Donatello's Madonnas
Reconsidered," .IpoWo 124, n.s. no. 295
(September 1986): 176, H^. 2.

Omnium drawinsr. Keith Christiansen, however, argues that the painting's incisive
naturahsm and convincingh' sohd forms point to a date well past Bellini's static,
frontal depictions of the theme, whicli are usualK thought to have been produced in
the 1440S and 14JOS; he suggests instead 1460— 6j. Indeed the Los Angeles Madonna
and Child seemingly heralds a new period of Venetian art, one go\erned bv warm
colors and sensual passages ot paint. The inno\ati\e implications of the picture
would be advanced further bv the paintings of Bellini's sons Gentile and Gioxanni
and son-in-law, Andrea Mantegna.

The Los Angeles Madonna and Child departs from Bellini's other versions of the
subject iconographicallv as well as stylisticallv. Christiansen points out that the
Greek inscriptions on the rondels owe their appearance to the influence of
Byzantine icons; moreo\cr the tender relationship between the mother and child is
related to the B\zantine Ghkophilousa, or affectionate Madonna and Child t\pe. Such
a ilirect recollection is a testament to the enduring fascination Venetian artists had
for Lastern Orthodox formulas. Yet it is as much an outgrow th of the Donatello
reliefs. Here, as in those jsrototvpes, the intimate, e\en melancholv, communion
between the Madonna and Christ predicts their tinai embrace at the foot ot the
cross. Marv knew iier child's tate was predestined, but in this panel, intended for
pi'ivate devotion, iier metaphysical know ledge cannot contain her human emotion.
Ultimateiv it is this subtle psychological drama that places the Madoniw and Child
wlioliv within the Renaissance tradition.

Still Life with Oysters Jan Davidsz de Heem

and Grapes Dutch, 1606-84

1653 Provenance: Select Literature:

Oil on panel Cologni-, Baron Albert Oppinluim, i87{-ic)i4. Unpublislu'd.

i4'/4 X 20% in. (36.2 X 53.0 cm) Berlin, Oppenheim sale, L.epkc, 27 October

Signed at upper left: J. de Heem f. Ao 16^3 '9i4, no. 17.

Gift of The Ahmanson Foundation Germany, Gerard Oliven, ■927/28-c. 1958.

yi ^^ England, Gerard Oliven, c. 1938-45.

United States, Gerard Oliven, 1945—8;.

New York, sale, Christie '.s, { June 1985, no. 156.

Zurich, David Koetser (dealer).

n seventeenth-centurv Holland .still life was one of the most popular catesjories
ot painting. Various artists specialized in its different forms: vases ot flowers, vanitas,
breakfast settings, trompe I'ocil, and pronbtilleien (ostentatious still life). For the
sheer varietv and ambition of his oeu\TC de Heem is considered the greatest still-life
painter of the period. He was born in the Dutch city of Utrecht but carlv in his
career worked in Leiden, where his paintings were influenced by the still lifcs of
Balthasar van der Ast. By 1636 he had established a studio in Antwerp, the leading
artistic center of Flanders; the same year he was accepted into that city's Guild of
Saint Luke. Shortly thereafter he must have met David Teniers the Younger,
collaborating on that painter's An Artist in His Studio (cat. no. 2). De Heem is known
to have returned to his native city several times; between 1669 and 1672 he is listed
as a member ot the Utrecht guild. Around 1672 he moved again to Antwerp, where
he lived out the rest ot his life. His paintings had a profound impact on subsequent
still-lite painters such as Pieter de Ring, Nicolaes van Gelder, and especially
Abraham van Beveren (cat. no. 40).

The fact that de Heem divided his career between Utrecht and Antwerp was
significant for the development of still-life painting in northern Europe, tor in many
ways his art unites the two traditions that had arisen in the Netherlands. Farlv in his
career de Heem emulated the restrained, predominantK monochromatic style ot
such Dutch compatriots as Pieter Claesz and Willcm Heda. Paintings like Pronk Still
Life with a Nautilus Cup, signed and dated 1652 (Uni\crsity of Birmingham, Barber
Institute of Arts), are characterized by simple and carefully balanced compositions
and were painted in warm tones, occasionally accented bv the pale vellov\- of a
peeled lemon or the glint ot a silver plate.

By the 1640S, however, de Heem's still lifes had become more sumptuous, both
in technique and subject. In these pictures he introduced bright passages of color
and imported luxury items such as lobsters and rare shells. Correspondingly his

DE HEEM

technique became more self-conscious, with la\ ishlv orchestrated compositions and
more obvious displays of his painterly virtuosity. De Heem reached a pinnacle in this
later style vsith the Pronk Still Life lui/i .S7ic'//.s- of 1642, a huge and complex picture that
includes not only lobsters, rare shells, anil fruit but also musical instruments, a vase
ot flowers, ornate silwr, columns, HutteriniJ drapes, and a landscape view in the
distance.' This change in his approach can be traced to the artist's mo\e to Antwerp
and the high baroque manner he would have observed there in the sumptuous and
broadly painted still lites ot such artists as Krans Snvders.

Still Life uith Oysters and Grapes, which is in An t'xtraortlinarilv ijood state of
preservation, was painted durinij de Heem's first .-XntwiTp period and is a tascinating
synthesis ot his early Dutch and sub.sequent Flemish painting styles. Its deceptively
simple composition, v\ith the props arranged on a rough-hewn table j^laced before a
cracked and pitted wall, recalls the still lites of Claesz, w ho had earlier brought his
sober and restrained style to a supreme degree of perfection in such works as Sail
Life with Herrinij, Wine, and Bread (fig. 59a). As Clae.sz did in his picture, de Heini
used a simple iliagonal (rising in this case trom lower lett to center right) to organize
the seeming disarray ot his composition. Within this austere arrangement, however,
he painted a great variety ot object.s, and tlu' density ot the composition and tin-
.sensuousness ot the handling ot paint art- ot a piete w ith his large-scale banquet
table pictures.

A large number ot elements, trom luminous grapes, succulent ov.sters, and a tresh
hazelnut to a pewter saltcellar, crystal v%ine glass, and coarse cloth, are placed at eve
level close to the picture jslane, in\iting the \ iewer to marvel at de bleem's mastery
in the depiction ot contrasting textures and reflected light. The drops of water that
roll off the oyster shells and the ants .scurrying o\er the grapes are common trompe
I'oeil devices. I^e Heem made the illusion complete by painting the corner of the
background wall out ot tocus, thereby creating a startling leap in space trom the
crystalline clarity ot the grape lea\es in the foreground. This technique suggests that
the artist employed an instrument such as a camera ob.scura.

The convincing realism and technical bravura o( Still Life niih Oysters and
Grapes would certainly have been enough to appeal to the tastes ot a cultivated
seventeenth-century art lo\er Dutch and Flemish still lites, howexer, originally were
understood to contain moralizing or cautionary messages as well. The paintings held
hidden meanings beneath the superHcial beauty ot the objects depicted.' De Heem's
painting warns ot the impemianence ot natural beauty and the vanity of pursuing
earthly pleasures; the fruit, after all, will decay (one leaf is beginning to turn), the
ants w ill eat the grapes, and the oysters will spoil. The transient nature ot lite is
symbolized by the caterpillars, which w ill metamorphose into butterflies like the one
at left. Not all the objects in the work caution against worldK indulgence, howe\er;
some testify to the endurina role of the Reformed Church in comiiatinc; hedonism
and materialism. This accounts tor the inclusion of the prominent w ine glass and
bread in the center of the picture, reminding the viewer of God's saving grace
through the Fucharist.

if3

DE HEEM

Fig. 59a

Pieter Claesz, 51)// Life with Herring. Wine,
ond Bread, 1647, oil on wood, ij'/i x 2 3'/4 in.
(44.J X 59.1 cm), Los Angeles, Mr. and Mrs.
Edward W. Carter

Notes

1. Formerlv Berfisten Collection, Stockholm;
see Sam Set;al, .1 Prosperous Past: The Sumptuous
Still Life in the Netherlands 160O-IJOO, exh. cat.
(The Hague: SUU Publishers, 1988), 14ft,

Hg. 8.j. ^

2. In^\'ar Bcrgstrom, Dutch Still-Life Pamtinq in
the Seventeenth Century, tran.s. Christina
Hedstrom and Gerald Taylor (New York:
Thomas Yoseloh Inc., 1956), 154—59.

3. Segal, 147—48.

With it.s cautionary messages regarding the transience of Hfe and salvation
throusih Christ, Still Life ivu/i Oysters and Grapes continues the \anitas tradition of
painters like Claesz. If the moralizing references occasionally seemed too oblique,
de Heem sometimes dro\e the point home bv adding allegorical inscriptions that
spelled out the underlying meaning ol his paintings. One picture carried the dictum,
"No matter ho\\ vou squirm or squeak, oh Man, this is your Fate: Whether rich or
poor, learned or dumb, what li\es, must die." The meaning of a work like Still Life
with Oysters and Crapes, which docs not bear any such inscription, ma% not ha\e been
so severe. In its careful balance of restraint in composition and beauty in technique,
it is better served by another of dc Heem's mottoes: "Not how much but how
noble."'

I 54

Banquet Still Life

_4f

Abraham van Beyeren

Dutch, 1620/21-90

1667

Oil on can\as

5{'/> X 48 in. (141.0 X 121.9 "-'ni)

Signed at center: .ABf. / [667.

Gift of The Ahman.son Houniiation

M.86.96

Provenance:

Rome, Pictro Camuccini, until 1833.

Rome, Giovanni Battista Camuccini,
until i8{6.

Alnwick Castle, Algernon Percy, Fourth Duke
ol Northumberland, by 1865, then by descent.

London, Thomas Agncw and Sons (dealer),

1978-

Nev\' York, I lemiann Schickman (dealer).

Select Literature:

Sam Segal, A Prosperous Past: Ihe Sumptuous Still
Life in the Netherlands 160O-1700, exh. cat. (The
Hague: SDU Publishers, 1988), 175-77, 247,
no. {2.

n contrast with the relative sobriety of de Heem's Still Life with Oysters and Grapes
(cat. no. 59), Abraham van Beyeren's Bancjuet Still Life creates an overwhelming
impression of abundance. A profusion of luxury goods has been brought together
in a complex orchestration of fomi, space, and light. The composition centers on a
sparkling parcel-gilt standing cup with a dolphin stem, around which is placed a
variety of rare objects, both natural and man-made: a silver or pewter bowl with
oysters and a lemon on top of a hinged wooden storage box, a silver-gilt tazza with
a cut melon and peach, a Dutch or Venetian covered goblet, a dish embossed with
flowers filled with grapes and peaches atop a wicker basket, and a late Ming bowl
with pomegranate slices. In the immediate foreground, hanging over the marble slab
as if about to tumble out of the painting, van Beyeren placed a silver salver upon
which stand two wine-filled roemers, a peach, and an agate-handled knife; immediately
to the left is an open pocket watch, a bright red lobster, and a peeled lemon, whose
rind dangles dramatically against the dark background.

Van Beyeren, the son of a glass painter, was born in The Hague, where he spent
most of his career Although he was a prolific and popular artist, he apparently
suffered from financial difficulties; in 16^7 he moved to Delft, perhaps to avoid
his creditors. He returned to his native city in 1663 but left again in 1669 for
Amsterdam. The remainder of his life was spent traveling to different cities in
the Netherlands.

In the second half of the seventeenth century van Beyeren was the foremost
practitioner of the pronkstilleven. Frequently large in scale, these paintings usually
depict lavish table settings of precious objects and rare foods, often presented in
sumptuous surroundings. Banquet Still Life, signed and dated 1667, is one of his
most ambitious paintings. It incorporates many of the same objects and spatial and
lighting effects of the large Still Life of 1666 in the M. H. de Young Museum in San
Francisco (fig. 40a). Van Beyeren undoubtedly owned many of the rarities shown
and used them frequently as studio props.

'5?

VAN BEYtRHN

Fig. 40a

Abraham van Beyeren, Still Life, 1666, oil on
canvas, jf x 46 in. (139.7 x 116. 8 cm), the Fine
Arts Museums of San Francisco, gift of the
de Young Museum Society (51.23.2).

In the mid-.seventeenth centurv the Dutch Republic was one of the wealthiest
and most powerful countries in the world. Its standard of living was the highest in
Europe, and domestic goods, in particular foodstuffs, were abundant. The ruling
class was for the most part drawn from the urban bourgeoisie, and it was through
the ownership of rare and fine consumer products that they asserted their status.
A painting such as Banquet Still Life was a celebration of the owner's uealth and the
culture's vitality. The diversitv of the exotic objects gathered here is in one sense
testimony to the success of the Dutch economy, \\ hose strength \\as draw n
primarily from overseas trade. Yet in keeping with the puritanical nature of
seventeenth-century Dutch society, the pronk still life had to be more than an
index of prosperity Proud of his worldly success, the Dutchman nonetheless would
have been wary of falling prey to material temptations and necessarily would have
had ambivalent feelings about such lavish displays of wealth, in de Heem's Still Life
niih Oysters and Grapes the moral underpinnings of the picture are clear, and the
dichotomy between the pleasurable world of the senses and the virtuous life in
Christ is delicately balanced. In certain details Banquet Still Life continues this
tradition; despite the alluring beauty of the painting the viewer is gently warned
against succumbing to its enticements. For example, the mouse that sits on the silver
plate in the foreground is a popular s^Tiibol of decay; the timepiece near the lobster
is a reminder of the transient nature of wealth and power and an emblem of
temperance. The implication is that the objects depicted here are impermanent
and will, like other worldly things, tarnish and spoil.

In the face of the beauty and artistry of Banquet Still Life, however, the moral
message is in no way paramount. The sumptuousness of the pronk still life also
resided in the style of the painting, and van Beyeren's was distinguished as the most
lavish of all. In Banquet Still Life the rich and bold application of paint, dazzling
effects of color, and dramatic orchestration of lighting are as much the signs of its
ostentatiousness as the rarefied objects depicted. Van Beyeren's technique draws
attention to the picture's surface, where his artistry becomes the true subject. As
a unique, handmade work of art, the painting itself becomes a pronk object. It
celebrates van Beyeren's genius and testifies to the enduring power of art. The
dictum ars ionga. vita brevis (art is long, life is short), popular in seventeenth-century
artistic discourse, is no better exemplified than in the flamboyant self-assertion of
this painting: the fruit, lobster, and even the silver have long disappeared, as indeed
have the original owner and his wealth, but van Beyeren's painting continues to
delight and impress.

1J7

Forest Clearing with Cattle

Philips Koninck

Dutch, 1619-88
and

Adriaen van de Velde

Dutch, 1636-72

c. 1665—70

Oil on can\as

34'4 X 40'/: in. (87.0 X 102.9 cm)

Sisined at lower left: P. Koninck

Gift of The .Ahmanson Foundation

IVl.S6.97

Provenance:

Letitia Bonaparte.

Alton To\\er.s, England, The Right Honorable
Bertram Arthur, Harl ot Shrewsbury.

London, sale, Christie'.s, 7 July 1857, no. 140.

London, Anthony (dealer).

Lockinge House, Berkshire, S. Jones Loyd,
later Lord Overstone, 1867.

Lockinge House, Lady Wantage, by i88j.

Lockinge House, A. Thomas Loyd.

Zurich, Bruno Meissner (dealer).

