COV.MAR10.v.FinalC:cover.june.pp.corr 18/02/2010 16:11 Page 1
M A R CH
2010 T H E B U RLINGTON MAG AZI NE
The art of Siena The commission for Gentile da Fabriano’s ‘Madonna of the banchetti’ NO .
Sassetta’s unfinished altarpiece for S. Pietro, Siena | An overlooked Vecchietta | Mattia Preti in Siena
1284
Taddeo Bartolo’s polyptych in Pisa: reconstruction and discoveries
VOL . C L II
The seicento in Naples | Reynolds | Giovanni Giacometti | Arshile Gorky | Art History Reviewed: Clement Greenberg
USA
$35·50
March 2010
£15.50/€ 24
march10baroni:AQ_31815_J_Baroni 17/02/2010 17:31 Page 1
Herman van SWaneveLT Woerden 1603 – 1655 Paris
Landscape with the Finding of Moses Oil on canvas, 43.5 by 55.2 cm. (17 1/4 by 213/4 in).
THe eUrOPean FIne arT FaIr Maastricht, 12th–21st March 2010 : Stand 344
SaLOn DU DeSSIn Paris, Palais de la Bourse, 24th–29th March 2010 : Stand 11
JEAN-LUC BARONI LTD. 7/8 Mason’s Yard, Duke Street, St James’s, London SW1Y 6BU. Tel: 020-7930 5347 Fax: 020-7839 8151 E-mail: info@jlbaroni.com
Galerie Canesso Tableaux anciens
Agostino Tassi Ponzano Romano (Rome), 578 - Rome, 644 ................................................................................... .
The Arrival of Cleopatra at Tarsus Oil on canvas, 119 × 170 cm (46 ⁷⁄₈ × 66 ¹⁵⁄₁₆ in)
tefaf ‒ maastricht ( 12-21 march 10 ) ‒ o. 378 26, rue Laffitte • 75009 Paris • Tel. + 33 1 40 22 61 71 • Fax + 33 1 40 22 61 81 • e-mail : contact@canesso.com
annonce Burlington.indd 1
www.canesso.com
4/02/10 17:27:11
Europe’s largest and longest-running works on paper event with over sixty exhibitors spanning five hundred years of old master, modern and contemporary prints. Galleries, dealers, studios and publishers from America, Europe and the United Kingdom.
The 25th London Original Print Fair
Royal Academy of Arts Burlington House · Piccadilly · London W 1
Thursday 29 April to Bank Holiday Monday 3 May 2010 Open daily 10am to 6pm Thursday and Friday late opening until 8pm Telephone 020 7439 2000 Email info@londonprintfair.com
www.londonprintfair.com Howard Hodgkin Night Palm, 1990 (detail) · hand-coloured etching with carborundum © Howard Hodgkin · image courtesy Alan Cristea Gallery, London.
march10tomassoA:Agnews 16/02/2010 16:00 Page 1
TOMASSO BROTHERS F I N E A RT
Antonio Susini (1558–1624) (after a model by Giambologna) The Fowler Executed c. 1580–1600 Bronze. 31 cm high Provenance : Ballyfin House, County Laois, Ireland
Bardon Hall Weetwood Lane info@tomassobrothers.co.uk
Leeds LS16 8HJ
UK
Tel: +44 (0)113 275 5545 www.tomassobrothers.co.uk
Are you ready to own a masterpiece? TEFAF Maastricht is the world’s greatest art and antiques fair. At TEFAF Maastricht you will find an unsurpassed selection of genuine masterpieces from 260 of the world’s most prestigious dealers. It’s the only fair where you can see and buy paintings from Breughel to Bacon as well as objects reflecting 6,000 years of excellence in the applied arts. And where else is the authenticity, quality and condition of every item verified by 26 vetting committees, made up of 168 internationally respected experts? For art lovers, TEFAF Maastricht is the ultimate place to go.
MAASTRICHT 12-21 MARCH 2010 The Netherlands
The World’s Leading Art & Antiques Fair
www.tefaf.com
Principal sponsor
+31 411 645 090 MECC Maastricht The Netherlands
TFF10_BURLINGTON_241x314_FC v2.indd 1
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march10sarti:Agnews 17/02/2010 17:29 Page 1
G. SARTI 137 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré – 75008 Paris – France – Tel : (33) 1 42 89 33 66 Fax : (33) 1 42 89 33 77 – giovanni.sarti@wanadoo.fr – www.sarti-gallery.com
GIOVANNI DI PAOLO (Siena, 1398-1482) The Virgin and Child between Saints Catherine of Alexandria, Dorothy and two Angels. Circa 1420. Tempera and gold on wood - 34.6 x 22.6 cm.
This painting is at the exhibition in Siena “Da Jacopo della Quercia a Donatello” from 26th March to 11th July 2010
Exhibiting at : TEFAF MAASTRICHT, 12-21 March 2010 – BOOTH no. 375
TEFAF Roundup:Master Drawings Roundup 19/02/2010 11:31 Page 1
MAASTRICHT 2010
12-21 March 2010
A selection of highlights to be exhibited at the fair
2010 AT TEFAF MAASTRICHT sees the completion of a twenty-two year odyssey to bring together the largest and most diverse (in disciplines) group of leading dealers anywhere in the world. The fair will always gradually evolve to reflect changing tastes and market conditions but TEFAF on Paper represents the final major expansion. Nineteen exhibitors from eight countries will be positioned in the upstairs exhibition hall (where TEFAF design was inaugurated in 2009). This new section compliments but in no way replaces the existing experts showing works on paper in the Paintings, Drawings and Prints and TEFAF Modern sections. TEFAF on Paper will incorporate a broad sweep of specialist interests including old-master and modern drawings and prints, photography, antiquarian books and manuscripts, watercolours and Japanese prints.
St Jerome translating the Bible in the desert, by Marco Palmezzano (c.1459–1539). c.1537. Tempera on panel, 66.5 by 57.5 cm. GALERIE G. SARTI, PARIS
Notable among the new faces is Artur Ramon, an established dealer from Barcelona. Although a dealer in old-master and modern works, here he has chosen to show a selection of fine old-master drawings. Day and Faber will be bringing a superb chalk drawing by François Boucher (1703–1770) entitled Charlotte Sparre, holing a cup of coffee. Moving into the twentieth century, Emanuel von Baeyer will be bringing a sixteen-sheet notebook compiled by Pablo Picasso. This document created in 1904–05 was used primarily during the creation of the painting Famille de Saltimbanques, in the National Gallery of Art, Washington. Leading photography specialists Galerie Johannes Faber (Vienna) will exhibit a silver print by the Austrian Rudolf Koppitz from 1925 of four Russian dancers. The Michael Hoppen Gallery (London) will be bringing Men Wrestling, one of a series of photographs commissioned in c.1975 by Francis Bacon. These prints were used in the creation of subsequent paintings. TEFAF Design, which launched so successfully last year, has vacated the upstairs hall and will reside next to, but separate from, the TEFAF Modern section on the ground floor. Here an array of exquisite objects can be found, including a suite by Frank Lloyd Wright, a chair by Le Corbusier and furniture made by Otto Wagner for his own apartment. This year the full compliment of two hundred and sixty dealers will also be displaying works from the usual categories one has come to expect at Maastricht. There will be specialists in western art from all ages, classical antiquities, manuscripts, textiles, silver, jewellery and many other categories. For more details on the fair: www.tefaf.com
Meleager presenting the head of the Calydonian boar to Atalanta, by Giovanni Battista Crosato (c.1697–1756). Oil on canvas, 81.3 by 99.1 cm. AGNEWS, LONDON
The courtyard of the Doge’s Palace, Venice, with the Scala dei Giganti and Saint Mark’s Basilica beyond, by Michele Giovanni Marieschi (1710–43). Oil on canvas, 118.5 by 180.7 cm. OTTO NAUMANN, NEW YORK
Venice: the Grand Canal at the entrance to the Cannaregio with the Church of San Geremia and the Palazzo Labia, by Pietro Bellotti (1725–c.1800). Oil on canvas, 113.5 by 139 cm. CHARLES BEDDINGTON, LONDON
march10Agnews:Agnews 19/02/2010 11:43 Page 1
ESTA B LI S H E D 1 8 1 7
BENJAMIN WEST
Cupid and Psyche
(1738–1820)
Oil on canvas, 54¼ x 56¼ in (137.8 x 142.9 cm) Signed and dated ‘B. West 1808’
Offered by West's sons to the United States in 1826 (25) and sold by them; Christie's, London, 22-25 May 1829, (75) bt. John Hick; John Hick, Mytton Hall, Whalley, Lancashire; Christie's, London, 18 June 1909, (80) from where purchased by T. Permain, London with T.J. Blakeslee, Blakeslee Galleries, New York; purchased by the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 28 February 1910.
COLLECTIONS:
We will be exhibiting at The European Fine Art Fair MAASTRICHT 12th–21st March 35 ALBEMARLE STREET, LONDON W1S 4JD TEL 020-7290 9250 FAX 020-7491 0451 e-mail: agnews@agnewsgallery.co.uk www.agnewsgallery.co.uk
TEFAF Roundup:Master Drawings Roundup 19/02/2010 11:32 Page 2
MAASTRICHT 2010
12-21 March 2010
A selection of highlights to be exhibited at the fair
Three heads of children, by Giulio Cesare Procaccini (1574–1625). c.1620. Inscribed on verso in an old hand: ‘Mad.a Sig.a (?) Falco’. Oil on panel, 26.4 by 35 cm. ROB SMEETS, GENEVA
Creation of the world and expulsion from paradise, by Valentin Bousch (1514–41). 1531–1533. Stained glass from the Church of Saint Firmin at Flavignysur-Moselle, Lorraine. 289.56 by 76.2 cm. SAM FOGG, LONDON
Madonna and Child enthroned between Saints Bartholomew, James Major and two female saints, by Giovanni di Paolo (1397–1482). Panel, 37.3 by 26.7 cm. (with the original frame). MORETTI, LONDON, FLORENCE & NEW YORK
A spaniel looking to the left, by AlexandreFrançois Desportes (1661–1743). Black chalk and oil on light brown paper, 31.9 by 26 cm. GALERIE ERIC COATALEM, PARIS
Deux femmes, by Paul Gauguin (1848–1903). Signed and dated lower left: P. Gauguin 1902. Oil on canvas, 74 by 64.5 cm. DICKINSON, LONDON
Audience of Cardinal Aldobrandini in the loggia of the Villa Belvedere in Frascati, by François-Marius Granet (1775–1849). c.1820. Signed lower left : GRANET / FRASCATI. Oil on canvas, 37 by 47 cm. DIDIER AARON & CIE, PARIS
Jean-Baptiste OUDRY A Lacquered Stool with Books, Engravings and a Musette Oil on canvas, H. 91 cm ; L. 72 cm signed and dated 1742
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Tefaf Maastricht - Booth 368 GALERIE ERIC COATALEM 93, Faubourg Saint HonorĂŠ 75008 PARIS Tel : 00 33 1 42 66 17 17 e-mail : coatalem@coatalem.com
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/.,).% */52.!,
! FREE TO ACCESS JOURNAL CONTAINING NEW RESEARCH BY SCHOLARS INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE 6 ! ON ALL ASPECTS OF MATERIAL CULTURE DESIGN PRACTICE HISTORIES OF DESIGN AND OTHER MUSEUM RELATED ½ELDS CONNECTED TO THE 6 !´S WORLD CLASS COLLECTIONS 6ISIT WWW VAM AC UK VANDAJOURNAL
Venator & Hanstein Book an d Prin t Auc t ion s Spring Auctions 2010 26 March Rare Books Manuscripts Autographs Drawings 27 March Drawings, Prints and Books of the 20th century Catalogues upon request and online
Johann Strauss II His last musical sketches, ca. 1899 Autograph manuscript, 61 pages
Cäcilienstrasse 48 · D-50667 Cologne · Germany · Tel. +49–221–257 54 19 · Fax 257 55 26 · www.venator-hanstein.de
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march10dorotheum1:AQ33598_M_Bonham-Carter 12/02/2010 14:40 Page 1
S I N C E 17 0 7
Auctions 20 – 23 April 2010
Old Master Paintings 19th Century and Oriental Paintings Works of Art, Jewellery Palais Dorotheum, Dorotheergasse 17, 1010 Vienna, Austria Tel. +43-1-515 60-570, client.services@dorotheum.at www.dorotheum.com
Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, il Guercino (1591–1666), Rinaldo and Armida, oil on canvas, 113 x 153 cm, € 400,000 – 600,000
march10pageXIV:Layout 1 18/02/2010 15:37 Page 1
Brokers specialising in fine art insurance undertakes For further information please contact: Tel: +44 (0)207 234 4281 Email: art@heathlambert.com
Heath Lambert Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority
incorporating Blackwall Green
Senenko, Marina ColleCtion of DutCh paintingS XVii–XiX CenturieS the pushkin State Museum of fine arts Moscow: Red Square Publishers 2009. 503 pp., 150 col. + 400 b. & w. ills. 9785915210201 EUR 125,00 + postage
eXCluSiVe WorlDWiDe DiStriBution outSiDe ruSSia
C ATA L O G U E D E S I G N AND PRODUCTION for Private Galleries, Art Fairs and Museums To discuss your requirements or for a free no obligation quote please contact Chris Hall at The Burlington Magazine hall@burlington.org.uk | tel: +44 (0)20 7388 1228 14-16 Duke’s Road | London
Erasmus Boekhandel BV P.O.Box 19140, 1000 GC Amsterdam, The Netherlands tel. +31-20-535 34 33 fax +31-20-620 67 99 E-mail: erasmus@erasmusbooks.nl