Select Literature:

Horst Gerson, Philips Koninck (Berlin: Mann,

1936). i?"}**. i°&. "O- 3°. pl- '3-

Wolfgang Stechow, Dutch Landscape Painting of

the ievenicenih Century, 2d ed. (New York:

Phaidon Press, 1968), 80.

Werner Sumowski, Gemdlde der Rembrandt-
SchUler (Landau: Edition PV.\, 1983), }:i{49,
no. 1068, ibi8.

'ne of the arcat landscape painters ot the seventeenth centurv. Philips Koninck
is best know n for his panoramic views of the Dutch countrvside, \\ hich were his
specialty. During his hfetime he was also esteemed for his genre scenes, portraits,
and historv paintings, an aspect ol his oeuvre now little know n. The son of an
Amsterdam goldsmith, Koninck trained w ith Jacob, his older brother, in Rotterdam.
He spent the rest of his career in Amsterdam, where he may have studied with
Rembrandt in 1641.

Koninck's early landscape style was influenced bv those of Hercules Seghers and
Rembrandt, but bv the mid-iSjos he had developed his own distinctive tvpe of
landscape, which he would repeat and \arv throughout his career. These are long,
open views across the Hat Dutch countrvside, seen from a high vantage point. Often
large in scale, such paintings as the Panorama with Cotiacjes Lining a Road ot 1655
(Rijksmuscum, .Amsterdam) and the grandiose Panoramic Landscape ot i66j (J. ftul
Getty Museum, Malibu, hg. 41a) were divided bv Koninck into compositions ot land
and skv, exploring the evocative power of space, light, shadow, and cloud patterns.

Forest Cleariiiij with Cattle, which dates from about 166J-70, departs radically from
the motif the artist had favored throughout his career as a landscapist. While the
viewpoint of the picture is still slightly raised, here Koninck depicts an intimate
corner of nature rather than a sweeping panorama. .^ small clearing in a thinlv
wooded parkland is the tocus ot the work; little attention is paid to the cloud-tilled
sk\, which usually dominates Koninck's pictures. In the foreground is a shallow
pond, to which several cattle ha\e strayed troni their herd to drink. Thev are silently

158

KONINCK AND VAN DE VeLDE

FlU. 41a

Philips Koninck, Panoramic Landscape, 166^. oil
on canvas, {4'/2 x 65'/: in. (138.4 x 166.4 ^ni).
collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum,
Malibu, California (85. PA. 32).

watched by a herdsman, who stands at ease next to his dog. Some sheep wind their
way alon^ the rutted path, coaxed bv a shepherd who walks beside a peasant woman
holding a basket on her head. At the toot ot a gnarled oak at left a woman and child
rest at the side of the road; in the background a horse-drawn carriage slips behind a
tree trunk.

The building whose rooftop rises above the copse of trees at the right of the
composition has not yet been identified, although it appears to represent an actual
structure. Indeed the scene depicted in the painting has the appearance ot a known
locale, perhaps a parkland at the edge of a town or the grounds of a country estate
visited by Koninck. The incisive naturalism with which he rendered the forest glade,
with its lush foliage just beginning to turn color and warm light that filters through
the branches, only strengthens this possibility. It this is the case, however, the
painting would be an anomaly in Koninck's oeuvre, in which the landscapes are
usually imaginary.

The delicacy with which Koninck balanced the compositional elements in Forest
Clearing and the even light that pervades the whole lends the setting an air of repose,
a svlvan elegance that is uncharacteristic of his generally moody and dramatic
panoramic views. Koninck painted several other pastoral views such as this, all of
which date from the 1660s and 1670s, a period when the artist was apparently drawn
to the landscapes of Paulus Potter and Adriaen van de Velde. Potter's Deparwre for the
Hunt of 16 J 2 (Staatliche Musccn, Berlin) was clearly a model for the Los Angeles
painting, with its widely spaced trees lit from behind and depictions of animals
and travelers.

It is not certain what motivated Koninck to paint these intimate, down-to-earth
landscapes late in his careen It is possible that he was encouraged bv \an de Velde,
who in fact painted the animals and figures in this one. In mood and composition it
is clearly dependent on the forest paintings of the younger artist, such as his Foresi
Glade of 16 j8 (Stadelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt). Perhaps uncomfortable with the
task of painting prominent figures and animals, w hich usually appear much smaller
in his panoramic scenes, Koninck turned to van de Velde; the latter was one ot the
most popular staffage painters in Holland and \vas frequently employed to adorn the
landscapes of Jacob van Ruisdael, Meindert Hobbema, and Jan van der Hcvden,
among others.

In addition to painting pictures, Koninck owned and operated an inland shipping
company. A prosperous member of the thri\ ing Dutch middle class, he was
acquainted w ith a number of Amsterdam's prominent citizens, including the poet
Joost van den Vondel, for whom he painted se\eral works. Despite his grow ing
reputation as an artist Koninck apparently ceased to paint in the late 1670s.

Apollo and Phaethon

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

Italian (\vnin-), ihijh— 1770

c. 1751

Oil un canvas

z^'A X i8'/i in. (64.1 X 47.(1 mi)

Gill lit rill' Allmall^(ln hHimlatidii

M.S6.257

Provenance:

Paris, VV'il-Pitanl Cnlkition, until c. 1960.

S\\it/(rlaii<l. private collection.

Londdii, .sale, Scitlicliv's, 11 DctcmlxT n-)S5,
no. u).

Ncu York, Boll I'. I laliokll & Co. (ilcak-r).

Select Literature:
LInpiiblislicil.

w„

Inn Cjianibatti.sta Tiepolo was called Irom his natiw Venice in 1750 hv the
Archinto taniiiv to decorate their palace in Milan, he was embarkino on a career that
would establish him as Europe's foremost decorati\e painter. liepok) had studied
with Gresjorio Lazzarini, but it was the vast ceiling paintings bv Paolo Veronese,
the sixteenth-century master, and the impressive altarpieces ol Giovanni Battista
Piazzetta, Tiepolo's contemporary, that had the most profound etfect on his art.
As t>arlv as 1726 Tiepolo was referred to as a "celebre Pittor" (bv the Uilini- town
council), and his fresco decorations, along with his sketches and easel paintings,
were soon in high demand throughout Europe. He would enjoy an illustrious
international career, working tor the courts ol WUrzburg and Madrid before dying
in Spain in 1770.

Apollo and Phaethon is an extremely important record ol Tiepolo's painting cycle
at the Palazzo Archinto, which was destroyed bv bombs in 1945. Unpublished and
unknown to the scholarly community before it appeared at auction in 1985, the
painting is directly related to a fresco that decorated the ceiling of one of the four
reception rooms in the palace. It tells the story of the semidivine Phaifthon, who
sought to prove his mother's assertion that he v\as the son of the god Apollo. He did
this by coaxing Apollo into allowing him to drive the Chariot of the Sun, which the
sun-god guided across the zodiac to usher in each nev\- day. Apollo, who actually was
Phaethon's father, reluctantly agreed, but the young man, unable to control the
feisty stallions in their charge across the sky, Hew too close to the earth, scorching
it and creating the deserts of Africa. The planet was spared total immolation by
Jupiter, who halted Phaethon's ill-advised ride by knocking him from the chariot
w ith a thunderbolt.

Tiepolo did not paint the more commonly depicted episode in the story,
Phaethon's fall, but the earlier moment, when the youth begs his lather's permission
to lead the horses. In the center of the composition stands the radiant Apollo before
his temple, his hand raised in protest to the entreaties of Phaethon, who gestures to
the grand chariot bekiw. The fierce horses that pull it are barely kept in check by a
number of nymphs and putti. Tiepolo clearly read his 0\ id carefully, incorporating

161

TiEPOLO

its \ivicl description of what Fhaethon saw on Olympus, notino in particular tiic
personitications of the tour seasons, which he siroupcd at the ri^ht ed^e of the
painting; "Here Spring appears with How 'rv C'ha|5iets hound; here Summer in her
wheaten Garland crow n'd; here Autumn the rich trodden Cirapes besmear; and
hoary Winter shivers in the Rear" {Mciamorpboses 2:23-50). in the lelt distance the
zodiac arcs across the skv v\ ith Scorpio prominent in tlie center, alluding to a part of
the story where Phacthon drops the reins after being frightened bv the scorpion.
Saturn, the god of time, swoops into the scene at the top, his torm seen in
\ertiginous foreshortening.

The fresco cycle to which Apollo and Phaeihon relates was commissioned by
Alberico Archinto, an immensely urbane and well-traveled vice-legate to Pope
Clement XII and a friend of the neoclassical painter Anton Raphael Mengs and the
art historian J. J. Winckelmann. Tiepolo received the commission in 1750 and, as
documented in a letter v\Titten by the artist, was still at work on it in April of the
following year.

The cycle was dominated by a large y4//cc/or\ of the Arts in the main salon, which
was dated 1731. Three mythological scenes — Perseus and Andromeda, Juno, hortune, and
Venus, and Apollo and Phaethon — decorated adjacent rooms, while a fifth, smaller
fresco represented Nobility. An oil study for the Perseus and .Andromeda is in the Frick
Collection, New York (fig. 42a).' It is unclear how these various subjects were
related, although it is probable that a unifying iconographic program was intended.
One thought is that the scheme presented an allegory of fame, fortune, and the arts.
It has also been suggested that Juno, Fortune, and Venus was painted to celebrate a
marriage of one of the members of the Archinto famih; although there is no proof
of this.^ The Scorpio prominent in the sky of Apollo and Phaethon, quite apart from
the role it plays in the story, was also Alberico's astrological sign, a personal
reference that would have appealed to the sophistication and erudition of Tiepolo's
patron.^

Judging from photographs of the Palazzo Archinto, it is clear that the museum's
oil sketch differs little from the finished fresco. The sketch's high degree of finish
and the exactitude with which it follows the composition of the final work
(including the scalloped border) indicate that it is most likely not a preliminary
study but a ricordo, a small-scale version done after the ceiling painting. As such it
was intended as an autonomous work of art, painted for the private delectation of a
connoisseur, probably Archinto himself It is indeed similar in finish and execution
to the oil sketch of Allegory of the Arts (Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon),
which is considered a ricordo. By contrast, the Frick Perseus and Andromeda, which is
painted on paper rather than canvas, differs considerably from the related fresco and
is thus more likely an actual modello. The excellent condition ol the Los Angeles
painting preserves all the deftness of the artist's brush, the sure-handed construc-
tion of the human form, and the sparkling dashes of color that flicker across the
composition. Many of these fine touches would have been lost in the fresco itself,
and it is for that reason that Tiepolo's smaller versions were prized by eighteenth-
century collectors.

The complex perspective and \irtuoso foreshortening that are the salient features
of Apollo and Phaethon, however, would have been most effective on the ceiling

,63

TltPOLO

Fig. 42a

Giovanni Battista Ticpolo, Perseus and
Andromeda, c. 17 jo, oil on paper attixed
to canvas, Jo'/s x ih in. (51.8 x 40.6 cm),
copvriijht the Frick Collection, New "ibrk.

Notes

1 . The hick Collection: An Illustrated Cataloque
(New York: Frick Collection, I9b8), 2:243-4(1.

2. Guido Zelbi, "Quattro affreschi Tiepolc.schi
nel Palazzo della Congregazione di Carita di
Milano," La Citta di Milano 1 (September 1920):
jjh. See JJf-Jfe, 558, tig. 8, for Apollo and
Pbaethon, which is misidentilied as the Triumph
of Aurora.

5. It has been suggested that the seven stars
that appear in the Frick Perseus and Andromeda
have similar astrological signiHcance; see The
Frick Collection, 2:246.

4. .'\ntonio Morassi, A Complete Cataloque of the
Paintings of G. 8. 7iepo/o (London: I'haidon
Press, 1962), 231 (under 1751).

{. For information regarding all works related
to the Archinto commission see Morassi, 5, Hg.
242, 16, Hg. 558, 25, Hgs. 2j9, 252, 264, JJh-37,
34, tig. 2i;i, (i[, tig 238, hfi.

itself. Tiepolo's frescoes in the Palazzo Archinto, \\ith their astounding masten
of illusionistic space, were singled out for praise in the 1757 edition ot Lattuada's
Descnzione di Milano: "Visitors admitted into the rooms of [the Palazzo Archinto] can
enjoy many pictures by the most excellent masters, ... as also the frescoes done in
the \aults of the new rooms hv the celebrated Venetian Tiepolo."''

There is an oil sketch (formerly Bruini Collection, Venice) that is similar in
composition to the central area of the Los Angeles picture, hut it probahK- dates
to an earlier period. Two others, in the Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, and the
Akademie, Vienna, ha\e also been associated with the Apollo and Pbaethon fresco.'
While similar in certain details, the latter t\\o differ considerably in composition
from Tiepolo's final design. Moreover the \ iewpoint taken bv the artist in each is
better suited to an easel painting, to be hung on a wall, rather than an illusionistic
ceiling painting, and it is likely that the sketches relate to another project altogether.

164

Pastoral Landscape with a Mill

Claude Lorrain (Claude Gellee)

FrciiLh, iboo-1682

1634

Oil on canvas

23IA X jjVs in. ({9.1 X S2.9 cm)

Signed at lower right: ihi4 S . . . N[?]V
at lov\er left; Sc

Gift ot The Ahmanson Hoiimlation

M.8b.2f9

Provenance:

France, f-illcul family.

New York, Wildenstein & Co. (dealer), 1975,

Princeton, Mr. and Mrs. J. Seward Johnson,
by 1980.

New York, Wildenstein & Co. (dealer).

Select Literature:

Nature as Scene: hrencb Landscape Paintinq from
Poussin 10 Ronnard, cxh. cat. (New 'I'ork;
Wildenstein & Co., 1975), no. J4.

Marcel Roethlisberger, "Additional Works
by Goffredo Wals and (.laiidc I orrain," Ihc
Burlincjton Macjazine i2i, no. 910 (Januars 1979):
24, 2b, hg. 59.

Marcel Roethlisberger, "Claude Gellee a
Nancy," La reme du Louvre ^i, no. i (1981): 52,
n. 10.

H. Diane Russell, Claude Lorrain. 160O—16S2,
exh. cat. (Washington, U.C: National Gallery
of Art, 1982), 132, no. 22.

'laudc Lorrain was one of the most sisjniHcant landscape painters of
seventeenth-century Hurope. He defined and refined a tradition of ideal landscape
painting that was to last until the second half of the nineteenth century.

Born in Chamagne, a village near Luneville in the duchv of Lorraine, Claude went
to Rome sometime between 1612 and 1620. Apart from a visit to Naples between
1619 and 1622, when he stayed with painter Goffredo Wals, and a brief trip to Nancy
in 1625—26, he remained in Rome until his death. There he was a student of
Agostino Tassi and was strongK' intluenced b\ other members of the community
of Northern artists, such as Dutchmen Bartholomcus Breenbergh, C'ornelis van
Poelenbrugh, and Herman van Swanevelt, all of whom were inspired bv the Roman
campagna, with its poetic light and crumbling remnants of antiquity. Paul Bril had
already begun this tradition as a Northern landscape painter specializing in Italianate
scenes in the 1580s. A special intensity ot observation and execution was brought by
Adam Elsheimer, a German who worked in Rome during the first decade of the new
centurN'. Claude absorbed the example of all these artists as well as the grander, more
classical or idealizing landscape style developed early in the centur\ b\ the masters
of the Bolognese school, Annibale Carracci and Domenichino (cat. no. 47).

By the early 1630s Claude was a well-established and increasingly successful
painter in Rome, working tor such distinguished patrons as Cardinal Bentivoglio,
Pope Urban VIII, and King Philip IV of Spain. In addition to these patrons and
other Roman customers he worked for French \isitors to the tternal City. In 1655
he began his Liher Vernatis (British Museum, London), a volume ot drawings that
recorded his paintings from that year onward. The drawings may originally have

i6j

Claude

been intended as a ^uard against imitation and toraer\ (a certain siijn ot success),
but the two hundred sheets took on the nuaninij ol an independent work ot art
for Claude by the end of his hfe.

Claude's artistic development mo\es Irom an earl\ Ivricisni, with h^ures otten in
contemporary dress set in sottK lit landscapes reminiscent of the hills at i i\i)li and
elsewhere around Rome, to, in the ifc)4os, more cle\ated biblical and mythological
subjects in more idealized locations, from the ib^os to the end of his life he
painted fewer but grander and costlier pictures and chose more rarilied subjects,
culminating in a group of scenes from Virgil's AeneiJ, executed for a member of
the noble Colonna tamilv, where the landscajies became increasingly monumental
and idealized.

Pastoral Landscape with a Mill is one ot only a hamllul ot ilated land.scapes trom
Claude's early maturity, just before he began the Liher Veritatis. It is typical of his
early lyrical mode, presenting a quiet and intimate jjastoral scene w ith Hgures in
modern dres.s. The composition is carefully devised, w ith a water mill and sluice set
against a dark group of trees on a hillside to the left and the landscape opening out
to the right. A tall tree presents a ma.ss of dark leaves at center right, a foil to the
blue sky and its thin, hazy clouds. The landscape is bathed in a gently modulated
atmosphere. Plants and rocks in the toreground are sharply delineated, while the
rolling hills become less and less distinct as they recede delicately into the misty
distance. Claude was famous in his day tor his ability to control this type of aerial
perspecti\e ^\ ith such subtlet\'. Also in the foreground a shepherd or goatherd pipes
to his female companion, while his animals graze nearby The little Hgures are
strongly modeled with the brush and are brought into harmony w ith the landscape
by their red and blue colors, w hich are more saturated \ersions of the tints tound
throughout the work, for example in the warm touches of sunlight and the cool blue
of the far mountain. The trees are rich and dense in foliage. (The thinner toliage
of the smaller trees at right anticipates the more ethereal trees ot Claude's later
landscapes.) From the li\ely foregroimd the eye wanders down to the ri\er running
along a shady valley to a bridge in the middle distance. At this important point,
where the scale of the distance is measured, two tiny Hgures are caught in the light
as thev cross the bridge.

All these elements were gathered by Claude from the work of his teachers and
immediate predecessors in Rome and turned by him into ideal landscapes such as
this one. The clumped forms of the trees come from Tassi and Wats; the careful
design of the landscape, articulated w ith horizontals and verticals and by the man-
made forms of the mill buildings and bridge, is from the classically balanced
landscapes of Annibale Carracci; the sensitive rendering of light derives trom the
Kricism of HIsheimer and other Northerners like Breenbergh and Poelenbrugh. Of
course Claude also studied nature firsthand; hundreds of draw ings have survived as
evidence of this practice, and contemporary biographers tell ot his trequent
excursions into the countryside around Rome to sketch. Claude's landscapes are
always unified b\' light, whose infinitely subtle variations he was able to control w ith
consummate skill. In his use of light lies his personal poetry.

Claude's ideal world is draw n not only from artistic precedents but also from
literary tradition, the arcadian and pastoral works of such ancient poets as Ovid and

167

Claude

Virgil or their Italian imitator in the seventeenth century, Sanna/zaro. Nature and
landscape were celebrated in literature for their peace and harmony, for being far
trom the bustle of the city and the intrigues of the court, a perfect place where man
and beast and the minor deities of mythology lived in happy accord. Claude's piping
goatherd is a descendant ot one of Virgil's shepherds in the pastoral Eclogues or
Georgics.

A few years later Claude would populate his ideal landscapes \\ ith classical
Hgures, more strongly to evoke that idyllic antique past. Pastoral Landscape 1171/7 a Mill
already anticipates that arcadian pictorial world with its gentle rhvthm.s, artfully
balanced forms, and atmosphere of peace and repose. This is not nature as it is, but
nature as it ought to be.

168

Samson and Delilah

Jan Steen

DliIiIi, ib2(>-79

ifcftS

Oil on can\as

26'/> X j2'/; in. (b7.5 x S2.h cm)

Sii^ntxl at lower rialit: JStix'n i6b8

Gilt ol I lio Alinianson hoiinclation

M.S7.b4

Provenanck:

Amsterdam, J. Bruvn sale, ih Mareli 1724,
no. 7.

Rotterdam, Wvnand Coole sale, 6 ."Xuijiist
1782, no. 65.

Rotterdam, Daniel de Jons;li sale, 2b March
iSio.

The HasJLie, N. t)osthii\si-ii L'olleetion.

Berlin, Oscar Huldschinskv Collection,
i898-ii.)2S.

Berlin, sale, Cassirer-I lelbinij Galleries, 10 Mav
1928, no. jb.

Amsterdam, L. \an den Beryh sale,
5 No\emher 19^^.

The I Kigue, Bachstitz (dealer), 1958.

ConHscated bv the Nazis, c. 1939—45.

The Hague, Bachstitz (dealer), c. 1945—51.

The Netherlands, private collection, 1951—87.

New York, Otto Naumann, ltd. (dealer).

Select Literature:

Albert 1 Icppner, "The Popular Theatre ot the
Rcderijkers in the Work ot Jan .Steen and His
Contemporaries," journal of ihc Warhiirq and
tounauU Insiinncs j, nos. 1—2 (1939—40): 40—41.

Baruch U. Kirschcnbaum, The Relyioui and
Hiuoncal Paindnijs of Jan Sieen (New York:
Allanheld & Schram, 1977), 47, 49, 78-79, 97,
11 J, no. 10, 202, hg. b7.

L'.spitc a prodigious output ot at least tour iiumlrcd pictures, very little is
known of Jan Steen's life. He was born in 1626 in Leiden and, according to \arious
sources, studied either \\ ith Nicolaes ICnijpfer, Adriaen \an Ostade, Jan \an Goven
(v\hose daughter he married in 1649), or with more than one of these artists. He
lived in Haarlem from 1661 until 1670, when he returned to Leiden after inheriting
his father's house. Following his return to his native city and until his death in 1679,
he played an increasingiv active role in the Guild of Saint Luke, being elected its
foreman t\\ ice and its deaTi once.

Steen is best know 11 lor his comic scenes, w hich center on raucous ta\crns or
boisterous and ill-kempt hou.seholds. These pictures, such as the museum's Ihe
Twelfth !\ight (Hg. 44J), were painted with an eve toward exploiting the humorous
implications ot such en\ ironments and the outrc^ beha\ ior depicted w ithin them.
Such paintings, where ph\sical ajspetite and whimsy win out over modesty and
moderation, apparently tlv in the tace ot Calvinist strictures against licentiousness,
but it is generally acknow ledged that Steen intended these works as warnings against
pursuing such immoral behaxior There is little evidence, as Steen's early biographers
have claimed, that the artist's ow n \\ay of life is reflected in these paintings. In the
1670s Steen did in tact open a ta\ern, but it is not certain whether it was successful

169

Steen

Fig. 44a

Jan Stecn, The IWclftb Nyhi, c. 1666-67, oil
on canvas, 26'/> x ^^'A in. (67.3 x 84.5 cm),
Los Angeles County Museum of Art,
Marion Davies Collection (55.80.1 ).

nor i.s tluTi' any concrete evicl.encc to support the old accusation that tlu' artist was
a |)rolligatc and a drunkard.

Less familiar arc Stccn's paintings ba.scd on biblical and literary subjects, ot which
Samson and Delilah is an outstandina exam|)lc. While very different in subject matter
from the comic scenes, these religious and historical |)ii tures ottered a similar
satirical view of the world.

'ihe subject of tlu- paintina is the betrayal of Samson, the legendary Nazarite
hero, by his I'hilistine lover, Delilah, who tricked him into revealing the source ot
his imnien.sc strength (Judges 16:4-51). A latter-day Hve, Delilah conforms to
the stereotype of the deceitful woman who uses her sexual allure to destroy her
adversary. Here Steen presents the tension-tilled moment when Delilah, having
coaxed Samson to sleep with wine, calls for a barber to .shear ott the source ot
Sam.son's power, his seven locks of hair. In the background the clamoring guards
are cjuieted by a maiilser\ant who holds a Hnger to her lips; they await Delilah's
signal, when she awakens Samson by saying, "The Philistines be upon thee."

After his capture Samson was blinded and sent to the prison at Gaza, where he
was forced to turn a millstone. In prison his hair grew back, so that v\hen he was
chained to columns in the temple where the Philistines were feasting, he managed
to pull dow n the structure, killing himself and more than three thousand of his
enemies. The two columns that tiank the middle ground of Steen's painting may
allude to this Hnal act of self-.sacriHce. Steen also did a painting of Samson being
mocked by the Philistines in the temple, a work now in thi- Wallraf-Richartz
Museum in Cologne. Such images allude to Sam.son's role as a precursor of Christ.

The moment depicted in the Los Angeles painting was a common one in the
history of art, and Steen would have had ample visual precedents to guide his ow n
composition (there are examples by Rembrandt and Jan Lievens, among others).
Steen seems to have been most intluenced by a famous version by Rubens (National
Gallerv, London), which he probably knew through an engraving by Jacob Matham.
Rubens's large painting could have suggested several motifs that appear in Steen's,
especially the ner\ous Philistines outside the room and the billowing drapery
overhead. There was a different, more likely, source for the museum's picture,
however.

There is good reason to believe that Steen had in mind contemporary theatrical
productions as much as the Bible when he composed the painting. Samson and Delilah
is composed along a series of parallel planes, with the figures placed facing the
viewer and elevated on a step, as if on a stage. The undulating orange-red curtain
draped along the top of the composition completes the allusion to a pro-scenium,
before which the actors play their roles. As scholars have often pointed out, the
scene painted by Steen, in which the barber is called in to cut Samson's hair, was the
high point of Abraham Koninck's popular play, The Tragedy of Samson, first produced
in 1618.'

Steen is know n to have been an aficionado of the stage, especially through the
theatrical performances mounted by the redenjkers (rhetorician guilds) that flourished
in most Dutch cities. These semiprofessional theater troupes frequently staged
productions of true merit. The membership \\as draw n from the local arts and crafts
guilds and often included famous painters of the period. Frans Hals (cat. no. 5) is the

'71

Steen

most noted case; he was a member of one such group from ifeif> to 1625. It is not
certain whether Steen belonsJed (his name does not appear on the rolls), but his
association with the rederiji<ers is clear enough; his uncle, Dirck Jansz Steen, was
a member, and several of Jan Steen's paintings draw their subject matter from the
life of the guild. -
\oics As Baruch Kirschenbaum has written, bv the mid-se\enteenth centurv the

1. Kirsclunliaum, 115. inHuence and popularity of the redcrijkers had been usurped by the professional

2. Htppncr, 22-35. theater inspired by the Hrench, such as the company established at the Schouwburg

Theater in Amsterdam. Sti-en's Samson and Delilah, like other historical paintings
In him, probably drew inspiration more from these official productions than the
pojHilar drama of the guilds. Kirschenbaum has even suggested that in the setting
of .St7m\o;i and Delilah Steen sought to re-create the stage at the Schouwburg. It is not
certain whether Koninck's plav was performed in that theater, but the actions of the
figures and the appearance of certain props in the museum's picture recall the
professional acting troupe. The poses and gestures ol the principal characters are
curiously dramatized, their motions heightened and exaggerated, as if performed in
full knowledge of a viewer before the can\as. This is most apparent in the exchange
between Delilah and the acolyte at the far left, who lunges into the scene to hand
the spotlit Delilah a pair of .scissors. The ob\ ious gesture of the maidservant in the
center is another such clue, as are the impatient soldiers gathered just offstage, who
are read\ to rush in on cue. Certain |5rops, such as the suspended drape and the
rich, oriental carpet spilling over the front step, were common devices u.sed at the
Schouw burg, and they a|)|xar in several of Steen's historical paintings.

Steen used such theatrical conventions to fully exploit the dramatic possibilities
of the biblical narrative. Like the Dutch customs and festivals he painted in his
comic works, however, the great histories and legends of the past w ere \ ievved
by Steen w ith the ironic eve of a satirist. Not onl\ are the main characters
exaggerations, but irreverent details, such as the two urchins at the right who tease
a dog, further undermine the seriousness of the principal theme. In Steen's vision
the pompositx- and hubris of the historical genre is deflated, and its inhabitants are
relegated to the flawed hut entertaining realm of ordinary humanity

Holj Familj with Saint Francis
in a Landscape

Giorgio Vasari

Italian ( 1 l(irriKi-), 1511-74

1542

Oil on canvas

72'/; X 49'/i in. (1S4.2 \ 125.1 Liii)

(Jilt otrlu- AlimaiiMin Hminilation

M.S7.S7

PROVENANCE:

Venice, Francesco Leoni, probaWv
commissioned for his private chapel,
December 1541.

Vienna, private tolKilinii, bv 1475.

I oikIoii .mil Nc'H Ycirk, Scinierxille S; Simpsoi
(dealer).

Select Literature:

Alessandro del Vita, // hbw Jclle ncordan/c lii
Giorgio Vaiari (Arezzo: Dalla ca.sa Vasari, 1927),

Laura Corti, Idsarr iuiutoijp complcto (Florence:
t aiilini, 19S9), 40-41, no. 2j.

[iorgio Vasari is best remembered as the first great historian of Italian painting;
in effect he was the founder of European art history. His Lives of the Ariists, which
first appeared in 1550 and was reissued in a second, revised edition in 1568, remains
to this dav a xaiiiabk' source of intormation, especiallv regarding those artists in the
Florentine tradition tiiat he understood best, up to Michelangelo, the real hero of
his book. Vasari was also a great collector ot drawings and tried to build a compre-
hensive collection that would illustrate the historv of drawings in Italv from the late
Middle Ages to his ow n time.

A prolific painter, Vasari completed major cycles ot frescoes in Florence and
Rome. Through the 15J0S to the 1570s he oversaw most of the major architectural
and artistic programs of Florence, both secular and religious, for Cosimo de' Medici.
The frescoes at the Palazzo Vecchio, extolling the virtues of the Medici, were painted
in the 1550s, while he decorated the interior of the dome of Florence Cathedral in
the earlv 1570s. He made altarpieces for such major churches in Florence as Santa
Maria Novella and Santa Croce and supervised the design ot Michelangelo's tomb
at the latter In Rome he worked for Cardinal Alessandro Farne.se in the Sala dei
Cento Giorni of the Palazzo della Cancelleria in 1546, producing a suite ot scenes
celebrating the power of Pope Paul III Farnese, and also worked in the Sala Regia
of the Vatican during the IJ70S on the cvcle devoted to the rule ot Pope Pius V
and that of Pope Gregory XIII.