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march10dorotheum2:AQ33598_M_Bonham-Carter 12/02/2010 14:38 Page 1
S I N C E 17 0 7
Auctions 20 – 23 April 2010 A
Old Master Paintings 19th Century and Oriental Paintings Works of Art, Jewellery Palais Dorotheum, Dorotheergasse 17, 1010 Vienna, Austria Tel. +43-1-515 60-570, client.services@dorotheum.at www.dorotheum.com
Frans Francken II (1581–1642), Mankind, between Vice and Virtue (detail), 1635, oil on panel, 143 x 211 cm
burlington:Mise en page 1 11/02/10 11:04 Page1
Palais de la Bourse Paris
24-29 March
Place de la Bourse, Paris 2e – 12.00 - 8.30 – Late opening thursday 25th March until 10.00 pm – Entrance 14 €
An exceptional exhibition : Alain Delon’s collection International Lectures of the Salon du dessin : collector’s marks
Information : +33 (0)1 45 22 61 05
www.salondudessin.com
AD_burlington
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16:36 Uhr
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COLNAGHI Master Drawings · Katrin Bellinger
GIOVANNI FRANCESCO BARBIERI, called IL GUERCINO Cento 1591 – 1666 Bologna, Two Warriors Pen and brown ink and wash, 203 × 133 mm
Exhibiting at
TEFAF MAASTRICHT
SALON DU DESSIN PARIS
12 to 21 March 2010
24 to 29 March 2010
Illustrated catalogue on request Colnaghi 15 Old Bond Street | London W1S 4AX | Tel. +44 20 74917408 | Fax +44 20 70791268 | www.colnaghi.co.uk Katrin Bellinger Brienner Strasse 7 | 80333 München | Tel. +49 89 983465 | Fax +49 89 9810253 | www.bellinger-art.com
march10salonround-up:Master Drawings Roundup 18/02/2010 16:21 Page 1
Salon du Dessin
–
Palais de la Bourse, Paris
24-29 March 2010
A selection of highlights to be exhibited at the fair
AT THE NINETEENTH STAGING
of the Salon du Dessin thirty-
nine leading dealers (nineteen French and twenty from other countries) present fine drawings for sale. Works from the fifteenth to the twentieth century will dominate, but four galleries showing solely contemporary art will also be present. The visitor can expect rare glimpses of works on paper by artists such as Géricault (Agnew’s, London), Ingres (Galerie Coatalem, Paris), Tiepolo (Jean-Luc Baroni, London) and Time and Truth, by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696–1770). Pen and brown ink and brown wash over a sketch in black chalk, 22.3 by 21.1 cm. JEAN-LUC BARONI, LONDON
Guercino (Kathrin Bellinger, Munich). Also at the fair will be a loan exhibition of forty drawings from the collection of Alain Delon. The collection includes fine sixteenthcentury Italian sheets by Pontormo and Vasari, seventeenthcentury Italian and Northern drawings by Guido Reni, Rubens and Rembrandt, and nineteenth-century French works by Daumier, Millet and Degas. A two-day symposium devoted to collector’s marks will take place on 24th and 25th March and includes a talk by Antony Griffiths on collector’s marks on drawings in the British Museum. For the eleventh consecutive year a programme of museum events – la Semaine du Dessin (22nd to 29th March) will be staged to coincide with the fair. Seventeen museums and public collections will stage exhibitions, tours and symposia. Participants include the Musée du Louvre, Musée d’Orsay, Maison de Victor Hugo and Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle. Once again, Paris in March promises to be a valuable occasion for curators, collectors and drawings officionados around the world.
Mercury presents the young Bacchus to the nymphs, by Andrea Procaccini (1671–1734). Pen and brown ink over traces of black chalk, 11.7 by 16.8 cm. ARTUR RAMON, BARCELONA
Nude looking at her reflection in the water and a bather, by Carl Christian Vogel von Vogelstein (1788–1868). Signed and dated lower right: ‘C. Vogel Rom, 1819’. Pencil, 21.7 by 17 cm. ARTURO CUELLAR, ZÜRICH
For details of all the activities, please visit: www.salondudessin.com
Illustration for Ariosto’s ‘Orlando Furioso’, by Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806). Black chalk and brown ink with grey wash, 38.9 by 24.6 cm. KATRIN BELLINGER, MUNICH
march10cuellar:Arturo Cuellar March 2003 10/02/2010 15:22 Page 1
arTuro cuellar
Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
The tower of Saint-Rombault amidst an imaginary landscape Signed and dated on verso Ink, wash, charcoal and gouache on paper 48 x 63 cm
exHibiting at tHe
S alon
du
d eSSin , PariS – 24-29 M arcH 2010
Bürglistrasse 18, 8002 Zürich, Switzerland, Telephone: +41 (01) 281 21 81 Fax: +41 (01) 281 21 11 By appointment only
march10salonround-up:Master Drawings Roundup 18/02/2010 16:21 Page 2
Salon du Dessin
–
Palais de la Bourse, Paris
24-29 March 2010
A selection of highlights to be exhibited at the fair
Portrait of Marie Lecat, by Carle van Loo (1705-1765). One of a pair. Signed and dated 1743. Black chalk with white highlights, 47.6 by 33 cm. DIDIER AARON & CIE, PARIS
Portrait of Jean Alaux, by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780–1867). Graphite, 16.5 by 12.9 cm. GALERIE COATALEM, PARIS
A boat with figurehead, by Odilon Redon (1840–1916). Signed in pencil: ‘Odilon Redon’. Watercolour, 15.3 by 24 cm. GALERIE PAUL PROUTÉ, PARIS
Vidi, quod agnus aperuisset: the four horsemen of the Apocalypse and St John the Evangelist in the background, by Luigi Sabatelli (1772–1850). Black chalk, pen and brown ink, 58.3 by 43.6 cm. TRINITY FINE ART, LONDON & NEW YORK
A Mameluke retrieving his lance (recto); Classical composition (verso), by Theodore Géricault (1791–1824). Pen and brown ink and sepia and traces of pencil (recto); Pen and brown ink and sepia over pencil (verso), 17 by 22 cm. AGNEW’S, LONDON
Dieppe shop window, by Walter Richard Sickert (1860–1942). c.1885. Watercolour, ink and gouache on paper, 26 by 32 cm. THE FINE ART SOCIETY, LONDON
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SCULPTURE JOURNAL Published in association with the Public Monuments and Sculpture Association, Sculpture Journal provides an international forum for writers and scholars in the field of post-classical sculpture and public commemorative monuments in the Western tradition. Sculpture Journal offers a keen critical overview and a sound historical base, and is Britain’s foremost scholarly journal devoted to sculpture in all its aspects. Periods covered extend to public and private commissions for present-day sculptors. While being academic and traditional, the journal encourages contributions of fresh research from new names in the field.
Editor: Katharine Eustace Reviews Editor: Robert Wenley 2 issues per year Institutions £110.00 (EEA/ROW) $195.00 (USA & Canada) Individuals £40.00 $70.00 To subscribe to Sculpture Journal: Email: subscriptions@marston.co.uk Telephone Marston Book Services on +44 [0]1235 465 537 Or visit our website:
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mar10galeried'art:AQ_33598_Van Haeften 17/02/2010 11:10 Page 1
Galerie d’Art Saint-Honoré Tableaux de Maîtres Anciens 69, rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré 75008 Paris - France Tel: 01 42 66 36 63 ■ Fax: 01 42 66 92 65 www.art-st-honore.com ■ email: gal-art.st.honore@wanadoo.fr Open Mon-Sat 10:30am – 18:30pm ■ Catalogue available on request
JAN VAN KESSEL the ELDER Antwerp 1626 - 1679 Antwerp
Sweetpeas, shells and butterflies Oil on copper, 18.8 x 25 cm (7.4 x 9.8 inches) Signed at bottom left : "J.V. Kessel.fecit"
march10pageXXIV:Layout 1 18/02/2010 15:31 Page 1
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march10Hill-Stone:Hill-Stone ad Oct 04 18/02/2010 16:14 Page 1
Old Master & Modern Prints & Drawings
DOMINIQUE-LOUIS-FEREOL PAPETY (Marseille 1815 – 1849 Marseille) Greek Women at the Fountain. Drawing in black chalk, with watercolour washes and white heightening, signed by the artist lower left. A study for the artist’s most well-known work, omitting the central figure group. The painting at the Musée du Louvre, Paris, is dated to 1841; our study must have been produced shortly before. 287 x 337 mm (111/4 x 131/4 inches)
Fully illustrated catalogue of Prints & Drawings available April 30th
HILL-STONE – INCORPORATED –
CORRESPONDENCE: BOX 273, GRACIE STATION, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10028 Telephone: +1 212 249 1397 Fax: +1 212 861 4513 Mobile: +1 917 415 6134 Email: oldmaster@hill-stone.com
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march10contacts:Internet and Contacts 18/02/2010 12:31 Page 1
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www.burlington.org.uk XXVI
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17–23 March 2010 The 18th Annual British Antique Dealers’ Association Fair at THE DUKE OF YORK SQUARE, off Sloane Square, London SW3 Tel: +44 (0)20 7589 6108 To book a table at the Cellini restaurant within the Fair, call 01233 662166. Visit our website for the latest information including recommended luxury hotels. bada-antiques-fair.co.uk
TH E F I N E S T ART & AN T I QU E S F OR SALE
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B A H M Q F A D
Master Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century
Bury Street, St. James’s, London Telephone Fax Email info@hazlittgoodenandfox.com And in New York by appointment Telephone Fax
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VOLUME CLII • NUMBER
1284
• MARCH
2010
EDITORIAL
189
143 Siena then and now
The Buildings of Wales. Gwynedd, R. Haslam, J. Orbach and A. Voelcker by LINDSAY EVANS
ARTICLES
190
Chagall: Love and Exile, J. Wullschlager
191
Sol LeWitt: 100 Views, S. Cross and D. Markonish, eds.
by CHRISTINA LODDER
144 Taddeo di Bartolo’s altarpiece at S. Francesco in Pisa: new discoveries and a reconstruction by GAIL E . SOLBERG
by ANNA LOVATT
152 Gentile da Fabriano, Jacopo della Quercia and Siena: the ‘Madonna dei banchetti’ by GABRIELE FATTORINI
p.152
191
PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED
162 Sassetta and the Guglielmi Piccolomini altarpiece in Siena by
MACHTELT ISRAËLS
171 An overlooked triptych by Vecchietta by
EXHIBITIONS
FRANCIS RUSSELL
193
172 Some documents for Mattia Preti’s S. Vigilio altar in Siena by
LINDA BAUER
and NELLO
Arshile Gorky by JAMES LAWRENCE
BARBIERI
194
Points of View by COLIN FORD
OBITUARY
176 Anthony Ray (1926–2009) by
DORA THORNTON
196
Reynolds by KATE RETFORD
p.169
197
Madeleine Vionnet by LYNNE COOKE
BOOK REVIEW
198
Serge Charchoune
200
Giovanni Giacometti
177 The reshaping of French Gothic by
by MERLIN JAMES
PAUL CROSSLEY
by JÖRG ZUTTER
ART HISTORY REVIEWED VIII
201
179 Clement Greenberg’s ‘Art and Culture’, 1961 by
Neapolitan Baroque by XAVIER F. SALOMON
BORIS GROYS
p.178
203
Rupert Bunny by MARK STOCKER
BOOKS
183 184
Sassetta: The Borgo San Sepolcro altarpiece, M. Israëls, ed. by JENNIFER SLIWKA
205
CALENDAR
Prato: Architecture, Piety, and Political Identity in a Tuscan City-State, A.M. McLean
208
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
by FLAVIO BOGGI
185
The Ceremonial City. History, Memory and Myth in Renaissance Venice, I. Fenlon by D.S. CHAMBERS
185
Italian Renaissance Ceramics, a Catalogue of the British Museum Collection, D. Thornton and T. Wilson by J.V.G. MALLET
187
Federico Barocci. Allure and Devotion in Late Renaissance Painting, S. Lingo
188
Slavery, Sugar, and the Culture of Refinement. Picturing the British West Indies 1700–1840, K.D. Kriz
p.194
Next month’s issue, the first of two successive issues on British art, contains articles on:
by DAVID SCRASE
Portraits of Mary Queen of Scots
by GRACE BROCKINGTON
188
Paul Sandby and the Society of Dilettanti
Beyond the Dreams of Avarice. The Hermann Goering Collection, N.H. Yeide Die Kollektion Hermann Göring. Der Eiserne Sammler. Kunst und Korruption im ‘Dritten Reich’, H.C. Löhr by INES SCHLENKER
William Rothenstein in India Gilman’s Mrs Mounter p.203
Sidney Hunt; Howard Hodgkin
Cover illustration: Adoration of the Magi, by Giovanni di Paolo. 1440–45(?). Tempera on panel, 39.7 by 46.2 cm. (Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland). Illustrated in this issue on p.153.