Born in Arezzo, the artist, while still a vouth, was in Florence absorbing the
lessons of Michelangelo and being trained in the circle of Andrea del Sarto and his
students Jacopo Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino. He tra\eled widely, working in
Rome (1531-58), Bologna (1536-37), Venice (1541-42), and Naples (1545). In Rome,
Vasari had ample opportunitv to studv the works ot Raphael and Giulio Romano
as w ell as Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling. From such examples of the High
Renaissance, Vasari developed quite an eclectic stvle. In his grandiose frescoes at
the Palazzo Vecchio and the Cancelleria he invented substantial figures and clear
narratives for his histories, while for the more intimate Studiolo ot Franc^ois I in the

173

Vasari

Falaz/.o Vccchio ho deployed an elegance and seir-consciou.s stvlishness identiHed
w itii mannerist art. I lis large altar|)ieees for Santa Maria Noxella and Santa Croce
are complex in iconography and tlesign, hut this tv|x- of ornate tomplexitv was
typical in mid-sixteenth-century Florence.

In addition to these multifarious activities Vasari also found time to paint a
number of moving devotional works for private individuals. I lis Holv Family with
Saini Francis in a Landscape is among the finest. While in Venice, Vasari stayed with
Florentine banker Francesco Leoni, with whom he had corresponded on artistic
matters during the \^]ok. There is everv rea.son to believe that the Holv Family was
painted for Leoni. The artist described such a painting in his account books: "A
large painting in oil on can\as of Our Latlv on earth w ith her son in her arms and
a full-length seated Saint Josejjh with a Saint Francis."' The picture is the most
important work to sur\ ive from Vasari's trip to Venice. Aside from this altarpiece
there exists a handful of drawings for a theatrical presentation organized by Pietro
Aretino, a dismembered ceiling decoration from the Palazzo C'orner-Spinelli, and
a decorative cycle begun by Vasari for the church of Santo Sjiirito in Isola (latiT
completed by Titian).

The Fioly Family reveals Vasari at his most accomplished and touching and con\eys
a personal air ot tender devotion. As far as is know n, the work does not appear in
any early guidebooks to Venice, so the a.ssumption must be that it remained hidden
away in the private chapel of the Leoni house. It is also a significant indication of
the painting's obscure history that no contemporary copies or replicas are known;
generally Vasari's better-know n paintings of this type were repeated in his day in
one or more copies or variants.

The design is one of Vasari's most stable and classical and is heavilv indebted to
the art of Raphael. Specifically the grouping of Joseph, the Madonna, and the Christ
Child and the way Jesus reaches and steps from an antique-looking crib are quite
closely deri\ed from Raphael's celebrated Holv Family of Franqois I (Lou\Te, Paris, fig.
4ja); Vasari substituted Saint Francis for Saint Anne in his picture, however. The
monumental forms, especially of the Madonna, and the attention to detaifs, such as
the shoulder clasp ot the Virgin and the architectural fragments, suggest Vasari's
knowledge of the art of Giulio Romano at Mantua. Saint Joseph, in general type and
contrapposto pose, recalls many a figure from Michelangelo's ceiling of the Sistine
Chapel. It is as if Vasari in Venice felt he needed to emphasize his partisanship w ith
the Florentine-Roman tradition ot art. The clarity ot his forms and the strong sense
of drawn outlines also link his picture to this tradition and are pointedly different
from the rich, painterly effects and loose, brushy broken outlines of Venetian art
at this time. In his Lives of the Artists Vasari was to make an issue of this polarity
between Florentine- Roman disegno and Venetian colore, entering a li\'elv aesthetic
debate that arose in the mid-sixteenth century and continued to be addressed by
writers on art until well into the nineteenth century

For all her monumentality, however, Vasari's Madonna is not without a hint of
the elegance of contemporary mannerist art. Her elaborately braided hair, highly
idealized features, and elegant hands suggest a knowledge ot the art ot Parmigianino.
This feature is a reminder of Vasari's status as one of the principal exponents ot
maniera, the graceful style known today as mannerism, although at the moment he

'71

Vasari

Fig. 45a

Raphael, HoI\ hamih of hrani^on /, 1518, oil on

canvas, 82V4 x fb in. (210.2 x 142.2 cm).

Louvre, Paris. Photo: Cliche des Musees

Nationaux.

Notes

1. del Vita, 37-58.

painted his Holv Family, he was meditating more on the classical and monumental
art of Raphael. A concession to contemporary Venetian taste is in the heautitul and
carekillv planned landscape hackaround, \\ ith its trees, fantastic Hue mountain.s, and
almost s|X'ctral ancient citv. The roimd antique temple is a variation on the so-called
Temple ol Vesta at Tivoli, a ruined ancient Roman structure that in Nasari's paintina
would stand as a svmbol ot the passing ol the old pagan world helore the rise of the
new Christian era.

176

Saint Augustine

Philippe de Champaigne

Hlcmisli (naturalized French), 1602-74

c. i64f-fo

Oil on canxas

31 X 24'/? in. (78.7 X 62.2 cm)

Gitt ot The .'\linian.son Foiiniiatioi

M. 88. 177

Provenance:

Postmortem in\entor\ of Philippe de
Chanipaiijne, 1(174, no. 40.

Paris, Le I.orrain .sale, 20 March 1758, no. 20.

Paris, Conti sale, 8 April 1777, no. 271.

Paris, Marcille sale, 16-17 January 1857,
no. 419.

Monaco, sale, Sotheby's, 27 No\ ember 1986,
no. J 38.

Zurich, Bruno Meissner (dealer).

Shlfct l.rrtRATUKi-:;

"Lcs peintres Philippe et Jean-Haptiste
de Champaigne: Nouveau,\ documents et
in\entaires apres deces," \'ouyclles archives Je
I'an jrunt^ais^ 3d series 8 (1892): 184, no. 40.

Bernard Oorival, "Riiherches sur les sujets
sacres et allegoriques ijraves au XVIIe
et au XVllIe siecle d'apres Philippe de
Champaigne," Gazelle des BeauK-Aris, 6th perir
80 (Julv-.'\ugust 1972): 43—44 (as lost).

Bernard Dorixal, Philippe Je Champaync.
1602-/674 (Paris: Lconce Laget Libraire,
1976), 2:147-48, 222-23 <3s lost).

kjaint Augustine (A.D. 554-430) i.s revered as one of the four Latin Fathers of the
Church, along with Ambrose, Gregory the Great, and Jerome. The.se theologians,
writing in the early centuries of the rise of Christianity, debated and established
many ot the fundamental doctrines of the religion. During the Counter-Reformation
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Catholic theologians looked back w ith
sharpened interest at such early teachers and formulators of Christian doctrine. This
reconsideration and reassertion of the intellectual foundations of Catholicism brought
not only a renewed study ot the original authors ot dogma but a concomitant re\ i\al
ot pictorial imagery celebrating them and their achievements.

Thus Philippe de Champaigne's image of Saint Augustine is a typical work of the
Counter-Reformation in France. It shows the revered saint seated in his book-lined
study, which is more sixteenth- or seventeenth-centur\ than hfth-centurv in
appearance. Augustine was Bishop of Hippo in North Africa so is depicted w earing
episcopal vestment.s, w ith his miter on the table and pastoral staff leaning nearby.
Edward Maedcr, curator ot costumes and textiles at the museum, has pointed out
that Champaigne clothed Augustine in Spanish ecclesiastical robes ot the mid-
or late sixteenth century. Such garments would have been readily available during
and after the Spanish rule ot the Low Countries, Champaigne's native area, in the

1 500s and 1600s. They are richly embroidered with images of the Hvangelists and
other saints. On the clasp band there is a head of Christ. Most likely Champaigne
borrowed these robes from a church as artistic props; alreadv in the mid-
seventeenth century they may have given the painting a slightly archaic air. The
Turkish carpet draped over the table v\as probabK one of his ow n studio props,
however. Fie used the same rug again in his great portrait of the contemporary
lawyer Omer II Talon painted in 1649 (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. ).

177

Champaigne

Fig. 46a

Philippe de Champaigne, Saint Jerome, c. 1645—
{o, oil on canvas, ^I'/i x 25 in. (80.0 x 63.5 cm),
Galerie Bruno Meissner, Zurich.

Augustine pauses, (|uill |icn in hand, to look over his shoulder tor inspiration. He
gazes at a blaze of divine light, bearer of vcnias, \\ hieh shines from above a copy of
the di\inelv inspired Biblia Sacra, the w ritten source o( Truth. In his hand the saint
holds a Harnin^ heart, one ot his tratlitional attributes, which denotes his religious
ardor. X-radiographs re\eal what is just \isibk' to the naked eye in a good light, that
Champaigne made changes here, for originallv Augustine's left hand was turning the
passes of the book on his table. Similarlv the artist added a narrow strip ot canvas
at the bottom of the painting, so that he could show the two books and scroll
scattered on the floor, trampled under Augustine's foot. The names on these texts
refer to Celestius, Pelagiu.s, and Julian of ficlanum. These three theologians were
contemporaries of Augustine and engaged in acrimonious disputes with him over
matters of doctrine. According to Augustine, Pelagius and his two supporters were
promoters of heretical ideas that undermined the true taith by questioning the
doctrines of original sin, divine grace, and the baptism of children. Needless to .say,
the theological arguments were extremely complex and conxoluted and cannot be
|)ursued here. Suffice it to observe that Augustine is show n, inspired by Truth and
the Holy Bible, asserting his own doctrine and trampling the heretical texts
underfoot.

The original owner of Sami Aucjustine is not known. Indeed its history is not Hrmly
documented until its appearance at auction in 1986. The painting served as a model
for an engra\ing, which was executed in exact detail and published in Paris by
Nicolas de Poilly around the middle of the century ' A Latin legend under Poilly's
print reads Unde ardet, indc lucet (The flame of love becomes light). Poilly's engraving
was later copied by several other seventeenth-century engravers. The painting must
date from the mid- to late 1640s; its meticulously detailed and superbly skillful
execution can be compared v\ith Chamj^aigne's Aloses and the Ten Commandments
of 1648 (Milwaukee Art Museum).

In 1986 the painting was sold with a pendant Saint Jerome (fig. 46a). It is intriguing
to note in the somewhat speculative provenance that a pair of paintings of Samt
Augustine and Samt Jerome were noted in the inventory ot Champaigne's estate after
his death in 1674. These may be the same two paintings that were in the important
collections of Le Lorrain in 1758 and the Prince de Conti in 1777 as well as the
distinguished Marcille Collection in 1857. The quality of Saint Augustine is certainly
worthy of such important collections of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

After training in his nati\e Brussels with landscape painter Jacques Fouquieres,
Champaigne moved to Paris in 1621, becoming a French citizen in 1629. He worked
on decorations at the Palais du Luxembourg and in 1627 became peintre de la reine
were. He found favor with Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu, whose portrait he
painted several times. He was a founding member of the Royal Academy in 1648,
official painter to the magistrates of Paris, and a well-know n portraitist. He also
worked for several religious orders, including the Carmelites and the Carthusians.
These official and semi-official positions enabled Champaigne to remain connected
without trouble to the French Jansenists, who were confined to the Abbey of Port-
Roval. This order, whose austere doctrines were influenced by Saint Augustine, was
a center of political and religious contro\ersy and opposed by the powerful Jesuits
and other factions of the Catholic Church in Rome. Another image of Augustine

179

Champaigne

\otcs

1. DoriNjI, "Reclicrclu's," 45, no. 62.

by Cliampaisjnc, show inti the moment ol the saint's conversion to Christianity, was
engraved as the frontispiece to a \olume ot Augustine's famous Confessions, which
was translated and eiMted in 1849 by Champaigne's friend Robert Arnauld d'Andilly,
a leading member of the Fort-Royal communit\.

Saint Augustine is thoroughly typical of Champaigne's style. While there is a
certain austerity in its absolute clearness of observation and draw ing, its strong color
and fine technique place it in the traditions of Flemish painting. It seems to unite
the rich saturated color of Flemish art with the rigorous clarity of French classical
design. The saint is vividly characterized and every detail is sharply delineated:
lectern, books, table, carpet, and, abo\e all, the splendid bishop's vestments, whose
richly colored embroidery contrasts w ith the creamv w hites of the surplice. The
whole imasje radiates with an intensity that reflects and expresses the passionate
spirituality ot the saint.

180

Saint Ignatius of Loyola's
Vision of Christ and God the
Father at La Storta

DOMENICHINO (DOKENICO ZaMPIERI)

Italian (Bologna), 1581—1641

c. r62 2

Oil on i.'an\as

(.{'/» X 38V» in. (iftb.i X 98.1 cm)

Gift ot Tlu' Alinianson Foundation

M.Sg.ji)

Provenance:

Rome, Cardinal Odoardo Harncsi', i^robahK
commissioni'd for his private cliaptl at the
Gesu, c. 1622.

Private collection.

London, Matthie.sen Fine Art I iniited (ilialer).

Select Literatiire:

Richard F. Spear, Domcnuhmo (New lla\in;
Vale University Press, 19S2), r:jo8, no. 117, 2:
pi. 4;2.

Ihi:

Lhis tall altarpiccc wa.s painted almost certainly in ih2 2 tor the Cap|5ella
Farnesiana, the chapel of Cardinal Odoardo Farnese in the Casa Prolessa ot the
Gesii, mother church ot the Jesuit order in Rome. It was replaced soon alter hy a
good but slightly stilted copy, probably by an artist from Domenichino's studio; the
copy remains in the chapel to this day. Why and by whom the original can\as was
removed is not known, but most likely the switch occurred shortly alter the death
of the patron in 1626. The first picture was probably sold simply for profit. It is not
recorded in any subsequent Farnese inventories, accordinij to M. Bertrand Jestatz,
who has studied these archives extensixely. ' It appeared on the art market in 1981,
just in time to be included as an addendum to Richard Spear's catalogue ot
Domenichino's works.

Odoardo Farnese was one of the most prolific art patrons of early seventeenth-
century Rome. The most famous work he commissioned was the decoration ot the
Gallery of the Palazzo Farnese by Annibale Carracci and his studio between 1595 and
1604. The young Domenichino came to Rome from Bologna to work on this project
and became a leading member of Annibale's team. It was to be one of the seminal
works of seventeenth-century painted decoration. Shortly after the completion of
the Farnese Gallery, Odoardo commissioned Domenichino to decorate the chapel
of Saint Nilo at the Abbey of Grottaferrata, w here the cardinal was Comendatario.
These frescoes were completed between 1608 and ifeio. The Farnese family was
closely linked with the Gesii, not least because it had been Odoardo's great uncle,
Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, who had o\erseen its construction by architect
Giacomo Vignola from ij68 onward. Odoardo was responsible for the construction
of a .sacristy and new Casa Professa behind the church, which was undertaken by
architect Girolamo Rainaldi from 1599 to 1625. These buildings incorporated the
Camere di Sant'Ignazio, rooms inhabited by Ignatius of Loyola from i J44 to 1556,
and the new chapel. Gi\en these in\ol\ements with the Gesii and the fact that
Odoardo clearly admired Domenichino's refined classical style of painting, it would
not be surprising if, when the artist returned to Rome in 16 21 from a four-year stay

181

DOMENICHINO

in Bologna, lie should receive- tlie lommission tor the new altarpiete,

Althousjh the paintinsJ is not dated, the early 1620s would be ris^ht from the point
of view of Donieniehino's stylistic development. Not only did he return to Rome in
1621, but on March 12, 1622, lanatius was canonized. It .seems likely that the painting
was ordered to mark the canonization and to coincide witii tlu' completion ot the
building programs at tiie Gesu.

The painting siiows a decisi\e moment in the lite ot Saint Ignatius. With two
traveling comjianions, Jaime Lavnez and Pierre Lete\re, both seen in the back-
ground, he journeyed in 1557 from Pari.s, where he founded the Society ot Jesus
in in4> t" Rome, where he was to seek papal conhrmation ot his order .\t la
Storta, on the road from Siena to Rome, the three stopped to |)ra^' at an abandoned
wayside chapel. There Ignatius had a \ision of God the Father presenting to him the
resurrected Christ carrying the cross; pointing to the cross, which was to lutomi'
the symbol of the Jesuit Order, Christ utteretl the words: "1 will help voli on xoLir
way to Rome," thereby condoning the mission ot Ignatius.

Domenichino shows the saint, dressed in black w ith his hat ami pilgrim's stall
on the ground beside him, kneeling in rapt adoration betore the heavenly \ ision.
His brightly lit face is isolated against the sky, and the air of passive adoration is
enhanced by his folded arms; he is not gesturing toward the \ Ision nor in an^■ other
way overtly drawing attention to it. Clouds and a cherub su|)port Father and Son,
while tv\o mi.schicvous-looking angels to the right comment on what is taking place.
A host of other cherubs' faces stud the clouds of heaven. In common with other
Italian baroque altarpieces of this period, where earthly people ha\e heavenly
visions, the saint is firmly planted on the ground as a sort ot intermediary betv\een
the spectator in the chapel and the divine personages inhabiting the spiritual upper
realm of the painting. Both Christ and God arc beautiful idealized types, vvho.se
perfectly modeled forms and draperies look back through Annibale Carracci to the
works of Raphael and Fligh Renaissance Rome. Ignatius has the somewhat idealized
features of the man w ho had died about sixty-six years before Domenichino painted
this picture. Exerything about the saint's pose, attitude, and teatures speaks ot his
earnest de\otion. Domenichino was also a noted landscape painter in a tradition
established for Italian artists bv Annibale Carracci. The lowly landscape stretching
behind Ignatius is among the finest examples of the painter's ability in this genre.

The museum's canvas is in a perfect state of preservation. There are some
pentimenti, notably in the right hand of Christ and the position of the cros.s,
showing that Domenichino made slight revisions to the design as he worked. Three
preparatory drawings exist: one for the whole composition, close to the finished
picture but slightly wider in proportion (tig. 47a); one for the figure of Christ
(Hg 47b), probably done from a studio model (where the artist has yet to idealize
the form); and a third for the kneeling saint (tig 47c).- At one time there were
probably others, for Domenichino carefully worked out his compositions w ith
draw ings of the whole and its parts. This type of working procedure was normal tor
an artist in the classical tradition. The practice had been re\ i\ed and encouraged by
the Carracci at their academy in Bologna, where Domenichino had received some
of his training, and .'\nnibale continued it in Rome; hundreds of draw ings survive
from the planning of the Farnese Gallery

183

DOMENICHINO

\->

:■ * .

/ ..,

'■''

■ ^^

^^^-

■'•,/'

Fig. 47a

DomenicKino, Vision of Saint Ii^natius of Loyola,

c. 1622, red chalk on paper, b'/u. x 4V8 in.

(i{.7 X 11.7 cm), Wiml.sor Ca.stle, Royal

HIizabeth 11.

Fig. 47 b

Domenichino, Study for Chnsi, c. ife22, ,
black chalk heightened in w hite on paper,
12% X 8V16 in. (32.7 X 20.8 cm), Windsor
Castle, Roval Library. Copyright 1990
Her Majesty Queen HIizabeth 11.

Fig. 47 c

Domenichino, Sttidy for Saint Itfnatim of Loyola,
c. 1622, black chalk heightened in white on
paper, iiVit x 8 in. (28.7 x 20.3 cm), Windsor
Castle, Royal Library. Copyright 1990 Her
Majesty Queen HIizabeth II.

Notes

1 . M. Bertrand Jcstatz, conversation with
author, 26 April 1989.

2. The saint in the Windsor dravsings was
erroneously identified as Philip Neri in John
Pope-Hennessey's The Drawings of Domenichino
in the Collection of tiis Majesty the King at Windsor
Castle (London: Phaidon Pres.s, 1948), 104-5,
nos. i2{o, 1252.

Saint lifnaims i.s a mature work, [Minted \\ hen the artist wa.s at the height of his
powers, in his early forties. The invention of the design probahly came easily to
him, and in any ease, it is reiatiyeiv simple in conception. Indeed the clear and
straiuhttorward presentation of the subject is one of the work's charms and is
characteristic ot Domenichino's approach as an artist. He inve.sts the scene with
a calm and noble simplicity, \yhich matches the emotional directness ot Saint
lt;natius's experience ot his vision. Domenichino does not indulge in extravagant
gestures and virtuo.so effects of illusion, foreshortening, and dramatic lighting,
which were becoming common artistic devices to convey spiritual and ecstatic
states ot mind in Italian art at the time.

Domenichino's training yvith Annibale Carracci, especially his involvement with
the Farnese Gallery, y\ould have taught him a great deal about the need tor clarity in
narrative, one of the hallmarks of his teacher's approach. The sculptural solidity and
beautifullv idealized individual figures ot Domenichino also derive trom .-Xnnibale's
concept ot torm.

Bv the time he jiainted Suint Icjnatnis, Domenichino had a well-established
reputation in Rome as the leading painter in the Carraccesque classical manner.
In addition to his y\ork in the Farnese Gallery in the first decade of the centurv
Domenichino had painted a seminal trcsco in a chapel at the church ot San
Gregorio Magno in ibog representing the Flagellation of Saini Andrew, yyhich y\as to
be a major inspiration for Nicolas Poussin and other classicizing artists later in the
centurv. He had also completed two grand cycles of frescoes, the aforementioned Life
of Saint Nilo at Grottaferrata in 1608-10 and the Life of Saint Cecilia in San Luigi dei
Francesi in 1612-15; a major altarpiecc tor Saint Peter's, The Last Communion of Saint
Jerome, in 1614; and a major mythological painting, Diana and Her \vniphs. yvhich was
dclixered to the great collector and patron Cardinal Scipione Borghese in 1617. .■Xfter
a time in Bologna and Fano, Domenichino returned to Rome to begin his greatest
ilecorative cycle, .scenes from the Life of Saint Andren (1622-27) i" the apse vault ot
Sant'Andrea delta Valle, just down ttie street from the Gcsii. Thus Saint Ignatius,
painted at this same moment of Domenichino's return to Rome, dates trom one
of the most creative periods ot his career.

.84

Mercury and Argus

Carel Fabritius

Dutch, 1622-54

c. 1645-47

Oil on canvas

28'Vi6 X 4o'Vi6 in. (7J.5 X 104.0 cm)

Signed at left center: Carolus Fal>ritiu.s

Gift ot The Alimanson Fciundatiun

M.90. 20

Provenance:

Paris, .sale, Lebrun, 19 June 1764, no. 20.

Naples and Moscow, De Lebzeltern Collection,
then hv descent.

Monaco, sale, Sotheby's, 22 June 1985, no. 147.

New York, Richard L. Heii;en & Co. (dealer).

Select Literature:

Christopher Brown, "'Mercurv anil Argus' bv
Carel Fabritius: A Newlv Discovered I'aintins;,"
The Burlirifilon Md</ii/mf 128, no. 1004 (November
1986): 797—99, fiii. 18.

Ls a result of hi.s unfortunate death at the age of thirtv-tvvo and the parallel loss
ot his studio, the extant oeuvre of Care! Fabritius is extremely circumscribed.
Mercurj and Argus is one ot only t\\ el\e paintings securely attributable to his hand.
Nevertheless among these is a striking diversity of subjects, testifying to what must
have been a remarkable production; one biblical scene, two mvthological subjects,
six portraits, a genre scene, a pcrspectival tovvnscape, and an unusual picture of a
goldfinch standing on its perch. The recent redisco\erv o( Mcrcun and Argus is thus
ot paramount importance in tracing the de\elopment of Habritius's career. Already
a painting in Boston, Mercurv and Aglauros (fig. 48a), tormerly ascribed to Govaert
Flinck, has been reattributed to Fabritius on the basis of its similarity to the Los
Angeles picture.'

Fabritius was the .son of Pieter Carelsz, a Calvinist schoolteacher in Midden-
Beemster, a rich agricultural community on the northern outskirts of Amsterdam.
Pieter was himself an amateur painter; it is likely that Fabritius's first lessons in art
were from his father. Caret's younger brothers, Barent and Johannes, were also
painters. During his youth in Midden-Beemster, Fabritius worked as a carpenter, but
by 1641 he and his wife had moved to Amsterdam, where he became an assistant in
Rembrandt's studio.

It is unclear how long he spent working with Rembrandt, but in 1643 he was
recorded living again with his parents; given the proximity ot Midden-Beemster to
Amsterdam, there is no reason to belie\e that Carel did not have continued contact
vsith Rembrandt. Bv 1650 Fabritius was listed as residing in Delft, where he joined
the Guild of Saint Luke in 1652. The artist was killed when his studio was destroyed
by the explosion of the town arsenal on October 12, 1654, thus prematurely ending
the career of the most talented and original painter to emerge from the circle ot
Rembrandt. In a poem published in 1667 the Delft bookseller Arnold Bon lamented,
"So died the greatest artist that Delft or even Holland had ever known."'

There can be no doubt that ,1/ercurv and Argus is bv Fabritius. The thick, deliberate
application of paint, the narrow range of palette, limited mostly to earth tones and

i8{

Fabritius

Fig. 48a

Carel Fabritius, Mercury and Aglauros,

c. 1645-47, oil on canvas, 28'/2 x 3{'Vi6 in.

(72.4 X 91.0 cm), Martha Ann Edwards

Fund, courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

(0J.E14J).

olive greens, and especially the probing streams of light, which pick out certain
areas while throwinsj others in shadow, are fully characteristic of Fabritius's early
style, as re\'ealed in his lar^e Raisintj of Lazarus (Museum Narodowe, Warsaw). Indeed
when the Los Angeles painting was cleaned the artist's signature \vas re\ealed on the
embankment behind Argus at the left edge. Christopher Brow n dates Mercury and
Arcjus to the years immediately following the Raising of Lazarus, around 1645—47,
when the artist had returned home to Midden-Beemster

rhe history ol Mercury and Argus before its reappearance in 1985 is unclear It is
not known \\hether the picture was painted on commission, although the fact that
Fabritius signed his name in its tull latin lorm might suggest a patron steeped in
classical literature. In the eighteenth century the picture was in Paris, where it was
copied bv Jcan-Honore Fragonard in a painting now in the Louvre (fig. 48b). It is
tempting to idontilv the Fabritius w itb a painting of 'Argus being lulled to sleep
b\ Mercury," supposcdl\ bv Rembrandt, wliith sold in Paris on June 19, 1764. .At a
time when Fabritius was very little known, it would not haxe been unusual tor the
signature to have been painted over and the picture passed oH as a Rembrandt. The
painting in the Paris sale was paired with a second "Rembrandt," Medea and Jason,
but this picture is still to be identified.'

It is not ditHcult to imagine Fragonard thinking he had copied a Rembrandt. In
style Fabritius's painting bears a superficial resemblance to a number ol Rembrandt's
works of the 1640s, such as the Batbsheba Bathing of 1643 (Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York) or the famous S'lght Watch of 1642 (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam).
Most of all, the haunting panoramic land.scape that Fabritius painted in the right
background is influenced by Rembrandt prototypes.'* The technique and treatment
of subject matter, on the other hand, are entirely characteristic of Fabritius. The
paint is laid on in a rich impasto, the careful application ot each brushstroke gixing
the paint a grainy texture. The physical and tactile nature ol Fabritius's handling of
paint complements the radically earthy treatment ol the classical theme.

The story of Mercury and Argus was in fact a yery popular one in Rembrandt's
circle. Versions exist by Ferdinand Bol, Gerbrand \an den Feckhout, Flinck, Cornelis
Bisschop, and Barent Fabritius, among others. Although no paintings of the subject
by Rembrandt have surfaced, he did treat the theme se\eral times in draw ings
similar to the composition of the Los Angeles painting, suggesting that Fabritius
had continued contact \\ ith his mentor after leaxing .Amsterdam.

Ovid, in h\iy Meiaworphoses (i:j68-688, 715-22), recounts the tale of the beautiful
nymph lo, who was loved by Jupiter To conceal her from his jealous wife, Juno,
Jupiter turned lo into a white heifer. Juno, however, was aware of her husband's
deception and ordered the shepherd Argus, who possessed a hundred eyes, to watch
over lo. In turn Jupiter dispatched Mercur> to steal lo away from Argus. Disguising
himself as a goatherd. Mercury coaxed Argus to sleep w ith the soothing tones
of his flageolet and then decapitated him. The furious Juno reclaimed Argus's
eyes, inserting them into the tail of her peacock. These last two episodes were
incorporated in a print bv an imknown engra\er made in 1589 after a design by
Hendrick Goltzius (fig. 48c).

Fabritius's painting depicts the moment .Argus has drifted into unconsciousness
and Mercury leans o\er to ascertain that he is in fact asleep. .A sense of torpor

187

Fabritius

WW^^^S

Fig. 48b

Jean-Honore Fragonard, Mercury and Arifin,
c. 1764, oil on canvas, 23'/4 x iS'A in.
(fg.o X 73.0 cm), Louvre, ftris. Photo:
Cliche des Musees Nationaux.

Fig. 48c

After Hendrick Goltzius, Mercury Killing Arcjui,
IJ89, engraving, 7 x 10 in. (17.8 x 25.4 cm),
Los Angeles Countv Museum of Art, Graphic
Arts Council Fund (M.71. 76.19).

Notes

1 . Frederik J. Duparc, "A 'Mercurv and
Aglauros' Reattributed to Carel Fabritius," The
Burlmqwn Matfazme 128, no. 1004 (November
igSh): 799-802, Hg. 21.

2. Christopher Bro\\'n, Carel Fabritius: Complete
Edition with a Catalogue Raisonne (Oxford;
Fhaidon Press, i98[), 159— bo. See al.so 15—23.

3. Brown, '"Mercurv and Argus,'" 799.

4. More precisclv, it resembles quite closely
the Great Mountain View by Hercules .Scghcrs
(c. 1651, UtHzi, Florence), which Rembrandt
in fact owned. The author is grateful to
Frederik Duparc for this information.

pervades the scene. Save for the rambunctious plav of two of the goats, the
movements and attitudes of the principal hgures and animals are sluggish: a heavv-
lidded co\^ rests its head on lo's back, Argus sleeps, his chin on his chest, his dog
snoring beside him; even Mercury's movements are slow, deliberate, as if through his
own music he has hypnotized himself

The artist was attentive to the setting and details of Ovid's text, including the
goats that accompanied Mercury and the bank beside a shady tree where the
unwitting Argus in\ ited Mercury to join him. These elements appear in most
representations of the scene. (Another print after Goltzius depicts the same moment
ijainted by Fabritius.) Indeed Fabritius was not adverse to borrowing motifs quite
directly from earlier visual sources; the unusual perspective ot lo, seen from behind,
is drawn straight from the engra\ ing ot Mercurv Killing Argus. Completely new in
the Los Angeles painting, however, is the uncompromisingly rustic and naturalistic
treatment of the theme. Mercurv appears as a ruddy swain, near unidentifiable as a
god. The crude behavior of the goats parallels Jupiter's lust tor lo. lo herself is not
the looming white cow that is normally present, but is in tact rather indiscreetly
turned from the \iewer, her head in shadow.