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VOLUME CLII • NUMBER
1284
• MARCH
2010
Editor: Richard Shone
Managing Director: Kate Trevelyan Kee
Deputy Editor: Bart Cornelis Associate Editor: Jane Martineau Production Editor: Alice Hopcraft Editorial Assistant: Anne Blood Contributing Editor: John-Paul Stonard Index Editor: Barbara Pezzini
Advertising & Development Director: Mark Scott Design & Production Manager : Chris Hall Circulation & Promotion Manager: Claire Sapsford Administrator: Bébhinn Cronin Administrative Assistant: Olivia Parker Accountant: Anita Duckenfield
Consultative Committee Dawn Ades OBE FBA David Anfam Colin B Bailey Sir Geoffrey de Bellaigue GCVO FBA FSA David Bindman Claude Blair FSA Christopher Brown Richard Calvocoressi CBE Lorne Campbell Lynne Cooke Paul Crossley Caroline Elam David Franklin Julian Gardner FSA John Golding CBE FBA Sir Nicholas Goodison FBA FSA Christopher Green FBA Tanya Harrod Michael Hirst FBA John House Ian Jenkins FSA Simon Jervis FSA C M Kauffmann FBA Rose Kerr Alastair Laing Sir Denis Mahon CH CBE FBA Robin Middleton Jennifer Montagu LVO FBA Rosemarie Mulcahy Nicholas Penny Anthony Radcliffe FSA Dame Jessica Rawson CBE FBA J M Rogers FBA FSA Pierre Rosenberg Deborah Swallow Gary Tinterow Julian Treuherz Sir Christopher White CVO FBA Paul Williamson FSA Although the members of the Consultative Committee give invaluable assistance to the Editor on their respective subjects, they are not responsible for the general conduct of the magazine Attributions and descriptions relating to objects advertised in the magazine are the responsibility of the advertisers concerned
THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE FOUNDATION
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Trustees and Directors Timothy Llewellyn OBE** Dawn Ades OBE FBA Colin B Bailey Gifford Combs Joseph Connors Lynne Cooke Caroline Elam Sir Nicholas Goodison FBA FSA The Lady Heseltine Simon Jervis FSA* Alastair Laing* Bryan Llewellyn* Richard Mansell-Jones* Jennifer Montagu LVO FBA Nicholas Penny Marilyn Perry Duncan Robinson CBE* Paul Ruddock Angelica Zander Rudenstine Coral Samuel CBE Richard Shone* Seymour Slive FBA Kate Trevelyan Kee* John Walsh Sir Christopher White CVO FBA* Paul Williamson FSA* **Chairman *Also a member of the Board of Directors of The Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd.
Contributing Institutions The Art Institute of Chicago The Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute The Cleveland Museum of Art The Frick Collection The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Kimbell Art Museum The Metropolitan Museum of Art Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, and The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London
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Benefactors Nasser Azam Gilbert de Botton † The Deborah Loeb Brice Foundation Christie’s Sir Harry Djanogly CBE Francis Finlay The J Paul Getty Trust Nicholas and Judith Goodison Drue Heinz Trust Daisaku Ikeda Jerwood Charitable Foundation Paul Z Josefowitz Samuel H Kress Foundation Robert Lehman Foundation Inc. The Leverhulme Trust John Lewis OBE The Michael Marks Charitable Trust The Andrew W Mellon Foundation Jan Mitchell† The Monument Trust Stavros S Niarchos Foundation Mr and Mrs Brian Pilkington Mrs Frank E Richardson Paul Ruddock The Coral Samuel Charitable Trust Nancy Schwartz Madame Andrée Stassart Saul P Steinberg Thaw Charitable Trust Anonymous Benefactors
Supporters The Ahmanson Foundation Arts Council England Janet de Botton Gifford Combs Mark Fisch The Foundation for Sport and the Arts The J Paul Getty Junior Charitable Trust Global Asset Management Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation The Lady Heseltine The Isaacson-Draper Foundation Sir Denis Mahon CH CBE FBA The Henry Moore Foundation The Pilgrim Trust The Rayne Foundation Billy Rose Foundation The Rt. Hon. Lord Rothschild OM GBE FBA The Sheldon H Solow Foundation Waddington Galleries Patricia Wengraf The Wyfold Foundation US mailing agent: Mercury Airfreight International Ltd, 365 Blair Road, Avenel, New Jersey 07001. Periodicals postage paid at Rahway, NJ
The Burlington Magazine, 14-16 Duke’s Road, London WC1H 9SZ Tel: 020–7388 1228 | Fax: 020–7388 1229 | Email: burlington@burlington.org.uk Editorial: Tel: 020–7388 8157 | Fax: 020–7388 1230 | Email: editorial@burlington.org.uk
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Editorial
Siena then and now THE ANGLO-AMERICAN love affair with Siena and its art was at its most passionate and quarrelsome in the early years of the twentieth century when so much remained to be discovered and when stakes were being claimed for Sienese art, only then emerging from the shadows of neglect. The city itself was a relative latecomer to any art-loving tourist’s itinerary (even in 1901 the Havemeyers and Mary Cassatt omitted it from their lengthy buying spree in Italy). Handbooks began to proliferate (in 1900 Baedeker’s 13th revised edition for Central Italy contained an expanded section on Siena); bluestockings such as Margaret Symonds and Lina Duff Gordon wrote accessible guides and histories; scholars and aesthetes – F. Mason Perkins, Robert Langton Douglas, William Heywood, Edward Hutton – took up residence to study and write. A few years either side of 1900 a visitor could hardly avoid seeing an art historian making notes or hearing them exchanging views – in English, Italian or German – in the churches, the Galleria Municipale, the Palazzo Pubblico. The city depicted at the start of Henry James’s novel Confidence (1879) was much the same as the one he recorded in letters twenty and more years later – its beauty unchanged, its donkeys just as obstinate, the hotels only a shade less shabby. Although scholars, notably Gaetano Milanesi, had been weevilling in the city’s seemingly inexhaustible archives for some time, documentation was now being harnessed to aesthetic appreciation. While there was a definite move towards chronological clarification and archival evidence, purple ink was liberally spilled in favour of Sienese elegance, purity, charm and spiritual uplift. The Burlington reflected both these approaches. We move from Langton Douglas’s pioneering article on Sassetta and Sano di Pietro (May 1903) and a highly detailed review (September 1904) by Mason Perkins of the great exhibition that year of Sienese art, organised in Siena by Corrado Ricci, to an attempt by G.T. Clough (September 1906) to characterise the ‘Sienese temperament’ through the lens of San Bernardino’s sermons. Clough quotes the saint’s imprecations against the showiness and intemperance of Siena’s citizens; their constant quarrelling; their lack of respect for marriage; their sartorial extravagance. Bernardino even condemns the building of chapels and the flourishing of donors’ coats of arms on the paintings within – the very meat and drink of the Burlington’s contributors. The most important of these was Bernard Berenson whose two-part article on Sassetta – suffused with his recent study of St Francis – was published in 1903 in the Magazine’s October and November issues. In a sense this was an atonement for his earlier dismissal of the Sienese school and his single reference to ‘the ever winsome Sassetta’ in his Central Italian Painters of 1897. Certainly Berenson’s change of mind is pretty comprehensive, a volte face that enflamed Langton Douglas, scholar, dealer and former Anglican chaplain in Siena, to reply in an article
peppered with the settling of raw and recent scores (December 1903). Not without some justification, Douglas felt that Berenson had filched too much from his own early article. While smoothly acknowledging Berenson’s change of mind but hinting at faults and hesitating dislike, he draws his dagger for Berenson’s ‘friend and follower’, the American-born Mason Perkins whose attributional arguments he finds ‘a lamentable example of the unintelligent use of scientific method’. This was the start of a feud that reverberated for decades. Berenson was prickly and contemptuous; Douglas aggressively hostile in his protection of his ‘intellectual property’; Berenson found it incomprehensible that the Burlington, which he had helped to found, should have published Douglas’s article; and the episode saw the first fissures appear in the slow crumbling of Berenson’s friendship with Roger Fry. The Magazine sustained heavy losses – Berenson, Douglas and Perkins, the most important figures in its coverage of Sienese art, rarely contributed again, Douglas only returning to its pages twenty-five years later and Berenson not for over forty years. Other scholars made amends: for example, a notably precise three-part article on Sassetta by Giacomo di Nicola was published in 1913. Thereafter, important contributions were rare and it was not until the arrival on the scene of John Pope-Hennessy in the 1930s that Sienese art once more made an impact. The older, feuding scholars had been individually helpful to the young Pope-Hennessy when he was working on his Giovanni di Paolo (1937) and Sassetta (1939), a help fully acknowledged in those publications. But in a 1987 review of Colin Simpson’s Artful Partners in the New York Review of Books, he turned on Perkins and Douglas with ferocity, particularly the latter, denying him any achievements as a scholar or acumen as a dealer. Stung perhaps by an outraged reply in the NYRB from Douglas’s daughter, Pope-Hennessy softened his account, in his autobiography Learning to Look (1991), of the Anglo-American ‘sodality’ – Perkins, Hutton, Douglas – who felt they ‘had a hot line to Siena’ and who are remembered for their early kindness. All this may seem a far cry from the cool-headed scholarly articles in the present issue, assembled to celebrate the ambitious exhibition The Arts in Siena in the Early Renaissance, running in the city from 26th March to 11th July (to be reviewed in a later issue by Timothy Hyman). We must admit, however, that anyone wishing to gain some idea of the particular characteristics of Sienese art and its special distinction within Italian art as a whole will be frustrated by these articles. Aesthetic speculation is left on the side of the plate; the main meal is the fodder of commissions and production, of payments and carpentry, of tiers, piers, dowels and frames. Here is the fretwork of art history based on the abundant documentation that has survived. For those who find it wanting in flavour and variety, a visit to Siena in the next few months cannot be too warmly recommended.
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Taddeo di Bartolo’s altarpiece at S. Francesco in Pisa: new discoveries and a reconstruction by GAIL E. SOLBERG
THE RECENT REDISCOVERY of two long-lost panels by Taddeo di Bartolo, foremost painter of Siena in the years around 1400, is of considerable importance. The works are of identical format and style and each depicts a full-length saint, Francis of Assisi and the apostle Simon (Figs.1–3).1 They prove to be the missing elements from the main register of a signed and dated Marian altarpiece of 1395 from the sacristy chapel at S. Francesco in Pisa, the second most important Franciscan house in Tuscany. The reappearance of the panels from the dismembered altarpiece together with a rich written record go a long way to recon stituting the painting. Also fundamental to understanding the structure was the opportunity the present writer had in January 2009 of closely studying the several known components of the altarpiece housed at the Szépmu´´vészeti Múzeum, Budapest (Figs.5–11). Subsequently, another panel in a private Italian collection, previously presumed to have belonged to the altarpiece, was made available for study and can now be fitted into the altarpiece with certainty (Fig.12). The sacristy chapel altarpiece is a key work by Taddeo di Bartolo. It was during the several years in the 1390s that he spent in Pisa as the most important foreign painter that he reached artistic maturity. The 1395 Franciscan altarpiece and contemporary paintings for the city count among his most assured and attractive works. Moreover, when read against Taddeo’s Sienese background, the Pisan paintings reveal an experimental approach to carpentry supports prompted, perhaps, by a local artisan with whom he collaborated. Quality and novelty in the Franciscan altarpiece make its reconstruction particularly significant. Moreover, it was the programmatic and formal fulcrum of a decorative ensemble that, with imaginative effort, can still be fully appreciated. By 1395 the chapel was already embellished with a stained-glass window with figures, and two years later Taddeo completed an associated cycle of frescos. With the altar painting, these elements constitute the richest surviving chapel from the Pisan trecento. Of particular interest is the fact that the chapel is in a sacristy. Around 1400 Tuscany witnessed a vogue in sacristy chapel decoration if one judges by the richly embellished foundations at S. Croce, S. Maria Novella and S. Miniato in Florence or at the cathedral in Siena.
This article is dedicated to the late Andrew Ladis. I wish to thank Vilmos Tátrai, Andras Fáy and, particularly, Dóra Sallay of the Széptmu´´vészeti Múzeum, Budapest. I am also grateful to Fabrizio Moretti, Gabriele Caioni, Flavio Gianassi and to Mario Rizzardo and Gabriela Artoni for assistance in the study of their paintings, and to Winton Solberg and Shelley Zuraw. 1 Formerly Moretti Fine Art, Ltd., London. Each panel measures 100 by 42.5 cm.; repr. in col. in G. Freuler: ‘Taddeo di Bartolo: San Francesco and San Simone’, Moretti: Dagli eredi di Giotto al primo cinquecento, Livorno 2007, pp.44–49. 2 ‘Fece similmente Taddeo, per la cappella della sagrestia di San Francesco di Pisa, in una tavola dipinta a tempera, una Nostra Donna ed alcuni Santi, mettendovi il nome suo e l’anno ch’ella fu dipinta; che fu l’anno 1394’; see G. Vasari: Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori italiani, ed. G. Milanesi, Florence 1878–85 (repr. Florence 1906), II, p.37.
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1. Reconstruction of the altarpiece of the Madonna of Humility, by Taddeo di Bartolo. 1395. Tempera, approx. 285 cm. wide.
This article traces the early historiography of the sacristy altarpiece, enumerating many details of its original configuration. These prove essential to an accurate reconfiguration that incorporates new material evidence. Meanwhile, some errors in the early written record are corrected. The article also treats technical aspects of the structure, and touches on the iconography and formal concerns where they help to explicate the original form of the multipartite painting which, in one way at least, appears to have been unique. New identifications of several buttress figures are based partly on a hitherto unrecognised focus of devotion in the Pisan church. By reference to contemporary paintings by other artists, it is possible to establish guidelines for imagining the upper register of the altarpiece for which no material evidence survives. The study is accompanied by a digital design (Fig.1) generated by Dóra Sallay who helped to understand the structure as it came to light, and without whose collaboration this article would not be complete. (Henceforth the collective voice signals conclusions shared with Dóra Sallay.) In 1568 Vasari cited a tempera painting by Taddeo di Bartolo in the sacristy at S. Francesco in Pisa with Our Lady and Saints, 3
‘Thadeus di Senis pinxit hoc A.D. 1395’; L. Nuti: ‘Descrizione della chiesa di S. Francesco di Pisa’, together with ‘Memorie del Convento di S. Francesco di Pisa’; Florence, Archivio Provinciale dei Frati Minori Conventuali, Santa Croce, MS, Nuti no.30, 9–12, 13; and Nuti no.30 bis, 8. Nuti suggests Vasari’s mistake was due to a printing error or to his desire to correct the Pisan calendar. G. Della Valle: Lettere sanesi sopra le belle arti, Rome and Venice 1782–86; repr. Sala Bolognese 1975, II [1785], p.193, also noted Vasari’s error in the date. 4 S. Symeonides: Taddeo di Bartolo, Siena 1965, pl.10a. Milanesi assumed the existence of such an inscription socle; Vasari, op. cit. (note 2), II, p.37, note 3. 5 ‘Più sotto’; Nuti, op. cit. (note 3), no.30, p.10. 6 Della Valle, op. cit. (note 3), II, p.194; see text below. 7 A. Da Morrona: Pisa illustrata nelle arti del disegno, Pisa 1812, III, pp.59–60. This is
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and recorded an inscription with the artist’s name and date: ‘Similarly Taddeo made for the chapel of the sacristy of San Francesco in Pisa in a tempera painting Our Lady and several saints, and he placed on it his name and the year it was painted, which was 1394’.2 A century later, the Franciscan Ludovico Nuti (died 1667) corrected Vasari’s report of the inscribed date from 1394 to 1395: ‘Taddeo of Siena painted this A.D. 1395’.3 This lost inscription almost certainly occupied a socle below the painted panels similar to the one on Taddeo’s contemporary Pisan altarpiece from S. Paolo all’Orto (now at Grenoble),4 because Nuti described it as ‘further below’ in respect to the preserved inscription on the Madonna panel.5 For reasons to be seen, it is likely that an inscription ran across the full width of the altarpiece and that it provided the names of the lateral saints. The Franciscan author also noted that the painting presented the arms of the two families named in the preserved inscription (Sardi and Da Campiglia), presumably on a lost part of the frame. According to Guglielmo Della Valle in his biography of Taddeo di Bartolo of 1785, the original framing superstructure was elaborate.6 Alessandro Da Morrona was probably the last author to record the altarpiece in situ and intact in 1812;7 by 1846 the structure had been dismantled and removed from the church.8 In 1878 Gaetano Milanesi linked Vasari’s record of the S. Francesco painting with panels then in Vienna.9 By 1953 three principal elements of the altarpiece together with seven subsidiary panels had arrived in the Budapest museum where they are housed in a modern frame (Fig.5).10 For some time subsequently it was believed that the main Budapest panels, depicting the Madonna of Humility between the standing saints John the Baptist and Andrew, originally constituted a triptych, because that is what the known elements allowed.11 An inscription at the bottom of the central panel with the Virgin identifies the patron (Fig.7): ‘The Venerable Lady Datuccia daughter of the deceased S[er] Betti de Sa[r]dis and wife of the deceased S[er] Andrea de Campiglis had this panel made for the souls of her dead [relatives]’.12 Well before the emergence of the two new panels from the main register, a study of the historical record and comparative analysis allowed for a reconstruction of the altarpiece not as a triptych, but as a pentaptych with a five-part main register.13 Authors from the sixteenth century through to the eighteenth provided a date, a provenance, the names of the saints missing from either side of the Virgin and descriptions of other aspects of the altarpiece. When the two standing saints were discovered recently,14 it became clear that they substantiate both the early and the recent written records about the original appearance of the altarpiece as a pentaptych. Guglielmo Della Valle’s account of 1785 anticipated the appearance of the rediscovered panels. To Vasari’s information he added: ‘The holy apostles Simon, and John, and St Francis of Assisi, painted in full length, stand at the sides’.15 When only the a reprint of Da Morrona’s first edition of 1793 (III, p.51), so there is no assurance the painting was still in the chapel at the later date. 8 F. Bonaini: Memorie inedite intorno alla vita di Francesco Traini e ad altre opere di disegno dei secoli XI, XIV, e XV, Pisa 1846, p.43, note 1. By 1866 at the latest two main register panels had already been detached because G.F. Waagen: Die Vornehmsten Kunstdenkmaler in Wien, Vienna 1866, pt.1, p.320, records only John the Baptist and ‘a saint with a cross’ (Andrew) at the Virgin’s sides. 9 Vasari, op. cit. (note 2), II, p.37, note 5. 10 A. Pigler: Katalog der Galerie alter Meister. Budapest. Museum der bildenden Künste Szépmu´´vészeti Múzeum, Tübingen 1968, pp.682–83, no.53.500; the Madonna measures 114 by 72 cm.; the saints 105 by 43 cm. each. 11 G. Gombosi: ‘Dipinti italiani nei Musei Rath e Zichy di Budapest’, Rivista d’arte
2. St Simon, by Taddeo di Bartolo. 1395. Tempera, 100 by 42.5 cm. (Formerly Moretti Fine Art).
3. St Francis, by Taddeo di Bartolo. 1395. Tempera, 100 by 42.5 cm. (Formerly Moretti Fine Art).
4. St Francis, after Taddeo di Bartolo. 1652. Engraving from N. Catalano: Fiume del terrestre paradiso, Florence 1652.
14 (1932), p.324; and M. Boskovits: Frühe Italienische Tafelbilder. Museum für bildenden Künste, Budapest, Christliches Museum Esztergom, Budapest 1966, unpaginated, nos.42–43. 12 ‘Ven[erabilis] D[omi]na D[omi]na Datuccia filia olim S[er] Betti de Sa[r]dis et uxor q[uon]damS[er] Andree de Campiglis fecit fieri hanc tabulam pro a[n]i[m]abus [sic] suor[um] defunctorum[.]’. 13 G.E. Solberg: ‘Taddeo di Bartolo: His Life and Work’, Ph.D. diss. (New York University, 1991), pp.70–96 and 340–57. 14 I thank Mme Marianne Lonjon for alerting me to their existence in Paris and providing illustrations in January 2005. 15 ‘I SS Apostoli Simone, e Giovanni, e S. Francesco d’Assisi, che dipinti al naturale stanno dai lati . . .’; Della Valle, op. cit. (note 3), II, p.194. the burlington m a g a z i n e
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5. Madonna of Humility with Sts John the Baptist and Andrew and seven smaller saints, by Taddeo di Bartolo. 1395. Tempera. (Szépmu´´vészeti Múzeum, Budapest).
lateral saints at Budapest were known (John the Baptist and Andrew; Figs.6 and 8), Della Valle’s note was perplexing. By the standard of symmetrical construction, Della Valle’s three saints could not be a full complement. The Budapest St Andrew, which Della Valle did not mention, therefore completed a fourmember group as long as Della Valle’s implication that John the Evangelist appeared – he listed John as an apostle – is taken as an error. The second figure at Budapest represents John the Baptist, who is not an apostle. With the discovery of the new panels, one depicting Francis of Assisi and the second a young male saint with no identifying attributes, Della Valle’s mention of the apostle Simon and the patronal family history conjoin. The widowed patron of the entire chapel project was Datuccia, from the prominent Sardi family, whose husband was Andrea da Campiglia, probably a local wool merchant. The couple appears to have been childless, so when Datuccia was widowed she may have gone to live with her brother Simone. The young saint with a book was protector of her natal family. Such a rationale for inclusion of the infrequently depicted St Simon is unlikely to have been known to Della Valle, hence the presumption that a lost socle below the main register bore the names of the lateral saints. St Andrew, identified by his attributes, is also present as a family saint, but of Datuccia’s acquired family rather than her own: he was patron of her deceased husband, Andrea da Campiglia.
16
‘Tra molte figure di Santi, e Sante, dinanzi dal lato sinistro comparisce un S. Francesco e altrove in piccola forma S. Anontio da Padova, e S. Gherardo . . .’; Nuti, op. cit. (note 3), p.10, no.30. 17 N. Catalano: Fiume del terrestre paradiso: Discorso sopra l’antica forma dell’habito Minoritico da S Francesco d’Assisi instituita e portata, Florence 1652, pp.400–01. 18 It is improbable but not impossible that the Baptist occupied the outside position at the left. The batten on the reverse of his support does not align perfectly with the one on the Madonna panel, but modern oil overpaint makes it impossible to
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St Francis, present to proclaim the dedication of the church and convent, was listed by Nuti in a specific position: ‘in front on the left side’.16 Unless he was describing the left side in reference to the Virgin rather than the viewer, Nuti erred, as another slightly earlier source makes clear. The 1652 treatise by the Franciscan Nicolò Catalano includes an image of a full-length St Francis which the author had seen on the Pisa altarpiece (Fig.4).17 The engraved figure conforms closely to the saint on the newly found panel, leaving no doubt that the panel with this saint belonged to the altarpiece, and that it fitted to the right of centre. St Francis is projected in space in a similar way to St Simon. On this basis we can presume these two figures balance one another in reciprocal positions on the flanks of the painting (Fig.1). They are outranked in hierarchical terms by John the Baptist and the apostle Andrew, so ideally they should be placed further from the Madonna and Child in outside compartments. This sequence is supported by the pointing gesture of the Baptist, who would not usually be separated from Christ by an intervening figure, and potentially by Nuti’s description of Francis ‘dinanzi’ on his side of the altarpiece.18 ‘Dinanzi’ might mean ‘before’ his companion in progression towards the Virgin, i.e. at the outside compartment. The resulting sequence – Simon, John the Baptist, Andrew and Francis reading from left to right – respects traditional iconographical hierarchy and produces a harmonious spatial arrangement.19 The outer figures stand closer to the front of their pictorial space than the inner pair, so the effect is of flanking saints that converge inwards towards the larger-scale Madonna in their midst. By the digital reconstruction this subtle treatment of depth is recovered. The inner pair of saints therefore includes an intercessor and forerunner of Francis in the figure of the Baptist, and the patron saint of Datuccia’s husband’s family in the figure of St Andrew. The outer pair presents Francis as the patron of the church and Simon as patron of Datuccia’s own family. Each of the seven small panels in Budapest measures 39 by 9.5/10.1 cm. and depicts a standing saint (Figs.5 and 9–11). Now erroneously framed as a predella, they instead come from lost buttressing elements of the frame. The figures are identified in the museum catalogue as Sts Clare, James the Great, Augustine, Sylvester, Anthony of Padua, an unidentified Bishop and Anthony Abbot, but some correction is required here.20 After describing the St Francis in the main register, Nuti mentioned small format saints elsewhere, naming two: ‘S. Antonio di Padova, e S. Gherardo’.21 Gerard is a little-known figure of local significance (Fig.9). I initially took him to be Gerard Mecatti of Villamagna (1174–c.1242–45) following Vasari’s identification of an image of the tertiary elsewhere in the church.22 The cult of this beatus was largely limited to his native Villamagna outside Florence and to the city proper, so his appearance in Pisa is curious. In fact, the figure must be a different, lesser known tertiary, Gerard Cagnoli, who was the object of a new cult sponsored at the Pisan Franciscan house following his death in 1342, a cult that ultimately radiated across Tuscany. Born c.1267 at Valenza near Alessandria in Piedmont, the penitent miracle-worker died in
ascertain whether the battens are original. St Andrew was transferred to a new support, so the panel offers no evidence of its original lateral position, nor do the ex-Moretti panels. Photographs reveal their battens were removed. 19 Freuler, op. cit. (note 1), p.47, fig.4, reproduced Francis and Andrew in inverted positions relative to the present reconstruction – the same order proposed in Solberg, op. cit. (note 13), p.347, before Sts Simon and Francis were discovered. This demotes St Andrew in relationship to Francis and disrupts the curvature in depth from the side compartments back to the Madonna. The sequence presented
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6. St John the Baptist, by Taddeo di Bartolo. 1395. Tempera, 105 by 43 cm. (Szépmu´´vészeti Múzeum, Budapest).