The downfall of Argus lay in the fact that he did not recognize Mercury, who, as
Ovid relates, had disguised himself as an ordinary goatherd. Fabritius's Mercury is
hardly godlike: his features are coarse, he is stripped of his attributes, his unruly
hair falls over his face. He has little in common w ith Goltzius's halt-naked god or
with the figure in Fabritius's own .Mercurv and Aglauros, who sports the traditional
winged shoes and carries the caduceus. Indeed Mercury's identity in the Los
Angeles painting is re\ealed only by the sword at his side and the recorder in his
hands. Fabritius's metamorphosis of Mercury renders him nearly as unrecognizable
to the viewer as he was to Argus.

Such stylistic innovation and iconographic subtlety are particular to Fabritius.
From his few remaining pictures one senses an idiosyncratic interpretation ot
subject matter, an enigmatic quality unique among Rembrandt's followers. Fabritius's
last years are felt to have had a decisive influence on the de\elopment ot certain
artists in Delft, particularly Jan Vemieer, w ith whom he may have worked. Vermeer,
who o\\ned t\\o of Fabritius's pictures, would ha\e been dra\\n to Fabritius's precise
and rich technique and the absorptive quietude that pervades much of his work,
qualities tully present in Mercurv and Argus.

188

The Last Supper

Pedro Berruguete and Workshop

Spanish, c. 1450—1505/4

c. i49j-i{oo

Distemper on linen

74% X 130'A in. (189.5 ^ 33°'^ '^"i)

Gift of The Ahman.son Foundation

M. 90. 171

Provenance:

Buenos Aires, Souza-Lage Family Collection.
Geneva and Rome, Hnzo Costantini (dealer).

Select Literature:
Unpuhlished.

Lccordin^ to the Gospels (for example, Matthew 26), the Last Supper took place
during the feast of Passover, on the night ot Christ's betrayal to the Romans by his
disciple Judas. We see Jesus gathered with the Twelve; on the table are the paschal
lamb, salt, bitter herbs, unleavened bread, and wine. Two important events happened
during this meal. With the words "Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray
me," Jesus dismayed and perturbed his disciples w ith the foreknowledge of his fate.
He also instituted the ritual that would become the most significant in the Christian
Church, the sacrament of the Eucharist. At the moment he broke the bread, Christ
said: "Take, eat; this is my body," and when he poured the wine he added, "Drink
ye all of it; for this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for
the remission of sins." Christ is shown holding the Eucharistic wafer, the ritualized
representation of his body. The disciples are presented in lively groups, gesturing as
thev discuss the meaning of Christ's words. Isolated at the right end of the table sits
Judas; he is grim-faced and clutches a purse containing the thirty pieces of silver, his
bribe for the betrayal. Judas also has a black halo in contrast with the gold ones of
the loval disciples.

An unusual feature of The Last Supper is the presence of Mary Magdalene, who,
her face streaming with tears, wipes Christ's feet with her hair before anointing
them \\ ith ointment from the jar next to her. (The vessel, however, may be a later,
sixteenth-century addition to the original painting. It is draw n in a different style,
and its shadow is cast to the left, which is inconsistent with the lighting of the rest
of the scene. It was presumably added to clarify the identity of the Magdalen.)
Matthew relates that this episode took place a day or two earlier at another meal in
the house of Simon the Pharisee (see also cat. no. 31). This unusual conflation of the
two stories seems to have been peculiar to Spanish art at the end of the fifteenth
centurv; t\\ o other examples from this time are also know n. ' The reason for this
local \ariation on traditional iconography needs further studv The artist initially
thought of placing the Magdalen to the right of center facing left. The dark outline
of this first underdraw ing can just be percei\ ed by the naked eye, showing through
the tablecloth in the right half of the painting. Its presence there is confirmed in
examination by infrared reflectography.

Berruguete

Detail

Further research \s ill be required to discover the original location of The Last
Supper. The theme was normally depicted in the refectories of monasteries, and it is
safe to assume that this example was painted for one of the thousands of abbeys that
existed in Spain at the end of the fifteenth century. The story was considered an
appropriate subject for decoration, because when the monks sat down together

each day to eat, they would be reminded of Christ's sacrifice,
the mission of the disciples to spread his teachings, and their
o\\ n devotion to Jesus and the continuance of his ministry.
It would have hung fairly high up, well above the heads of
the monks seated at their long tables. The perspective was
designed to be seen from below.

The Last Supper is a painting of the type know n in Spain as
a sarga, executed in a water and glue-ba.sed paint (distemper)
on a very large, fine linen support. It bears comparison in
scale, technique, and style with a set o( four equally large (but
\ertical) sargas generally attributed to Berruguete in the Prado,
Madrid, which may originally have served as organ shutters.
Two of them represent Saints Peter and Paul, while the other
pair shows the Adoration of the Magi. The rather dry surface
quality of distemper on linen, which would not have been
\'arnished (fortunately neither the Prado sargas nor the Los
Angeles one have been varnished subsequently), approximates
the grainy dryness of fresco painting, a common technique for
large-scale mural decorations. The similarity of effect may have
been intentional.

The supports of the Madrid and Los Angeles paintings are
made of the same type of linen, and the pieces stitched together to make up all five
large works were woven on a loom of the same width, \\ hich suggests that they
could have come out of the same workshop. The most recent literature states that
the Prado paintings originally came from the church of San Pedro, Avila.' As noted
above, the early provenance of The Last Supper is not known, but Avila is a likely
source. For stylistic reasons one must conclude that the Los Angeles painting was
executed in the southern part of Castile, the region northwest of Madrid between
Avila and Palencia, which, along w ith Toledo, was the principal area of activity
of Berruguete and his school. In the Prado Adoration of the Magi (fig. 49a) the
characterization of two of the kings (figs. 49b and 49c) is very similar to some of the
figures in The Last Supper, notably Philip (third from left), who is perhaps the most
beautifully drawn and modeled character, as well as Peter, Christ, the sleeping John,
and Simon (second from right; he is harder to read and is a little damaged). The
style of drawing of the faces and hands of these figures is very close, as are the
general disposition of the hands and the rhythms of their gestures.

Born in 1440 or 14J0 (the latter is the more commonly accepted date) and dying
probablv in December of 1(^03 or January of 1504, Pedro Berruguete is among the
most poorlv documented of famous artists and one whose overall output has not
been very clearly defined nor agreed upon by modern scholars.^ He was born in
Paredes de Nava, near Palencia, and in the earlier part of his career, about 1470-7 j.

191

Berruguete

Fig. 49a

Pedro Berruguete, Adoration of the Magi, c. 1490,
distemper on linen, i37"/i6 x 81^/16 in. (350.0 x
206.0 cm), Prado, Madrid. Photo: Amplia-
ciones v Reproducciones Mas.

executed the hi^h altar retable in the chureh of San Juan in hi.s native town. His
other masterpieces to survive more or less intact are the hijjh altar retable in Santa
Eulalia, Paredes de Nava, of the 1480s, and two hijih altar retables in Avila, one Irom
the earlv 1490s in the church of Santo Tbmas, the other in the Cathedral. This last
work was begun in 1499, toward the end of Berruguete's life, continued in 1 504 after
his death by Diego de la Cruz, and completed after 1508 by Juan de Borgona.

On the basis of a legal document (Hrst published in 1822 and not seen since)
Berruguete may ha\e been the "Pietro Spagnuolo" working at the court ot Federico
da Montefeltro in Urbino in 1477. It is generally accepted that he collaborated with
the Flemish artist Joos \an Ghent on a series ot twent\ -eight panels representing
famous men that decorated the study of the duke (now divided between the Palazzo
Ducale, Urbino, and the Louvre, Paris). He probably spent some years in Italy from
the early or mid-i470S to 1485, when he is recorded in Toledo a year after the death
of Federico. He is documented in Toledo through the 14S0S and 1490s, working
mainly in the Cathedral, but most of these paintings ha\e been destroyed. He
certainly vxorked elsew here at this period, for example in .'Xx ila, but his mo\ements
are not recorded.

Although nothing is known ot his training, Berruguete issued trom the mid-
fifteenth-century Hispano-Flemish tradition of painting, and his art retained many
of its characteristics. In his jMnel jMintings he re\eals a sharp eve tor realistic detail,
beautifullv obser\ed and modulated light, and a lo\e ot richly patterned gold
brocade for garments or for the cloths of honor that often hang behind his princijial
figures. The \ isit to ItaK seems confimied by the style of Berruguete's mature
works, for more than any other Spanish painter of the late fifteenth century, he
could create a convincingly deep pictorial space, concei\ e monumental figures w ith

192

BhRRUGUhTE

Fig. 49b

Pedro Berru^uete, Adoration of the Magi (detail).

Photo: Ampliaciones v Reproducciones Mas.

Pig. 49c

Pedro Berruguete, Adoration of the Magi (detail).

Photo: .Ampliaciones v Reproducciones Mas.

fully modck'il draperies, and gixi" lii.s personages strong indi\ idual charatterizations.
It was above all Berruguete who brought the dignified figures and measured spaces
(it the Italian Renaissance to Spanish art.

The Lost Supper has both Hispano-Hleniish and Italianate features but also a
bold stvle of draftsmanship and grittv, intense characterization that make it very
ilistinctive. The vividlv observed features of the weeping Magdalen, the rich gold
brocade of her costume and the cloth behind the head of Christ, and the gentle light
that bathes the scene are all features of the Hispano-Flemish tradition. The Italianate
architecture, the \\a\- the tiled floor is employed to create perspective, and the
grouping of the disciples around the table suggest that the painter was aware of
Italian renditions of the Last Supper, such as the one by Andrea del Castagno in
the refectory at Sant'ApoUonia, Florence, dating from the late 1440s.

By their nature sargas were broadly and rapidly executed works that were
regarded as relatively ephemeral decorations in contrast \\ ith fresco or panel
paintings. As a consequence of this less painstaking preparation and execution The
Last Supper and the Prado sargas seem awkv\ard in terms of space and draftsmanship
when compared with Castagno's fresco or w ith more carelullv designed and highly
wrought panels painted in oil or tempera by Berruguete, such as his Annunciation in
the Cartuja de Miraflores, Burgos, or the Clothing of Saint Thomas Aquinas as Novice in
the high altar retable of Santo Tomas, Avila.'' This last panel painting, w ith its clear
space and hard, sharp observation, represents a relatively unfamiliar subject that
needed to be legible from afar By contrast The Last Supper was of a familiar subject
and \\as designed to serve as decoration for a dining hall.

More than one scholar has suggested that The Last Supper may have been painted
bv Berruguete in collaboration v\ ith one of his assistants, or that it may even be
bv one or more of the manv artists trained in his large workshop.^ Rather little is
known about studio practice in Spain in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but
it would ha\e been perfectly normal for an artist as famous and in demand as
Berruguete to emplov a sizable studio of assistants and verv likely that several of
them would collaborate on larger projects under the super\ision of the master The
degree of his personal involvement might depend on the prestige of the commission.
The hands of se\eral of Berruguete's assistants and followers ha\e been distinguished,
even if their names are not always known. Thus, Berruguete-like works ha\e been
convincingly assigned to different hands now called the Paredes Master, the Riofrio
Master, and the Transito Master, to mention but three.* All of these artists were heirs
to the Hispano-Flemish tradition, but even if they were not privileged w ith a \ isit to
Italy, they would ha\ e absorbed some of the lessons of Italian art from their master

Samuel K. Heath has pointed out that in The Last Supper, in contrast with Saints
Philip, Peter, John, and Simon and Christ, compared above with figures in the Prado
sargas, some of the other disciples are draw n in a more schematic and less subtly
modeled way, suggesting that more than one painter v\as at v\ork. Several of the
disciples are drawn in a bold and almost caricatural manner, such as Thomas and
Thaddeus at the extreme left and Judas at the extreme right. Their style strikes
Heath as being similar to that of the Paredes Master. For example, a comparison
can be made w ith a figure such as Saint Luke in the predella panel of the Paredes
Master's altarpiece at Santa Maria, Paredes de Nava.' Heath has also noted that

■93

Berruguete

.Vofes

1. Ronda Kasl (conversation with author,
lo Julv 1990) drew attention to a represen-
tation of the Last Supper w ith the Magdalen
at Christ's feet in the lower register ol the
carved high altar retable by (Jil de Siloe in the
monastery of Miraflores, Burgos; there is
another on the choir stall carved by Hanequin
de Bruselas in the monastery of Belmonte,
Cuenca (Maria Gonzalez Sanchez-(Jabriel, "Los
hermanos Egas, de Bruselas, en Cuenca. La
silleria de Coro de la Colegiata de Belmonte,"
Bolctin del seminano dc esiudios de arte y
arcbeohciia, fasc. 13-21 (1936-39); 21-34, pi. 19.

2. Maria de los Santos Garcia Felguera, ed.,
Pedro Bernyiieie, Cuademos de arte de la
Fundacion Universitaria, no. 4 (Madrid:
Fundacion Universitaria Espafiola, 1985),
80-81, nos. 147-50. The attribution was Hrst
made by Juan Lafora, "De Pedro Berruguete,"
Arte tspanol 8 (1926); 163-69. .Saint Peler

and Samt Paul are illustrated in Chandler
Rathfon Post, A History of Spanish Painlinij
(Cambridge; Harvard University Press, 1947),
9; pt. 1, 73, Hg 12.

3. A recent overview ol Berruguete and the
attributions to date is Felguera 1985. The
standard work in English remains Post 1947.
(All references are to volume nine, part one.)
See Post, 17—161.

4. Post, 38, fig. 4, 10b, fig. 27.

5. In addition to Kasl (see note 1 ), opinions
ha\e been offered bv Pilar Silva Maroto
(conversation with author, 12 Julv 1990), Judith
Berg Sobrc (letters to author, 1 June 1990 and
6 Julv 1990), Samuel K. Heath (letter to
author, 7 January 1991), and Chiyo Ishikawa
(conversation with author, 9 February' 1991),
all of \\ horn ha\e only seen photographs so
tar William B. Jordan, who has seen the
painting in its unrestored state, is in favor

of Berruguete as author, perhaps w ith a
collaborator, and stresses the conditioning
factors of its support and technique
(conversation with author, 5 March 1991 ).
h. Post, 5f4— 66, 383—502, identifies the
different hands among Berruguete's followers.
He tentatively attributes a Last Supper fresco
in the refectory of Santa Isabel de los Reyes,
Toledo, to the Riredes Master, suggesting a lost
work bv Berruguete nia\ ha\e inspired it (see
378-80, fig. 12f ).

7. Post, 443, fig. i{6. Heath has also drawn
attention to a group of large sargas in the
church ot San Pedro, Avila, painted bv the
Riofrio Master (for information on this artist
.see Post, 383—93).

some of the di.sciples are less individualized than others. For example, James the
Lesser and Matthew ha\e similar physiognomies as do James the Greater and
Andrew (the disciple seated to the proper left of Christ; his name has been worn
away). This supports the notion of collaboration in The Last Supper, for Berruguete's
own characters are normally highly individualized.

Spanish painting in this period still remains rclativelv unstudied, but eventually
the different hands at work may be attributed with more certainty. The total
production of Berruguete's workshop would have been enormous, and although the
\icissitudes of time and history in Spain ha\e taken a heavy toll, a good many works
by these fascinating but little-studied artists await rediscovery in the dark corners ot
obscure churches and monasteries. The Last Supper is not only a beautiful and mo\ ing
image of one of the profoundest moments in the New Testament but also a major
document in the history of Spanish Renaissance art. It is to be hoped that its
rediscovery and publication w ill lead to further research in this neglected field.

194

The Baptism of Christ

Antoine Coypel

French, 1(161-1722

c. 1690

Oil on canvas

{jV» X jSVit, in. (ijb.2 X 97. b cm)

Cjitt ot Tlic AhmansDn RHincLitiim

M. 90. 154

Provenance:

ftris, collection ot llic artist, tlun bv
descent to Charlcs-Antoine Covpol.

Paris, Coypel sale, April 17551 "o. 88.

Paris, Monsieur de .Saint-Philippe.

Paris, Ange- Laurent de La Live de Jully sale,
{ March 1770, no. 64.

ftris, Francois Giiillaume Mcnasjeot.

London, P & U. Colnaghi & Co. Ltd. (dealer).

Select Literature:

Ange-Laurent de La Live de Jullv, Cdialoijuc
hisiorique (17(14) and Caialogue raisonnc Jes
iabkaii\ (1770), introduction and concordance
hv Colin B. Hailev (New York: Acanthus
Books, 1988), Caialoijuc Itntorii^uc: 1, Ciitutoi^itc
raisonnc: 55, no. (>4.

1 lehiTt, Danonnjirc fintorcsijuc cl hi\[onLiiic dc
Paris ct dc scs cniirons a\cc Ic caialoijiic dcs plus
ceiehra arnsies anctcns et modcrncs et Icurs vies
(Paris; 17(17), 1:118.

Antoini- .Schnapper, .lii temps du Roi Solcil: Les
peimres de Louis .V/V, exh. cat. ( Lille: Palais des
Beaux-Arts, 1968), 46, under no. 46.

Nicole Gamier, Antoine Covpel (1661-1722)
(Paris: Arthena, 1989), 111, under no. 45.

A,.

L.ntoine Covpel was one ot the leading history painters ot the period ot
transition in French art trom the end ot the reiijn ot Louis XIV throuah the rcgence
and into the reian ot Louis XV. His tather, Noel Covpel, was also an esteemed
historv painter in the classical tradition, much intluenced hv the style ot Nicolas
Poussin, and was director ot the French Academy in Rome trom 1673 to 167^. Thus
early in his career Antoine was able to absorb the rich and varied lessons of Italian
art and also tiie more classicizing approach of the French academic tradition. He
became a member of the Royal Academy in 1681 and thereafter pursued an
exemplary official career working for the Church and the Crown.

In 1685 Coypel became official painter to Monsieur, due d'Orlcans, the brother
ot Louis XIV. He remained close to this family and later became premier peintre to
Philippe, the son of Monsieur, later to become due d'Orleans and Regent ol France
from 1715 to 1725, during the minority of Louis XV. For the Palais-Royal, the
Orleanses' palace in Paris, Coypel painted in 1725-26 one of his major works, a
magnificent ceiling for the main oallerv, known as the Galerie d'Fncc after its themes

o o O -

based on Virgil's story ot Aeneas (destroyed at the end ot the eighteenth century).
His other major scheme of decoration \vas the ceiling of the royal chapel at
Versailles, painted in 1709 and representing God the Father announcing the coming
of the Messiah and scenes of angels carrying the instruments of Christ's Passion.
He was made director of the Royal Academy in 1714 and premier peintre du roi in 1716.

"95

Coy PEL

Covpcl's stvlc is typital oJ tin- late wars of Louis XIV and tlio transition to the
new century. Less rigorously classical than that ol Poussiri or i\en the more colorful
and ornamental official arand manner of Charles Le Brun, Covpel's art is quite
eiiectic, draw in" on a \arietv of sources, including the French classical tradition,
the Italian harocjue, and the more coloristic art ot Ruhens. It the AcadeniN' in the
seventeenth century ijenerallv upheld the \alues ot classical drattsmanshiji and
composition associated with the strand manner that runs from Raphael to Poussin,
nexertheless French painters could not ignore the more liecorative and illusionistic
haroque art the\ saw in Rome nor the rich coloristic example ot Rubens, whose
ijreat cycle ot paintins^s celebratinij the reis^n ot Marie de' Medici had been pn-st-nt
in Paris at the Palais du LuxembouriJ since the 1620s. Coypel and his older
contemporary Charles de la Fosse were the two painters who best reconciled these
tendencies and formed the transition from the more ponderous style of art
associated with the reit;n ot Louis XIV to the more elesjant, litjht, and coloristic
styles of the regency and the age ot Louis XV.

The Baptism of Christ pertectly illustrates the v\av that Coypel could draw
eclectically on the artistic traditions mentioned abo\e anil reconcile them in a
moving work ot art that is in itself a beautitul and complete expression ot a major
aesthetic tendency of the 1690s. The painting is an autograph replica, only six inches
less in heisjht and three in width, of Covpel's altarpiece painted for the Chapel of
Saint John the Baptist in the abbey church of Saint-Riquier, Somme, and still in
place today. The artist must have been especially proud of this altarpiece, because
not only did he engrave it himself (probably from the museimi's \ersion), but he
kept the present picture in his own collection and bequeathed it to his son Charles-
Antoine Coypel, a painter no less important in his generation than .Antoine had been
in his.

According to Antoine-Joscph Dezallier d'Argenville, when Charles d'Aligre, the
abbot of Saint-Riquier, commissioned the leading religious painters of Paris to paint
a series of altarpieces for his recently renovated church, he organized a competition
among them to stimulate their best efforts.' The prize of a gold medal and two
hundred livres v\ent to Jean Jouvenet for his Louis XIV Heahng Those Afflicted with
Scrofulous in the Presence of Saint Marcoulr Along with Coypel the other artists in\ol\ed
with this important provincial commission to Parisian painters were Bon Boullogne
(Saint Anqilbert Receiving the Habit of Saint Benedict from Symphorian, Abbot of Saim-
Riquier), Louis de Boullogne (The Annunciation), Claude-Guv Halle {Christ Giving the
Keys to Saint Peter), and Antoine Paillet (The Obeisance of Saints Maiirus and Placidus in
Saint Benedict's Hands). All the altarpieces, except Louis de Boullogne's, which is lost,
remain in situ in the church of Saint-Riquier. In 17 12 the Abbe Mole commi.ssioned
two further altarpieces, The Exhumation of Saint Angilbert's Remains and Saint Michael
Archangel, from Louis de Silvestre to complete the series.

While some of the subjects chosen for this commission, such as Covpel's The
Baptism of Christ, are quite conventional, others arc rather obscure, such as those by
Jouvenet, Bon Boullogne, and Paillet. This is because they retlect aspects of local
de\otion and ecclesiastical historv For example, Saint Marcoul, a sixth-century
Norman abbot, was \enerated localK' for his healing powers, hence his presence
as the king's companion in Jouxenet's picture; Saint Angilbert, a son-in-law of

'97

COYPEL

\oics

1. Antoine-Joseph Dezallier d'Argenvillc, .lfcri?</tf
de la vie des plus jameux pemtres (Paris: de Bure
I'aine, 1762), 4:545-

2. Antoinc Schnappcr, /cun jomcnci (Paris:
Lconif lagct Librairi-, 1474), 95-97. "Ji,
no. 45, Hg. 57.

C'harKmasJne, died as abbot ot Saint-Riquicr in A.D. 815; and not onlv was Saint
Maurus said to have introduced Benedictine rule into France, but the abbey ot
Saint-Riquier, under the direction of Abbe d'Aligre, had adhered to the so-called
Maurist reform since 1659.

In C'ovpel's paintins? John tin- Baptist, dressed in homespun camel hair garments,
is baptizing Jesus in the river Jordan. John, who lived and preached in the wilder-
ness of Judea, prophesied the coming ot Christ and ursjed repentance through the
act of baptism. Covpel depicts the scene in an open landscape, \\ ith Christ standing
in the waters of the Jordan. The account in Matthew 3:16—17 is followed quite
closiK, w ith God the Father bk-ssing the proceedings, angels and cherubim in
attendance, and the dove, representative of the Holv Spirit, appearing in a glorv of
divine light: "And, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit ot
God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven,
.saving, This is niv beloved Son, in whom 1 am well pleased."

As noted above. The Baptism oj Christ is a slightly smaller autograph version of the
altarpiece at Saint-Riquier It was a common practice of the day tor an artist to keep
just such a replica ot a particularly important commission in his studio alter the
original had been dispatched to the client. Such a painting was not a preparatory
sketch, but a finished replica of the original. If the colors of Covpel's work owe
much to Italian baroque art of the late .se\enteenth century and the ho\ering angel
in the left foreground, descended from the angels of Correggio, could ha\e How n in
from some Roman baroque altarpiece of the 1670s or 1680s, nevertheless his study of
Rubens is paramount. Covpel was very tamiliar with Rubens's great Medici cycle at
the Palais du Luxembourg. The general composition ot The Baptism oj Christ seems to
have its origin in The Birth of Marie de' MeJici, while a direct quotation trom Rubens is
the face of the small angel holding a white cloth behind the head ot Christ, w hich
was taken trom the second amore on the chariot in I he Marnaqe of Henr\ l\ and Mane
de' Medici. This sort of creative eclecticism is absolutely typical of French painters ot
Covjiel's time. Moreo\er the lightness and elegance of his design and the sweetness
of the religious sentiment look forward to the approach ot eighteenth-century
painters, culminatiniJ in such works as Francois Boucher's \ati\it\ (Musee des
Beaux-.Arts, L^on) painted for Madame de Pompadour's chapel at Bellevue in 1750.

198

A Glory of the Virgin with the
Archangel Gabriel and Saints
Eusebius, Roch, and Sebastian

Sebastiano Ricci

Italian (Vcnici'), 1(159-1754

c. 1724-25

Oil on canvas

44"/i6 X 21; in. (Hi-^ X hj.5 im)

Gift ot The AlimaiiMin Hoiimlation

M. 90. 155

Provenance:

London, H & D. Colnaglii & Co. ltd. (diakr).

Sll ECT LITERATUKI-:

\ tollccior^ Mi^cclhn\ : hironL\}n Pjinlin^js
1600-lSOO, cxh. cat. (London: 1^ ivi I).
Colnaglii S; Co. Ltd., 1490), 28-29, |)l. 4.

■hastiano Ricci wa.s the Icadinu dccoratiw painter ot late- .scvcntix-ntli- anil cariv
eightccnth-ccnturv Venice, the artist who rcviwd tor his own time the threat
sixteenth-centurv Venetian tradition of decoration that is associated mainh with
Paolo Veronese (cat. nos. 6-7). Ricci took Venetian painting into its final hurst of
energy and olorv in the eiahtei-iith tenturv and was tollowi-d h\ other Vein'tian
decorative painters such as his nephe\^ and collaborator, landscape painter Marco
Ricci; the great vedutisti Bernardo Bellotto and Antonio Canaletto (cat. no. 27);
Gianantonio Pelleorini; and Gianihattista Tiepolo (cat. no. 42). All these artists soon
established international reputations and led extraordinariK itini-rant careiTs all i)\er
Europe, working more tor clients outside Venice than tor local jMtrons. Ricci was no
exception, painting throughout northern Italv, as tar south as Florence and Rome,
and also in Vienna, where he worked at the Sch()nbrunn Palace. In 1712 he traxeled
with Marco to England, where he spent four years. He later returned to Venice via
Pari.s, where he had a considerable intluence on French ilecorati\e painting.

Ricci executed impressive cycles of frescoes for churches and palaces as well
as altarpieces, smaller de\otional paintings, and mythological v\orks. The most
important source for his art was Veronese, whose masterpieces he studied in Venice.
From Veronese he learned his use of color and handling of paint and how to
organize a large and complex composition into a clear and legible design without
sacriHcing dynamism or decorative effect. Of course Ricci also assimilated the rich
handling and dramatic, illusionistic techniques of Italian baroque painting ot the
se\enteenth century.

The museum's painting is a work ot Ricci's lull maturity and is the moJcllo tor
an altarpiece described by Jeffery Daniels as "one ot Ricci's most splendid and
luminous," A Glorv of the Virqin with the Archangel Gabriel and Saints Eusebius, Roch, and
Sebastian, completed by 1725 for the chapel of the Venaria Reale, a royal hunting
lodge on the outskirts of Turin.' During the last decade ot his lite Ricci received a
number of important commissions from the House of Sa\oy in Turin for over-doors,
large historical paintings, and altarpieces. He painted these works in Venice because

199

Ricci

he was not allowed to \ isit Turin owing to a youthful indiscretion over a woman.
Ricci's altarpioce for the Chapel of Saint Hubert at the Venaria Reale is arguablv the
greatest picture he diil tor Turin. It was jilaced in the left transept chapel, dedicated
to the Virgin, lacing an altarpiece in the risjht chapel bv Francesco Trevisani, the
Imniuculatc Conception with Saini Louis of hroncc ond the Blessed Amadcus of itiioi.' Two
other altarpieces were pro\ided bv Sebastiano Conca, the Madonna and Child iviih
Saint Carlo Borromeo and the Madonna and Child with Saint Francis of Sales. ^ The
paintings are now located in the main hall of the University of Turin, although the
original placement ot Ricci's work is recorded in an old photograph.^ The chapel of
the Venaria Reale had been renovated by the architect Filippo Ju\arra during the
early 1720s, and the commission of the altarpieces must have been part of that
program. The accounts of the royal household, kept in the Archi\ io di Stato, Turin,
show that on March 21, 1725, Ricci recei\ed payment tor an "incona . . .
rappresentante la Vergine, I'angclo Gabriele, S. Rocco, S. Sebastiano e S. Husebio
con coro d'angioli, per uno di due altari laterali delta Reale cappella delta Venaria"
(altarpiece representing the Virgin, the angel Gabriel, Saint Roch, Saint Sebastian
and Saint Eusebius with a choir of angels, for one of two lateral altars of the Royal
chapel of the Venaria).^ The altarpiece is rich in color and was, in the original
location, complemented by a surround of polychrome marble, designed by Juvarra
to strike a vibrant chromatic note in the general whiteness ot the chapel. Ricci's
altarpiece was greatly admired by the eighteenth-century travel writers Charles-
Nicholas Cochin and Jean-Jacques Lalande as well as the Abbe de Saint-Non, one ot
the great amateurs ot painting ot the day, who called it "un tres beau tableau."''

An altarpiece ot this type does not depict an event trom religious history (as does
Antoine Covpel's The Baptism oj Christ, cat. no. 50) but rather ser\es to tocus the
mind and emotions of the spectator on a doctrinal truth. Ricci's altarpiece is a
glorification ot the Virgin and her Annunciation. At the top ot the painting, in the
holiest sphere, the Virgin is show n surrounded by adoring angels and cherubim in
a glor\- of light, the light of hea\en. Below, the vision is pointed out by the flying
figure of the Archangel Gabriel, who is carrying a lily, symbol of the Virgin's purity,
and addressing the three saints positioned on the ground. Show n are Saint
Sebastian, the third-century Christian martyr, who is tied to a column, his side
pierced bv an arrow ; the fourteenth-century Saint Roch, accompanied by his dog
and traveler's staff (the sore on his leg refers to his work in ministering to victims of
the plague; his presence in the altarpiece may refer to the terrible epidemic that had
ravaged Marseille in 1722); and Saint Eusebius, the fourth-century Bishop ot Vercelli,
who is seated at left in his splendid ecclesiastical robes. Bv their presence the three
saints conhrm the important doctrinal idea of the virgin birth ot Christ, as Mary
learns that she is to bear the divine child. From the three saints through the Hgure
of Gabriel to the scene of the Annunciation the spectator's gaze is draw n up trom
the real world (the chapel) through ascending levels of divinity. The companion
altarpiece by Trevisani aftirms a related doctrine, that of the Immaculate
Conception, the Virgin's own virgin birth.