7. Madonna of Humility, by Taddeo di Bartolo. 1395. Tempera, 114 by 72 cm. (Szépmu´´vészeti Múzeum, Budapest).
8. St Andrew, by Taddeo di Bartolo. 1395. Tempera, 105 by 43 cm. (Szépmu´´vészeti Múzeum, Budapest).
the Franciscan house at Palermo, where he was buried.23 He was introduced to the convent of S. Francesco at Pisa by Fra Bartolomeo Albizi, its guardian from 1342 until his death in 1351.24 Fra Bartolomeo had planned to visit Gerard in Palermo, but following the latter’s death he channelled his efforts into promoting his cult at Pisa by importing a relic and erecting an altar. The figure identified as Gerard on Taddeo di Bartolo’s buttress panel is a clean-shaven middle-aged Franciscan with a belted and hooded brown habit, a crutch and a chaplet (Fig.9). These are standard features for contemporary Franciscan ascetics and hermits, including Gerard of Villamagna. However, facts that localise Gerard Cagnoli’s cult to the Franciscan house at Pisa in the mid-trecento leave little doubt that he is the tertiary depicted on the sacristy altarpiece. A further reidentification may be in order for the figure of a pope on another of the buttress panels (Fig.10). Listed as Sylvester, the pontiff could be Beatus Urban V if the artist and patron decided to include another contemporary holy figure. Urban’s particular attribute is a reliquary with two saints’ heads, those of Peter and Paul.25 The pope had recognised these relics
in March 1364, and Taddeo di Bartolo’s countryman Giovanni di Bartolo made the reliquary for their heads, which was placed above the ciborium in the Lateran in 1367. Urban, who became pope in 1362 and died in 1370, appealed to Franciscans because of his asceticism and his efforts to foster new Franciscan communities. He is linked to Gerard by his active encouragement of the Franciscans of Calabria and Sicily. Identification in the museum catalogue of the bishop on another buttress panel as Augustine finds its rationale in the fact that the parish church of the patron, S. Martino, was originally a house of regular canons. The dedication of that place may suggest that the other, hitherto unidentified bishop without particular attributes on a buttress panel is Martin. St James probably figures as protector of Datuccia’s nephew Jacopo, son of Simone; Jacopo also had a brother named Gerardo.26 A final error of identification in the literature concerns the bare-headed, bearded figure in a dark habit carrying a pastoral staff (Fig.11). It is neither Anthony of Padua nor Louis of Toulouse as previously thought – who are represented clean shaven and young – but is instead Anthony Abbot, in spite of the
here was proposed without comment in M. Boskovits and J. Tripps, eds.: exh. cat. Maestri senesi e toscani nel Lindenau-Museum di Altenburg, Siena (S. Maria della Scala) 2008, p.114, pl.18a. 20 Pigler, op. cit. (note 10), p.682. 21 See note 16 above. 22 Solberg, op. cit. (note 13), p.425. 23 C. Gennaro: ‘Cagnoli, Gerardo’, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Rome 1973, XVI, pp.330–31; and F. Rotolo, O.F.M. Conv.: ‘La Leggenda del B. Gerard Cagnoli,
O. Min. (1267–1342) di Fra Bartolomeo Albizi, O. Min (d.1251)’, Miscellanea Francescana 1 (1957), pp.367–446. 24 Unsigned entry for ‘Albizi, Bartolomeo’, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Rome 1960, II, pp.16–17; and Rotolo, op. cit. (note 23), pp.368–69. 25 He appears in a similar guise to Taddeo’s buttress figure on other late fourteenthcentury panels and in the Spanish Chapel, S. Maria Novella, in Florence. 26 O. Banti, ed.: Cronaca di Pisa di Ranieri Sardo, Rome 1963, pp.xlviii–lviii; two other sons were named Niccolò and Ranieri. the burlington m a g a z i n e
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9. Beatus Gerard Cagnoli, by Taddeo di Bartolo. 1395. Tempera, 39 by 9.6 cm. (Szépmu´´vészeti Múzeum, Budapest).
10. Pope Urban V, by Taddeo di Bartolo. 1395. Tempera, 39.1 by 10.1 cm. (Szépmu´´vészeti Múzeum, Budapest).
11. St Anthony Abbot, by Taddeo di Bartolo. 1395. Tempera, 39.1 by 10 cm. (Szépmu´´vészeti Múzeum, Budapest).
12. St Anthony of Padua, by Taddeo di Bartolo. 1395. Tempera, 43 by 11.5 cm. (Rizzardo-Artoni Collection).
staff in place of his more usual crutch. Close inspection reveals that his habit is black rather than brown, and unbelted, which distinguishes him from his Franciscan companions. Early texts make it clear that the small saints (santini ) originally occupied lateral buttresses. Nuti recorded small format male and female saints, while Della Valle was more specific, referring to ‘several santini painted on the colonnettes’.27 ‘Colonnette’ is a common term for describing a buttress,28 but in the present case it proved to be the key to explaining the highly unusual, possibly unique, form of the Pisan buttresses. An unusual characteristic of each small saint at Budapest is a support with a pronounced outward, or convex, curve (Figs.13 and 15). The curvature is regular across the group of seven elements, proving it was deliberate, not the result of warping. ‘Colonnette’ in this particular case therefore refers to frame buttresses with convex cross sections. Recent inspection of the panels out of their frames revealed that each one has a flat reverse side. The widths of the painted surfaces supersede the widths of the reverse sides by 0.3 to 0.9 cm. The supports must have been specially cut and planed because growth rings at the ends prove they were not formed from young tree trunks, as initially thought. Carpenter and
painter would have been ill-advised to use young wood because of its vulnerability to warping and cracking. Inspection of the panels revealed that they have one bevelled side edge, some on the left, some on the right.29 When the pairs of panels are rejoined along their bevelled edges they present a rounded external surface and a semi-columnar shape (Fig.13). Thanks to their flat rectos, the joined pairs of panels form a right angle on their unpainted sides (Fig.14). This would have facilitated attachment to a core element with a square or rectangular cross section. One panel bears a nail or dowel hole on the verso that penetrates the wood at a sharp angle (see below). Possibly the pairs of panels were separated by a thin strip of wood reaching to the height of the ‘colonnette’ and ending in a spire. Such a component is included in the reconstruction because it appears visually convincing, but there is no concrete evidence for its existence other than Della Valle’s description of ‘flowery and complicated [forms]’ on the ‘colonnette’.30 In the reconstruction the panels with santini have been lightly compressed laterally in the effort to make the ‘colonnette’ appear rotund (Fig.1). There are seven small saints in Budapest. Whatever the original configuration of the santini may have been, an even number would have been needed. An almost unknown eighth panel in
27
(1979), pp.21–65, repr. in idem: From Duccio’s Maestà to Raphael’s Transfiguration: Italian altarpieces and their settings, London 2005, pp.119–82 and 622–28. 29 One panel has a bevelled side coated with a substance that could be gesso or glue, perhaps to join it to another element. To some lateral edges modern strips of wood have been attached, probably to facilitate fixing them in their modern frame. 30 Della Valle’s terms are ‘fiorami, e arzigogoli’ (see note 27 above).
For Nuti, see note 16 above; ‘. . . alcuni santini dipinti nelle colonnette, che con molti fiorami, e arzigogoli adornano questa tavola . . .’; Della Valle, op. cit. (note 3), II, p.194. Subsequent authors confused the larger with the smaller saints, probably because they depended on earlier accounts rather than on direct study of the paintings. 28 C. Gardner von Teuffel: ‘The Buttressed Altarpiece: A Forgotten Aspect of Tuscan Fourteenth Century Altarpiece Design’, Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen, N.F. 21
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the Rizzardo-Artoni Collection certainly belongs to the group and probably completes it (Fig.12).31 This panel depicts the Franciscan Anthony of Padua. In addition to presenting a key Franciscan saint in a style that conforms to the other panels (note particularly the pedestal on which Anthony stands), and with dimensions (43 by 11.5 cm.) that match the rest of the group when allowance is made for some rehandling, the forward bowing of the support argues incontrovertibly for its inclusion on the altarpiece. To my knowledge, neither in Taddeo’s œuvre nor in that of contemporary masters, whether or not Sienese, does there appear a convex support for buttress figures. The panel is housed in a modern frame which precludes investigation of the side edges, but presumably its left side is (or was) bevelled.32 The support appears to have been thinned. This painting also bears an angled nail hole on its verso, which may be evidence of its attachment to a wooden core. Nuti’s identification of one small format altarpiece figure as Anthony of Padua confirms the claim that the panel belonged to an altarpiece buttress. Together with the buttress panel of St Clare, Anthony brings the group of Franciscans on the altarpiece to four. When the santini were placed next to each other in pairs to decorate terminal ‘colonnette’, and when space is allowed for some decoration such as frame mouldings or pastiglia relief to separate the stacked saints (we have arbitrarily chosen a quatrefoil motif), then the eight santini would fill ‘colonnette’ with two tiers of figures and a height roughly consonant with that of the Madonna panel (114 cm.). The buttress figures have heights of between 39 and 43 cm. In the reconstruction the overall buttress height was calculated to match that of the panel with the Madonna. The patronal arms were probably placed within easy view on the lower reaches of the ‘colonnette’ (not shown in the reconstruction), and above the buttresses, pinnacles and spires, probably more ornate than those illustrated here, should be imagined. No conclusive evidence indicates how the santini were originally paired. We considered the bevelled edges, the springing of the trefoil arches above the figures, the height of the painted ground on which they stand, their degree of turn and their iconography. The bevelled edges and the figures’ position in space emerged as the best, but far from absolutely determinant, guides to dividing the eight figures into two groups of four, one set for the left, the other for the right, and then into groups for internal as opposed to external positions. A workable but somewhat arbitrary proposal emerges with Augustine and Urban at the top left above James and Anthony of Padua below, while at the right Anthony Abbot and Martin occupied the upper level with Clare and Gerard beneath. Aspects of the construction and decoration of the buttresses for Taddeo’s altarpiece appear to be unique. A Florentine altarpiece of 1402 by Lorenzo di Niccolò comes closest to replicating the effect (Fig.16). The piers have a semi-polygonal cross section, whereas the common form is rectangular. However, the standing santini occupy planar supports.33 Polygonal buttresses may also have framed an altarpiece of about 1370 by the Pisan Cecco di Pietro, with whom Taddeo crossed paths.34
31
A. Labriola in G. Lazzi, ed.: exh. cat. I colori del divino, Florence (Biblioteca Riccardiana) 2001, pp.219–20, no.77, pl.63. 32 Left-side bevelling is dictated for the panel by the Budapest santini, four of which are bevelled on the right side, only three on the left. 33 A.M. Maetzke and Don N. Fruscolini: exh. cat. Il polittico di Lorenzo di Niccolò della chiesa di San Domenico in Cortona: Dopo il restauro, Cortona (Palazzo Casali, Salone
13. Two buttress panels by Taddeo di Bartolo, rejoined. 1395. Tempera and wood. (Szépmu´´vészeti Múzeum, Budapest).
14. Two buttress panels by Taddeo di Bartolo rejoined, from the back. 1395. Tempera and wood. (Szépmu´´vészeti Múzeum, Budapest).
15. Buttress panel by Taddeo di Bartolo, seen in cross section. 1395. Tempera and wood. (Szépmu´´vészeti Múzeum, Budapest).
Buttresses that sank to the floor, as Taddeo’s probably once did, survive on Giovanni del Biondo’s altarpiece of 1379 at S. Croce. Below the altar slab they are polygonal whereas above it their cross section is rectangular. From this model it was a short step to a columnar form for the upper part of a buttress, and Giovanni del Biondo’s altarpiece seems to have been an important model for Taddeo di Bartolo (Fig.17).35 There is no evidence that Taddeo ever employed the system adopted at Pisa again. Perhaps the rounded shape was technically problematic or unsatisfactory in some other way. Taddeo’s curious ‘colonnette’ system was part of a frame that, to judge from Della Valle’s description, was conspicuously ornate.