The Los Angeles modello differs from the Hnished altarpiece in several minor
respects, such as the position of Saint Roch's dog, the flooring in the toreground,
and the glory of angels around the Virgin, but in essence the design is the same.

RiCCI

.Voles

1. Jefferv Daniels, Sch<Jii]anc Rkci (Hove:
Wavland Publishers, 197b), i2ti— 27, no. 441,
Kg. 281.

2. Frank R. l^iFederico, hrancesco Trevisani:
Eighieenth-Ceniury Painter m Rome (Washington,
D.C.: Decatur House Press, 1977), bi— 62,

no. 81, pi. by.

5. Schasiiano Conca (l68o—iy64), exh. cat.
(Gacta: Pilazzo De Vio, 1981), 154—55,
cat. nos. j2a, i2b.

4. Amireina Gri.seri and Giovanni Romano,
tihppo juvarra a Torino. Suo\t pro<^c(li per la citta,
exh. cat. (Turin: Cassa di Rispamiio, 1989),
218-19, pi- 55

5. .4 Collectors .Miicellan\ , 29.

b. Daniels, 1 2b; Pierre Rosenberg and Barbara
Brejon de La\ergnee, Samt-Non. Froi^onarJ:
Panopticon Italiano (Un diano di viaggio ntrovato,
I7S9-'7('II (Home: hdizioni dell'Klefante,
1986), 7b.

There are pentimcnti that re\eal Ricci's sources and thoughts in creating the image.
On the rii^ht above Saint Sebastian it is evident that Ricci orisJinaliv intended to
shov\ one or perhaps tv\o tull columns, a pictorial idea that can be traced back to
one ot Titian's most famous altarpieces. The Pesaro .Madonna in the Venetian church
of Santa Maria dei Frari. The Hnal solution with the broken column was inspired bv
Veronese's equally celebrated Saint Sebastian altarpiece at San Sebastiano in Venice.
Indeed the design of Ricci's altarpiece is rather like a baroque version of the
Veronese, a moving testament to his great sixteenth-century predecessor.

View at La Ferte-Saint-Aubin,
near Orleans

Constant Troyon

Frcncli, uSio— 65

c 1837

Oil on can\a.s

{o'Vio X 75 "Cis in. (129.0 X 192.0 cm)

.Signed 1o\mt left: C. Tro%on

Gift of Till' Alimanson Houmlation

M.91.36

Provenance:

Frame, pri\ati' tollivtion.

Monaco, sale, Sothehv'-s. ih June 1990, no. h2 3.

Zurich, Kruno Meissner (dealer).

Sklect Literature:

Llnnulilislled.

constant Trovon wa.s born at Sevres, where his parents were tteeorative painters
for the tamous |3orcelain manutaetory there. He was destined to follow in their
footsteps, and part of his trainint; consisted ol sketching the wooded countryside
around the communities of Sevres, Saint-Cloud, and Meudon. IIh' point ot such
exercises v\as to train the hand and eve in draw insJ from nature and to stock
sketchbooks with landscape motifs for porcelain decoration. Trovon's background
meant that he was technically proficient as a draftsman and watercolorist at an earlv
a^e. His employment at the Sevres factory continued through the earlv i8jos, giving
him the opportunity to travel extensively in search of decorative landscape ideas. It
is not know n what motivated him to become something more than an anonymous
china painter, but his turn to professional painting did coincide w ith a gene^ral rise
of French interest in the genre of landscape painting.

During the 1850s Troyon increasingly associated with artists who were
independent landscape painters. Such individuals as Camille Roqueplan, Paul
Huet, Camille Flcrs, Louis Cabat, and especially Jules Dupre were his friends and
companions in the open air and the studio. These and other artists came to be
known as "the generation of 1850," after the democratic July Revolution ot that
year Many such young French painters, in a spirit of artistic revolution, w ished to
express their vision of nature without the constraining pictorial conventions of the
old academic system. Ever since the fall of Napoleon in 1815, when cross-Channel
cultural relations opened again after a quarter-centurv of hostilities follow ing the
French Revolution, many artists had been looking for alternatives to the tired
academic tradition. Some of them found inspiration in the example ot the F.nglish,
who had developed a distinctive national school of landsca|jc painting. The artist
most admired by these young Frenchmen was John Constable, who took advantage
of French Anglomania in the 1820s and sent several important works for exhibition
to the Paris Salon. One of these was The Hay Wain (National Gallery, London), the
veritable icon of English landscape naturalism, which Constable exhibited in Paris
in 1824 along with another monumental canvas, V'leir on the Sloiir near Dedham

203

Troyon

Fig. j2a

John Constable, V';e»' on the Stour near
Dedham, 1822, oil on can\as, 51 x 74 in. (129.5 ^
]88.o cm), Henry t. Huntinsiton Library and
Art Gallery, San Marino, California (2{.iS).

(Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino, California, H^. j2a).
These two admired canxases remained in France for many years: The Hav Wain
was back in England by 1838, while View on the Stour near Dedhaw, sold in Paris in
1830, was not recorded again in England until 1845.' The continued presence of
these works in France through the 1820s and 1830s must have had an effect on
French artists, but this has nc\er been as apparent as it is now with the recent
rediscovery of this painting by Trovon.

It is impossible to look at the View at La Fene-Saint-Aubin. near Orleans w ithout
thinking of Constable's example. Presented is a humble site of no particular
historical or topographical consequence, whose simple natural beauties and
characteristic rural activities are revealed by the artist. The magnificent trees are the
most arresting feature of the scene, along w ith the warm light that plays on them
and suffuses the panoramic distance. Two men, one standing in a trench to facilitate
the use of a saw, are squaring off a tree trunk into a large beam. A woman and child
pass by and observe the scene. A man walking his dog rests and contemplates the
depths of a pond. One child is feeding a horse, while other youths gather nuts from
an autumnal tree. At the right the shadowy figure of a huntsman moves through the
woods, while on the left a couple can be seen approaching a cottage. In the distant
fields tiny figures are at work. This last detail recalls one of Troyon's freshest and
most calligraphic oil sketches. Fields outside Paris (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,
fig. 52b), which, of all French oil sketches of the nineteenth century, is the one
that is closest in feeling to the sketches of Constable. It probably dates from the
late 1830S, around the time Troyon painted the museum's picture, and is most likely
a product of his open-air sketching activities.

Further research \\i\\ be required to establish whv the \ illage of La Fcrte-Saint-
Aubin was of such interest to Troyon that he painted it several times. Pierre Miquel
has suggested that V'jeir at La Fene-Saint-Aubin. near Orleans is one of two or three
paintings of this subject that Troyon submitted for exhibition to the Salon of 1837.

20J

Troyon

Fig. {lb

Constant Trovon, Fields outside Pans, late
1830s, oil on paperboard, loVs x 17^/8 in.
(27.0 X 45.4 cm), Henrv C and Martha B.
AniJell Collection, courtesy Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston {19.117).

Notes

1. Graham Reynolds, The Later Pamtmijs and
Draivintjs of John Constable (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1984), 1:67— 69, no. 21. 1,
99—100, no. 22.1, 2: plates 213, 334.

2. Miquel is cited in the Sotheby's auction
catalogue, 34. See also Pierre Miquel, Le
Pavsagejrangais au XIXe Steele. IS24—ISJ4:
L'Ecole de la nature (Maurs-la-Jolie: Editions
de la Martinelle, 1975), 2:324-25; Explication
des ouvrages de peinture, exh. cat. (Paris: Musee
Roval, 1837), 18b, nos. 1741—42; Explication des
ouvrages de petnture, exh. cat. (Paris: Musee
Royal, 1840), 175, no. 1564.

3. Daniel Wildenstein, Claude Monet: Biographic
et cataloijue raisonne (l.ausanne: La Bibliotheque
des Arts, 1974), 1:419, no. i.

It is very likely the .same work a.s the large View near Orleans he exhibited at the Salon
of 1840.' The museum'.s landscape is carefully constructed and balanced, not onlv
to create a convincing space but also to convey a sense of pastoral calm. While it is
invested v\ ith the monumental grandeur of a landscape bv Nicolas Poussin or Claude
Lorrain, it also betrays careful observation and a true feeling for the immediate
experience of nature reminiscent of Constable. The scale of the work especiallv
evokes the large canvases that Constable called his "six-footers," such as the
alorementioned View on the Stour near Dedham. Trovon was imitating Constable's idea
of exhibiting a monumental image of an aspect of nature that traditionallv would
have been considered insigniHcant or banal. The wav the cottages nestle under the
lovingly depicted trees and the affectionate observation of everydav rural life could
almost have been painted by the Knglish artist. Troyon's color also in\okes the
example of Constable, with its varietv of fresh greens, the flecked highlights that
enliven the surface, and the saturated reds and blues that draw attention to some of
the figures and add \i\ id notes to the landscape. Finallv, Trovon's debt to the English
master is palpable in the handling of the paint, which is expressive of the rude and
undistinguished nature that is his subject. The clearlv visible, textural character of
his brushwork boldly conveys the rustic character of the scene.

It was not onlv their apparently ordinary subject matter but also their forthright
and painterly way of expressing it that caused Troyon and other realist painters of
the 1830s to have problems with the artistic establishment. Traditionally landscape
painters were expected to show a carefully finished and highly idealized image of
nature, or at least a site famous for its beauty, sublimity, or associations, not an
ordinary place treated in a naturalistic way. The pictorial and ideological struggle
between the old academic tradition and realism would continue into the 1840s with
the Barbizon School, ol w hich Troyon became a prominent member The artists of
this school, taking their group name from the village of Barbizon in the Forest of
Fontainebleau (\\here they often li\cd and worked from the 1840s through the
1870S), issued from the "generation of 1850." .-Mong with Narcisse Virgile Diaz,
Theodore Rousseau, Jean-Franqois Millet (cat. no. 23), and Charles-Emile Jacque,
Troyon was one of the best-knov\n Barbizon painters and specialized in large
panoramic landscapes w ith cattle or more closely focused scenes of livestock
or huntsmen with their hounds.

Quite apart from its inherent beaut\- as one of the great Salon landscapes of the
early nineteenth century and its significance vis-a-vis the influence of Constable
in France, Troyon's View at La Ferte-Saini-Auhin. near Orleans prepared the wa\ for
impressionism in its feeling for light and nature and free, painterlv handling. It is
significant that Claude Monet, not long after arri\ ing in Paris from Le Havre in May
ot 1859, \isited Troyon and sought the older painter's advice.*

206

Index of Artists

This index lists tin- lu-giiiiiing pagi- luinilxr ol ivuli artist's entry or entries.

Bartolommi-i), Fra (Banio di-ll.i Porta) 2h

Bellini, Jacopo 147

Berrutjuete, Pedro (and Workshop) 189

Berthelemv, Jean-Simon 119

Bevercn, Abraham van i{{

Canalctto (Giovanni Antonio Canal) ro8
Castiirlione, Gitivanni Benetletto 128
Champaigne, Philippe de 177
Chardin, Jean-Simeon 58
Claude Lorrain (Claude (Jellee) 165
Covpel, Anloine 195

Domeniehino (Domenieo Zampieri) 181
Dyck, Sir Anthony van 140

Fabritius, Carel 1S5
Fontana, Annibale 62

Gandolfi, Gaetano 104
Goltzius, Hendriek 135

I lals, Frans jo

1 lei-m, jan l)a\ ills/ d<' 11,1

Koninek, Philips, and Adriaen van de Velde
if8

I astman, Pieter 144
la Tour, (.ieorijes de 46
Le Gros, Pierre II i25

Manetti, Rutilio 76

Mazzanti, Ludovico 101

Millet, jean-Francois 95

Monet, Claude 90

Morazzone (Pier Franeeseo Mazzueehelli) 22

Murillo, Bartolome Hsteban iif

Pajou, Auaustin 40
Poerson, Charles 72
Preti, Mattia (il Ca\aliere Calabrese) i;2

Steen, Jan 1(19

Tanzio da Varallo (Antonio d'F.iirii.c)) 79
Teniers, Uavid the Younger, and Jan l)a\ids

de Heem 19
Ticpolo, Giovainii Battista ihi
Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) 65
Troyon, Constant 20 j
Tuby, Jean-Baptistc I 51

Vaecaro, Domenieo Antonio (Circle of) 97

Vasari, Giorgio 17;

Veronese, Paolo (Paolo Caliari) jj

Vouet, Simon 122

Vuillard, hdouard 87

Wtcvvaei, Joaehini Anthonisz 68

Zoppo, Mareo (Mareo di Ruggero) 83

Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn 12
Reni, Guido {4, 112
Ricci, Sebastiano 199
Ruisdael, Jacob Isaacksz van 4;

207

County of Los Angeles

Board of Supervisors, 1991

Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Board of Trustees, Fiscal Year 1991—92

Michael D. Antono\ich, Chairman
Deane Dana
Edmund D. Edelman
Kenneth Hahn
Gloria Mohna

Chihf Administrative Officer
AND Director of Personnel

Richard B. Dixon

Daniel N. Belin, Chairman

Robert F. Maguirc III, President

Julian Ganz, Jr, Chairman of the Executive

Committee
Dr Richard A. Simms, Vice President
Walter L. Weisman, Vice President
Dr George N. Boone, Treasurer
Mrs. Lionel Bell, Secretary
Harl A. Powell III, Director

Mrs. Howard Ahmanson
William H. Ahmanson
Howard P Allen
Robert O. Anderson
R. Stanton Avery
Norman Barker, Jr
Donald L. Bren
Mrs. Willard Brown
Mrs. B. Gerald Cantor
Mrs. William M. Carpenter
Mrs. Edward W. Carter
Hans Cohn
Robert A. Day
Michael R. Eorman
Mrs. F. Daniel Frost
David Geffen
Herbert M. Gelfand
Arthur Gilbert
Stanley Grinstein
Robert H. Halff
Felix Juda

Mrs. Elizabeth A. Keck
Mrs. Dvvight M. Kendall
Mrs. Harry Lenart
Eric Lidov\
Steve Martin

William A. Mingst

Sergio Munoz

Dr Franklin D. Murphy

Mrs. Barbara PSuley Pagen

Sidney R. Petersen

Hiroyuki Saito

Richard E. Sherwood

Nathan Smooke

Ray Stark

Frederick R. Weisman

David L. Wolper

James R. Young

Julius L. Zelman

Selim Zilkha

Honorary Life Trustees
Mrs. ,^nna Bing .Arnold
Edward W Carter
Charles E. Ducommun
Mrs. Freeman Gates
Mrs. Nasli Heeramaneck
Joseph B. Koepfli
Mrs. Rudolph Liebig
Mrs. Lucille Ellis Simon
Mrs. Lillian ,'\podaca Weiner

Past Presidents

Edward W Carter, 1961-66

Sidney F. Brody, 1966—70

Dr Franklin D. Murphy, 1970—74

Richard H. Sherwood, 1974-7S

Mrs. F. Daniel Frost, 1978-82

Julian Ganz, Jr, 1982—86

Daniel N. Belin, 1986-90

Internet Archive Audio

Featured

Top

Images

Featured

Top

Software

Featured

Top

Books

Featured

Top

Video

Featured

Top

Mobile Apps

Browser Extensions

Archive-It Subscription

Save Page Now

Full text of "The Ahmanson gifts : European masterpieces in the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art"

See other formats