Mediceo) 1986; the work’s overall measurements are 517 by 325 cm. 34 R.P. Ciardi, A. Caleca and M. Burresi: Il Polittico di Agnano: Cecco di Pietro e la pittura pisana del ’300, Pisa 1986, pp.98–99 and 126. The polygonal buttress bases (Museo di S. Matteo, Pisa, nos.1603 and 1604) are adorned with santini on planar supports. I thank Christa Gardner von Teuffel for discussing buttresses with me. 35 Gardner von Teuffel, op. cit. (note 28), pp.119–25. the burlington m a g a z i n e
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Not for this alone was the altarpiece impressive, for its size – its overall breadth was at least 280/85 cm. – made it a formidable presence in a chapel 545 cm. wide. Extrapolating from the curvature of the single panels, the buttresses had a minimum diameter of approximately 15 cm., therefore adding 15–20 cm. per side to a main register with a minimum width of 244 cm. The latter dimension was calculated thus: four saints at 42.5/43 cm. (172 cm.) + the central element (72 cm.) = 244 cm. Then 244 cm. + two buttresses at 20 cm. (40 cm.) = 284 cm. To mask joins between the elements of the main register and to respect common practice at Siena, Florence and their regions, slender columns or pilasters are imagined that do not add to the width of the structure, but extend upwards to terminate in spires. An unusual and ambiguous aspect of the painting described in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century sources is that the back served as an armadio (cupboard). Nuti specified that altar utensils were kept there, and Della Valle noted various doors adorned with figures of male and female saints painted ‘in full length’.36 No surviving works can be associated with this armadio, which Della Valle suggests was a later adaptation. Cupboard space is necessary in a sacristy, but this altarpiece–armadio may have served the chapel alone not only because it contained altar utensils, but also because it would have been difficult of access, and because another armadio, referred to as of carved wood, was in the sacristy proper.37 Closely contemporary or not, the chapel armadio suggests a rich endowment with liturgical accessories and perhaps vestments. Taddeo di Bartolo’s altarpiece would have required a substantial predella box in addition to frame buttresses for stability. Between the base and the main register panels was an inscriptionbearing socle. In the reconstruction is included a socle and a predella projected to a standard height (Fig.1). No panels can be convincingly associated with the predella, where scenes from the Virgin’s early life could have complemented the later Marian episodes depicted in the chapel murals and the Madonna of Humility at the centre of the altarpiece. A different solution might include a Crucifixion at the centre flanked by scenes from the Passion or from the lives of the saints depicted above it. A lost Crucifixion predella panel attributed to Taddeo and formerly at Viterbo (ex-Gentili collection) includes a donatrix kneeling at the foot of the cross and a seated Virgin of Humility, but its dimensions appear unworkable.38 The proportions of the altarpiece as established in the reconstruction would be more harmonious with some upward extension into another storey. In Taddeo’s contemporary altarpiece for Pisa, now at Grenoble, the existence of pinnacle panels is probably guaranteed both by the flat gables of the main register and by an eighteenth-century description.39 By comparison to that structure with its traditional format and proportions, the main register of the reconstructed Pisa chapel altarpiece is broad and low. The Madonna of Humility seated on the ground produces a wide and short central compartment. In fact, the arch of her pictorial field is almost semicircular. With an additional 36
Nuti, op. cit. (note 3), p.10, no.30; ‘. . . alla [tavola] essendo state aggiunte altre tavole dalla parte di dietro, se ne fece un armadio di più porte, adorne di figure al naturale di Santi, e di Sante, come sono S. Ranieri, e S. Lorenzo, S. Stefano, e S. Torpè disegnati con poco amore: non così le SS. Barbara, M. Maddalena, e Agnese, nel viso delle quali si vede la diligenza del maestro’ (‘to the painting panels were added at the back, in this way a cupboard with various doors was made, [and it was] adorned with full length figures of male and female saints such as S. Ranieri, and S. Lorenzo, S. Stefano, and S. Torpe, designed with little care: different are Sts Barbara, M[ary] Magdalene, and
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16. Detail of the framing system of the Coronation of the Virgin altarpiece by Lorenzo di Niccolò, showing the left buttress. 1401. Tempera and wood. (S. Domenico, Cortona).
saint now inserted on each flank of the altarpiece, the height lent by an upper storey (or stories) becomes a visual necessity. The rediscovered panels have rectangular supports and so prove that the Budapest panels were cut down to their present arched contours. Hypothetical upper-register elements could have been anchored to, or even integral with these upper areas of wood, but a total lack of technical data in this regard precludes a definitive proposal. Presented therefore are simple, empty gables which are structural continuations of the main register panels (Fig.1). Arguments on the hypothetical parts of the reconstruction of Taddeo’s altarpiece, which include a predella, a pinnacle level (or two) and on aspects of the lateral buttresses, are supported by two other Madonna of Humility altarpieces of similar format and date. Each bears a particular relation to Taddeo di Bartolo’s 1395 painting. The earlier of the two is the altarpiece by Giovanni del Biondo for the sacristy chapel at S. Croce, Florence, already mentioned (Fig.17). A direct Franciscan correlation to the site for Taddeo’s painting, and the proximity in date of the two works, suggests that the Pisan friars, who would have been consulted in plans for Datuccia’s chapel, took the existing altarpiece at the larger house of their order in Florence as a partial model. The Florentine painting has a five-part main register, a historiated predella, an upper register of half-length saints and quatrefoilshaped pinnacle panels above, all housed in an elaborate Gothic frame closed at the sides by buttresses. The dimensions of the two altarpieces are comparable (a width of 310 cm. as against approximately 285 cm. for Taddeo’s painting), as are their subjects.
Agnes, in whose faces the diligence of the master is seen’); Della Valle, op. cit. (note 3), II, p.194. 37 A parallel case is the double-sided altarpiece for S. Zaccaria in Venice by Antonio Vivarini and Giovanni d’Alemagna with a reliquary cupboard at the reverse; see J. Gardner: ‘Fronts and Backs: Setting and Structure’, in H.W. van Os and J.R.J. van Asperen de Boer, eds.: Atti del XXIV Congresso Internazionale di Storia dell’Arte, III, La pittura del XIV e XV secolo: Il contributo dell’analisi tecnica alla storia dell’arte, Bologna 1983, p.308, note 44.
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17. Altarpiece of the Madonna of Humility, by Giovanni del Biondo. 1379. Tempera, 345 by 310 cm. (S. Croce, Florence).
18. Altarpiece of the Madonna of Humility, by Gregorio di Cecco. 1423. Tempera, 263 by 266 cm. (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena).
Usually described as a Madonna and Child, the main panel of Giovanni del Biondo’s painting is a variant of the Madonna of Humility iconography. The other Madonna of Humility altarpiece is later, dating from 1423. It was executed by the Sienese Gregorio di Cecco, who was first Taddeo’s assistant, then his partner and adopted son (Fig.18). It is little surprise therefore that Gregorio di Cecco’s pentaptych for Siena Cathedral gives various indications of being an only slightly modified version of Taddeo’s 1395 altarpiece. In the main storey paired saints flank a standard Madonna of Humility.40 A link between the two works is strengthened by the relative rarity of the iconography of Humility on an altarpiece at that time. Also noteworthy is the fact that above Gregorio di Cecco’s main register sat two additional levels, as in Giovanni del Biondo’s work. Evangelists fill the gables while an upper storey presented saints, the Annunciation (dispersed) and the Assumption. For the predella level, a central Crucifixion and flanking Marian scenes have been identified.41 Taddeo di Bartolo’s Pisan altarpiece can be imagined as a structure similar to these two paintings which coincide with it chronologically and to which there exist direct, albeit different links – one by context, the other by the rapport of master and disciple. But their differences are also important. Giovanni del
Biondo’s painting creates a planar and screen-like effect thanks to emphatic horizontal mouldings and a complete filling of the space to the uppermost reaches of the frame. By contrast, rectilinearity appears anathema to Gregorio di Cecco, whose upper storeys are highly perforated to lacy effect by frame elements with complicated contours and rich relief. One can only imagine the framing of Taddeo di Bartolo’s altarpiece for Pisa occupied an artistic middle ground between the Florentine and Sienese traditions. In general character it was probably both less Sienese and less Florentine than the two related paintings, and as such was the product of choices in design that synthesised and modified the visual taste of the painter, his carpenter and his patron. Presumably Datuccia foresaw this outcome when she selected the Sienese painter who produced an altarpiece that proved a landmark in itself and a major element of her chapel as a whole. The painter responded to his patron’s demands and to the altarpiece’s location by including saints and beati to represent her family and the Franciscan order. What distinguishes the otherwise traditional altarpiece is an apparently singular variation on a type of lateral support. With the painting reconstructed, future study can focus on the iconography of the chapel, its stained glass and frescos taken together.42
38
pittori a Siena 1250–1450, Siena (Pinacoteca Nazionale) 1987, pp.198–99. 41 A Crucifixion in the Opera del Duomo, Siena; Tavolari, op. cit. (note 40), pp.86–87, no.14, is linked to a Birth of the Virgin in the Vatican and to a Marriage of the Virgin in the National Gallery, London; see D. Gordon: London National Gallery Catalogues: The Fifteenth Century Italian Paintings, London 2003, I, pp.118–21. 42 G. Solberg: ‘The Painter and the Widow: Taddeo di Bartolo, Datuccia Sardi-da Campiglia, and the Sacristy Chapel in S. Francesco, Pisa’, forthcoming.
Solberg, op. cit. (note 13), pp.1352–55; the painting is known only in an old photo graph. 39 See note 4 above for a reproduction; and ibid., pp.414–43. Da Morrona described the frame as elaborate: ‘da piramidi e guglie è bizzarramente tagliata’; idem 1793, op. cit. (note 7), III, p.243. 40 B. Tavolari: Museo dell’Opera. Siena. Dipinti, Milan 2007, pp.88–91, no.15. For the Annunciation pinnacles, see A. Bagnoli: exh. cat. Scultura dipinta: Maestri di Legname e
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Gentile da Fabriano, Jacopo della Quercia and Siena: the ‘Madonna dei banchetti’ by GABRIELE FATTORINI
of his career, just after painting the Adoration of the Magi (Fig.19) for Palla Strozzi’s chapel in S. Trinita, Florence, in 1423, Gentile da Fabriano was commissioned to paint a picture in Siena by the Università dei Giudici e Notai, or the Notaries’ Guild, for the façade of their palace which faced onto the Piazza del Campo, next to the ‘bocca del Casato’ (Fig.22). This was the so-called Madonna dei banchetti, a work recorded among Gentile’s masterpieces by Bartolomeo Facio in his De viris illustribus (c.1456), but which was destroyed over two centuries ago.1 This article publishes new documents which, adding to the contradictory information supplied by Tommaso Fecini’s contemporary Cronaca and by Sigismondo Tizio in his sixteenthcentury Historiae senenses,2 allows us to clarify the history of Gentile’s Sienese painting, provides a precise date for its execution and shows that Jacopo della Quercia oversaw the project. In June 1423, while he was still waiting to be paid for the Adoration of the Magi,3 Gentile da Fabriano received the contract from the Notaries’ Guild. A new document in an account book of the guild records the anticipated expenses of the purchase of materials necessary for the decoration of a tabernacle intended to contain the painting later called the Madonna dei banchetti (the name alludes to the benches arranged immediately outside the guild’s headquarters at which notaries pursued their careers).4 The agreement between the painter and the Sienese notaries evidently made provision, as was often the case, for the artist charged with the commission to be responsible for the cost of the materials, and for this the notary of the guild, Bindo di Jacopo, provided a register of the cost of purchasing gold, colours and other materials which were later to be deducted from the painter’s salary. This new document (see Appendix 1 below) provides information both on the materials used and on the involvement of the workshop of a famous Sienese artist. On 8th April 1423 the first pigments were bought (a pound of ‘azzurro fino d’Alemagna’, or azurite, a pound of middle-grade blue (‘azzurro mezzano’) and one of cinnabar from the apothecaries Daniello and Azzolino di Neri Martini, at a cost of 17 lire and 9 soldi. The colours, however, were not given to Gentile, but to the Sienese painter Vico di Luca ‘for painting
ornaments and architectural backgrounds for the figures of the tabernacle of the Judges and Notaries of Siena’, specifying that Vico was engaged by Jacopo della Quercia, acting as ‘commissary of master Gentile over the said ornament to be painted’. At a later unspecified date materials were purchased from the apothecary Filippo di Piero d’Agostino: six pounds of white lead (biacca cruda), five pounds of flaxseed oil, six once of ‘dragantorum’ (presumably the resin of Calamus draco Willd, called in the Middle Ages ‘dragon’s blood’), two once of sponge and 150 pieces of fine gold all consigned to ‘the said Vico, to the painting of the above men-
A version of this article was presented on 20th May 2009 at the Collegio Santa Chiara, Siena, as part of the ‘Scuola di Dottorato Logos e rappresentazione’ of the Università degli Studi di Siena; I am grateful to Alessandro Angelini for inviting me to give the lecture. I would also like to thank Luciano Bellosi, Roberto Bartalini, Max Seidel, Keith Christiansen, Andrea De Marchi and Machtelt Israëls, as well as Fabrizio Nevola and Annalisa Pezzo for leading me to unpublished documents and information. The Department of Archaeology and History of Art at the University of Siena has supported my research and I thank the staff of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence and of the Archivio di Stato di Siena (especially Patrizia Turrini and Carla Zarrilli). I dedicate this article to my family. The documents in the appendix and those cited in notes 42, 43, 45 and 46 below are published in full on THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE website: www.burlington.org/fattoriniappx.php. 1 See in particular K. Christiansen: Gentile da Fabriano, London 1982, pp.50–58 and 137; A. De Marchi: Gentile da Fabriano. Un viaggio nella pittura italiana alla fine del gotico, Milan 1992, pp.193–96; idem: ‘A Siena e a Roma, al servizio di papa Martino V’, in L. Laureati and L. Mochi Onori, eds.: exh cat. Gentile da Fabriano e l’altro Rinascimento, Fabriano (Spedale di S. Maria del Buon Gesù) 2006, pp.296–97; and M.
Mazzalupi: ‘Siena’, in A. De Marchi, L. Laureati and L. Mochi Onori, eds.: Gentile da Fabriano. Studi e ricerche, Milan 2006, pp.133–34. 2 Summarised in ibid. 3 The payments were most recently transcribed in A. Bernacchioni: Sul soggiorno di Gentile da Fabriano a Firenze, in M. Ciatti and C. Frosinini, eds.: Il Gentile risorto. Il ‘Polittico dell’Intercessione’ di Gentile da Fabriano, Florence 2006, pp.65–66, III–IV; and M. Mazzalupi, ed.: ‘Regesto’, in De Marchi, Laureati and Mochi Onori, op. cit. (note 1), pp.78–79, notes 71–72. 4 For the ‘banchetti’, see G. Catoni: Statuti senesi dell’Arte dei Giudici e Notai del secolo XIV, Rome 1972, p.13, note 20. 5 A. Graziani: ‘Il Maestro dell’Osservanza (1942)’, Proporzioni 2 (1948), p.88; J. Pope-Hennessy: ‘Rethinking Sassetta’, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 98 (1956), p.370; and K. Christiansen in idem et al., eds.: exh. cat. Painting in Renaissance Siena 1420–1500, New York (Metropolitan Museum) 1988–89, p.100. 6 M. Israëls: Sassetta’s Madonna della Neve. An image of patronage, Leiden 2003, p.29, note 75; idem: ‘Ludovico di Luca e l’identità del Maestro dell’Osservanza’, in A. Angelini, G. Fattorini, A.M. Guiducci and W. Loseries, eds.: Sano di Pietro nel sesto
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19. Adoration of the Magi, by Gentile da Fabriano. 1423. Tempera on panel, 300 by 282 cm. (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence).
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tioned tabernacle overseen by the said master Jacopo di Piero for master Gentile’. Finally on 6th August 1423, the same apothecary, Filippo di Piero d’Agostino, provided fifty pieces of fine gold destined for the little vault (‘voltarella’) of the Notaries’ Guild. So, during the spring and summer of 1423 decoration of the tabernacle progressed while Gentile himself, still busy in Florence, delegated the work and its supervision to two Sienese artists. Judging from the cost of the materials the decoration must have been very rich. Vico di Luca is now remembered largely for the fact that Alberto Graziani (later followed by John Pope-Hennessy and Keith Christiansen) believed he might possibly be identified with the anonymous artist known as the Master of the Osservanza.5 In fact Vico was a specialist in polychromy and gilding, as emerges from the profile reconstructed for him by Machtelt Israëls.6 His work on the Arte dei Notai’s tabernacle, undertaken when he was approximately twenty-five years old, and chosen by Jacopo della Quercia, acting in the capacity of Gentile’s representative (‘comissario’), confirms his competence in such work: later he polychromed four small angels on the high altar of Siena Cathedral, gilded figures for a new pulpit for the cathedral (the sculpture of which was started by Giovanni da Imola but completed by Giovanni di Turino) and painted a large curtain (‘tenduccia’) for the chapel of the Madonna in Piazza del Campo, for which the Opera del Duomo paid in 1426.7 That Vico undertook such commissions confirms that he was a specialist in gilding and in pastiglia decoration: a craft that he would have mastered from a young age, it was only fitting that he coloured and gilded an architectural frame intended to contain a painting by an artist who, more than any other, displayed an almost obsessive fascination with the use of gold in his paintings. The other master involved in the undertaking was the sculptor Jacopo della Quercia, then the most illustrious Sienese artist of his day who, after producing masterpieces in the first decade of the century for Ferrara (the Virgin and Child with the pomegranate; 1403–08; Cathedral Museum, Ferrara) and Lucca (the tomb of Ilaria del Carretto; 1406–07; Lucca Cathedral), had returned to his native city to sculpt the Fonte Gaia, the great fountain in the Piazza del Campo finished in 1419 which earned him the epithet ‘Jacopo della Fonte’. In 1422 he completed the monumental marble polyptych for the altar of the Trenta family in S. Frediano, Lucca, a work begun in 1413, and in 1425 he received the prestigious commission from Cardinal Louis Aleman to sculpt the ‘porta magna’ of S. Petronio, Bologna. Given Jacopo’s fame, it is not surprising that Gentile da Fabriano chose him as his representative to supervise the work on the decoration of the tabernacle. Nevertheless, it is possible
that the two had met in the first decade of the century when both received commissions in Ferrara (Jacopo for the Virgin and Child of the pomegranate and Gentile for the Virgin and Child; Pinacoteca Nazionale, Ferrara).8 A genuine friendship could have blossomed when Gentile moved to Florence in 1420 where he was in contact with Lorenzo Ghiberti who, on the instruction of Palla Strozzi, was in charge of the workshop of the chapel-sacristry of S. Trinita (for which Gentile’s Adoration of the Magi was destined) in which various craftsmen worked who, in one way or another, had contact with Jacopo.9 Ghiberti had known Jacopo since 1401, when the two sculptors were among the contestants in the competition for the second pair of doors for the Florentine Baptistery,10 and from 1417 they shared the commission (and the workshop of the Sienese goldsmiths Turino di Sano and Giovanni di Turino) for the six bronze panels with Stories of the Baptist which, from the end of the 1420s, decorated the Baptismal font in the Baptistery in Siena.11 At the start of 1420 Palla Strozzi called the Modenese carver Arduino da Baiso to make the choirstalls in his chapel; he was another master who might have served as a link between Gentile and Jacopo.12 He was the son of Tommasino whom the Sienese sculptor had used as guarantor and collaborator on the Virgin and Child for Ferrara (1403–08)13 and in 1414 he and his brother Alberto had carved a famous studiolo (destroyed) in Lucca for Paolo Guinigi which, on the fall
centenario della nascita: qualità, devozione e pratica nella pittura senese del Quattrocento, atti del convegno (Siena–Asciano 2005), forthcoming, where she inclines to exclude the possibility of an identification with the Master of the Osservanza. 7 G. Milanesi: Documenti per la storia dell’arte senese, Siena 1854–56, I, p.48, note 2; and most recently M. Butzek in W. Hass and D. von Winterfeld, eds.: Der Dom S. Maria Assunta, ed. P.A. Riedl and M. Seidel, III, Munich 2006, pp.123 and 125; and G. Fattorini: ‘I rilievi di Giovanni da Imola e Giovanni di Turino per il pergamo delle prediche’, in M. Lorenzoni, ed.: Le sculture del duomo di Siena, Siena and Cinisello Balsamo 2009, pp.96–101. 8 For these two works, see most recently H. Geddes: ‘Jacopo della Quercia’s “Virgin and Child” in Ferrara, and the patronage of Virgilio de’ Silvestri da Rovigo’, Mitteilungen des kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 50 (2006), pp.25–48; and C. Guerzi in Laureati and Mochi Onori, op. cit. (note 1), pp.136–37. For Gentile in Ferrara, see also A. De Marchi: ‘Gentile e la sua bottega’, in De Marchi, Laureati and Mochi Onori, op. cit. (note 1), pp.36–38; and D. Dazeri and A. Ludovisi: ‘La Rocca e Uguccione Contrari’, in D. Benati and V. Randelli, eds.: La cappella Contrari della Rocca di Vignola, Milan 2007, pp.15–41 and 221–24, esp. pp.32–33 and 223, note 87
for the mention of ‘Zentile da Fabriano in a letter sent by Niccolò II d’Este to Uguccione de’ Contrari, dated 26th July 1404. 9 For the workshop of the Cappella Strozzi in S. Trinita, see K. Christiansen: ‘“L’Adorazione dei Magi” di Gentile da Fabriano’, in A. Cecchi, ed.: Gentile da Fabriano agli Uffizi, Cinisello Balsamo 2005, pp.13–17. 10 L. Ghiberti: I Commentarii, ed. L. Bartoli, Florence 1998, p.93. 11 P. Bacci: Jacopo della Quercia: nuovi documenti e commenti, Siena 1929, pp.77–276. The full cycle of reliefs eventually comprised Jacopo della Quercia’s Annunciation to Zaccaria, Giovanni di Turino’s Birth of the Baptist and St John the Baptist preaching, Lorenzo Ghiberti’s Baptism of Christ and the Capture of the Baptist, and Donatello’s Herod’s banquet; see also note 18 below. 12 R. Jones: ‘Palla Strozzi e la sagrestia di Santa Trinita’, Rivista d’arte 37 (1984), pp.47 and 63–66 and docs.28–39, who established that Arduino finished the work for S. Trinita only in 1423; subsequently, c.1427, he was involved with Quercia’s workshop for the Portal of S. Petronio, Bologna, as deduced from various payments; see J. Beck: Jacopo della Quercia, New York 1991, p.423, doc.171; p.432, doc.202; and p.464, doc.287. 13 Geddes, op. cit. (note 8), p.28.
20. Adoration of the Magi, by Giovanni di Paolo. 1440–45(?). Tempera on panel, 39.7 by 46.2 cm. (Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland).
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21. Detail showing the vault over the Madonna dei banchetti from the Pallonata in Piazza del Campo, by Roeland van Laer called Orlando Fiammingo. c.1630–42. Canvas. (Private collection).
22. Piazza del Campo, Siena.
of the Guinigi family, Leonello d’Este had had transported to Ferrara. In the later 1410s Tommasino went to work for Pandolfo III Malatesta in Brescia, probably in Gentile’s workshop for the Cappella del Broletto.14 Even more significant is the fact that a certain Giovanni da Imola is recorded working in the Strozzi chapel: on 9th June 1423, he was paid 12 florins for some unspecified work.15 As Andrea De Marchi has suggested,16 this Giovanni could be the assistant of Jacopo della Quercia who in late in 1413, together with Jacopo, when working on the Cappella Trenta in S. Frediano, was accused of theft, rape and sodomy, an event that scandalised society in Lucca. Giovanni was imprisoned and was only freed in 1417 thanks to the payment of a fine by Girolamo Trenta, most probably at Jacopo’s request, who needed Giovanni’s help to finish work on the Trenta chapel (he may have also helped with the final work on the Fonte Gaia). In 1419 Giovanni was documented in Siena.17 His possible involvement in the S. Trinita workshop a year after the Trenta polyptych was finished could explain the links in the early 1420s between Jacopo’s workshop and that of Gentile. While there is no documentary
evidence that Jacopo was in Florence at that time, it would seem that he had close ties with the Florentine artistic community, given that he chose to entrust Donatello with one of the two reliefs on the Baptismal font in Siena originally, in 1417, commissioned from Jacopo: documents of the Sienese Opera del Duomo date the transfer of the commission from one artist to the other to May 1423,18 contemporaneous with the decoration of the Notaries’ tabernacle. In the spring of 1423 it seems that Jacopo della Quercia acted as the crucial intermediary who brought to Siena Gentile, the most illustrious painter in Italy, and Donatello, the sculptor who put into practice Brunelleschi’s innovations (as he demonstrated in the Feast of Herod relief in 1427). Bearing in mind how the Sienese sojourns of Gentile and Donatello were essential for the regeneration of art in Siena in the 1420s – as can be seen in the work of painters like Giovanni di Paolo (whose devotion to Gentile is evident in his Adoration of the Magi; Fig.20) and Sassetta (who in 1423 started to work on his first masterpiece, the altarpiece for the Arte della Lana) – it is not an exaggeration to cast Jacopo della Quercia in the role of promoter of the early
14
18 Idem, op. cit. (note 11), p.124. Jacopo passed to Donatello the commission for the panel of Herod’s banquet, which was finished in 1427, keeping for himself the commission for the scene of the Annunciation to Zaccaria (1428–30). 19 Jacopo was open to the work of artists of other schools; in 1421 he acted as guarantor for Alberto di Betto d’Assisi who had received a commission for a Lamentation over the dead Christ for the Cappella del Crocifisso in Siena Cathedral; see Milanesi, op. cit. (note 7), II, pp.101–02, no.68: a wooden group sculpture, for which see A. Galli in S. Settis and D. Toracca, eds.: La Libreria Piccolomini nel Duomo di Siena, Modena 1998, pp.343–46, whose recent restoration, which recovered some of the original polychrome, has revealed a sculptural ensemble of the highest quality, distinguished by profoundly Ghibertian and Northern Gothic influences. 20 H. van Os: Sienese altarpieces 1215–1460, Groningen 1984–90, II, pp.73–74; and De Marchi, op. cit. (note 1), p.89, note 27. 21 In the time of Ser Galgano di Cerbone, the Cappella del Crocifisso in the cathedral (as summarised by E. Carli in A. Landi: ‘Racconto’ del Duomo di Siena dato alle stampe e
De Marchi, op. cit. (note 1), p.186, note 20. For a brief biography of Arduino, see A. Ghidiglia Quintavalle: ‘Arduino’, Dizionario biografico degli italiani, Rome 1963, V, pp.300–01. 15 The payment was transcribed in Christiansen, op. cit. (note 1), p.163, doc.VIII; Bernacchioni, op. cit. (note 3), p.66, III; and Mazzalupi, op. cit. (note 3), p.78, no.71. 16 De Marchi, op. cit. (note 1), pp.136, 153 and 187, note 37, who suggests that Giovanni da Imola was responsible for the perforated wooden framing elements above the Adoration of the Magi, confirmed by idem: ‘Gentile e la sua bottega’, in De Marchi, Laureati and Mochi Onori, op. cit. (note 1), p.13. 17 E. Lazzareschi: ‘La dimora a Lucca d’Jacopo della Guercia e di Giovanni da Imola’, Bullettino Senese di Storia Patria 32 (1925), pp.63–71; and Bacci, op. cit. (note 11), pp.128–34. After leaving Florence, Giovanni da Imola was probably in Lucca helping Jacopo to finish the polyptych of the Cappella Trenta and from thence returned to Siena where he was recorded in January 1423; see idem: Francesco di Valdambrino, Siena 1936, pp.356–57, note 1.
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23. Virgin and Child with angels, by Taddeo di Bartolo. 1418. Tempera on panel, 175.5 by 88.7 cm. (Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge MA).
Siena.19
24. Virgin and Child with angels, by Gentile da Fabriano. c.1405. Tempera on panel, 96.5 by 59 cm. (Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria, Perugia).
Renaissance in Yet Gentile was already famous for the previous generation of Sienese painters; in 1418 the most important of them, Taddeo di Bartolo, painted a panel (Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge MA; Fig.23) that replicated the group of kneeling angels holding a scroll with a hymn in praise of the Virgin in Gentile’s Virgin and Child with angels (Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria, Perugia; Fig.24).20 The choice of a master of the stature of Gentile suggests that some of the members of the Notaries’ Guild were interested in figurative art: for instance, Galgano di Cerbone (patron of the Cappella del Crocifisso in the cathedral, where the Sienese Domenico di Niccolò ‘dei cori’, Martino di Bartolomeo and the Umbrian carver Alberto di Betto d’Assisi had worked).21 Two other illustrious characters may also have been connoisseurs of
the arts: the ‘iuris utriusque doctor’, Pietro di Bartolomeo Pecci, and Cristoforo d’Andrea, who had served for many years as chancellor of the Republic of Siena. They were summoned to superintend Taddeo di Bartolo’s work on the cycle of Famous men painted in 1414 in the Anticappella of the Palazzo Pubblico, Siena, based on a humanist iconographic programme possibly inspired by suggestions made by the Florentine chancellor Leonardo Bruni.22 It remains to be seen if Jacopo della Quercia’s role in the making of the Madonna dei banchetti was limited to supervision of the workshop on Gentile’s behalf and the recruitment of Vico di Luca or if, more likely, the sculptor was involved in an
commentato da Enzo Carli, Florence 1992, pp.128–29, note 40) was decorated with two sculptures of the mourning figures of the Virgin and St John the Evangelist carved by Domenico di Niccolò and painted by Martino di Bartolomeo in 1414–15 to flank the trecento Crucifix on the altar (the group is now reconstituted in the Museo dell’Opera, Siena; see A. Bagnoli in idem and R. Bartalini, eds.: exh. cat. Scultura dipinta. Maestri di legname e pittori a Siena 1250–1450, Siena (Pinacoteca Nazionale) 1987, pp.116–18; in the same years Martino di Bartolomeo frescoed the back wall of the chapel, which came to light in 2006 together with a painted ‘tavolato’ which was superimposed in the midquattrocento; see B. Tavolari: ‘Il ritrovato altare del Crocifisso nel Duomo di Siena’, Accademia dei Rozzi 13 (2006), pp.24–28); and Alessandro Bagnoli is working on this complex. In 1421 Alberto di Betto d’Assisi was commissioned to carve a wooden Lamentation (see note 19 above). Between 1386 and 1434 Ser Galgano was repeatedly elected to the roles of consul and notary and treasurer (camarlengo) of the guild; he served as consul in the second semesters of 1421 and 1423 (when the contract with
Gentile was drawn up); see Archivio di Stato di Siena (hereafter cited as ASS), Collegio notarile (hereafter cited as CN), 13, fols.9v–26r, esp. fols.21v and 22v. 22 N. Rubinstein: ‘Political ideas in Sienese Art: the frescoes by Ambrogio Lorenzetti and Taddeo di Bartolo in the Palazzo Pubblico’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 21 (1958), pp.190–207. For Cristoforo d’Andrea and Pietro Pecci, see G. Minnucci and L. Košuta: Lo Studio di Siena nei secoli XIV–XVI. Documenti e notizie biografiche, Milan 1989, pp.244 and 304–05. The two were frequently called to oversee undertakings in the Notaries’ Guild; Pietro is recorded on several occasions as consul from 1415 to 1438 and, in particular, for the period that concerns us in the first semesters of 1422 and 1425 (ASS, CN, 13, fols.19v–27v, esp. fols.22r and 23r), he was also among the overseers who in 1424 accused Antonio di Michele of negligence in failing to record the contract with Gentile of 1423 (see Appendix 3); Cristoforo frequently served as consul and notary from 1399 to 1437 (ASS, CN, 13, fols.14v–27r), but not in the years 1423–25.
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25. Virgin and Child, detail from the Trenta polyptych, by Jacopo della Quercia. 1422. Marble, 228.6 by 291 cm. (main panels), 43 by 303 cm. (predella). (Cappella Trenta, S. Frediano, Lucca).
26. Virgin and Child with angels, by Gentile da Fabriano. 1425. Fresco, 225 by 125 cm. (Orvieto Cathedral).
artistic capacity. In particular it would be interesting to know – although impossible to determine – if Jacopo might have provided the design of the tabernacle which was ready by 8th April 1423 (when materials for its decoration were purchased), which, it could be imagined, would have been ‘Gothic’ in appearance, had architectural elements that were intended to be painted and decorated and was protected by a projecting ‘voltarella’, or small vault.23 Gentile da Fabriano drew up the contract with the Notaries’ Guild between July and October 1423, as is evident from the records of the guilds’ consuls, notary and treasurer (camarlengo) who held office in the second half of that year. On 6th May 1424 three syndics elected specifically for the task, revealed that the notary Antonio di Michele had been negligent in his duties (he held office from July to October 1423).24 He was accused, among
other things, of having failed to transcribe the ‘agreement and contract made between the said guild and the painter master Gentile’ (see Appendix 3). Unfortunately that contract is lost, but we can be certain that Gentile’s duties included paying for the decoration of the tabernacle (subcontracted to Vico di Luca), since the debits were already recorded under Gentile’s name in 1423 (see Appendix 1). These were subsequently cancelled and moved over (cassati e passati) by Antonio di Michele (evidently following the contract) to a new debit account which recorded all the payments made to Gentile up to the final settlement of 17th August 1425 (see Appendix 2). This list of Gentile’s liabilities – in fact a list of the monies paid out to him or in his favour by the officers of the guild – is found in a ‘memoriale’ which the guild used to list its members’ debts; unfortunately the guild’s double-entry register, which would have certainly described the
23
Martini e l’Annuncizaione degli Uffizi, Cinisello Balsamo 2001, p.53. 24 ASS, CN, 13, fol.22v. 25 R. Krautheimer: Lorenzo Ghiberti, Princeton 1982, pp.264–65 and 385, docs.105–06; and p.413, no.174. 26 For the hypothesis that there was a drawing by Ghiberti for the carpentry, see W. Tresidder: ‘Lorenzo Ghiberti and the Frame of Gentile da Fabriano’s “Adoration of the Magi’”, Source 14/4 (1995), pp.8–13; and Christiansen, op. cit. (note 9), p.18. For the possible involvement of Giovanni da Imola, see note 16 above.
See Appendix 1 for references to the ‘maçolarias’ (alluding to the ‘arte della mazzonerìa’, or painting architectural backgrounds; see C. Cennini: Libro dell’arte, ed. F. Brunello, Vicenza 1982, p.96, as ‘cornicette [. . .] basi, colonne, capitelli, frontespizi, fiorini, civori’ (‘mouldings [. . .] bases, columns, capitals, façades, fleurons, canopies’) and to the ‘voltarella’ (a little vault), a common element in Sienese images of the Virgin; see, for example, the ‘voltarelle’ added in 1403 to the altarpieces of the patron saints in Siena Cathedral; see M. Butzek: ‘Le pale di Sant’Ansano e degli altri Protettori della città nel Duomo di Siena. Una storia documentaria’, in A. Cecchi, ed.: Simone
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artist’s expenses in more detail, is lost (the memoriale does not say what the payments were made for) and would presumably also have recorded the cost of making the tabernacle, which was not Gentile’s responsibility. The Notaries’ Guild evidently subdivided the work according to skills, entrusting the planning and execution of the tabernacle to a sculptor or a master woodcarver. Jacopo della Quercia, having taken on the role of ‘commissario’ for Gentile, emerges as an excellent candidate for the designer of the tabernacle, a design which he could have given to a collaborator to construct before Vico di Luca decorated it. A similar division of labour occurred in the case of the tabernacle for the Linenworkers’ Guild in Florence, although at a slightly later date (Museo di S. Marco, Florence): in 1432 Lorenzo Ghiberti provided the design for the marble frame which was executed by the stonemasons Simone di Nanni da Fiesole and Jacopo di Bartolo da Settignano before Fra Angelico’s paintings were installed.25 In the case of Gentile’s Adoration of the Magi, it has been suggested that the design for the monumental wooden frame carved by specialists (perhaps including Giovanni da Imola?) could have been provided by Ghiberti in his capacity of director of the workshop for the Strozzi chapel at S. Trinita.26 The Madonna dei banchetti was situated in the corner of the Piazza del Campo in which a few years earlier Jacopo had erected the Fonte Gaia; Jacopo’s possible involvement in the design of the tabernacle might suggest that the two structures were intended to relate to one another. Given that we have no idea of the appearance of the tabernacle this can never be confirmed. But at that date Gentile and Jacopo shared a taste for the refined international Gothic style as well as an interest in naturalism, which has led to Gentile being described recently as the painter of the ‘other Renaissance’ and prompted Vasari to give Jacopo the role of the herald of the second age of art in his Lives.27 As an illustration of the affinity of their taste in these years, it is worth comparing Jacopo’s Trenta polyptych (Fig.25), dated 1422, with its playful linear drapery and florid architectural elements, with the supreme elegance of the Virgin and Child with angels (Fig.27), originally the central panel of the Quaratesi polyptych in the Florentine church of S. Niccolò Oltrarno, the last great work completed by Gentile in Florence which, in its lost inscription, was dated May 1425.28 Gentile finished the Madonna dei banchetti in the following months, as can be deduced from a document in which the guild’s various notaries and treasurers took turns, week by week from 1423 to 1425, to transcribe (unfortunately not recording what the payments were for) the fixed series of payments released to ‘the painter master Gentile da Fabriano for his part in painting the figures ordered by the said Guild’ (see Appendix 2). In the second half of 1423 Antonio di Michele – as well as recording a payment of 27 lire and 11 soldi made in the first half of the year by Bindo di Jacopo (see Appendix 1) – noted three payments made in favour of Gentile: the first, of 110 lire, was paid by the treasurer Ambrogio d’Andrea ‘at the bank of Jacopo di Marco’ (‘apud bancum Jacobi domini Marci’) directly to the painter, who was in Siena between July and October when Antonio 27
For Gentile, see K. Christansen: ‘The art of Gentile da Fabriano’, in Laureati and Mochi Onori, op. cit. (note 1), pp.19–51. Vasari remarked of Jacopo that he was ‘il primo, dopo Andrea Pisano, l’Orcagna e gl’altri sopra nominati, che operando nella scultura con maggior studio e diligenza cominciasse a mostrare che si poteva appressare alla natura, et il primo che desse animo e speranza agl’altri di poterla, in un certo modo, pareggiare’; see G. Vasari: Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori scultori e architettori nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568, ed. R. Bettarini and P. Barocchi, III, Florence 1971, p.21. 28 On the Quaratesi polyptych, see A. Cecchi: ‘I Quaratesi di San Niccolò Oltrarno
27. Virgin and Child with angels from the Quaratesi altarpiece, by Gentile da Fabriano. 1425. Tempera on panel, 222.7 by 83 cm. (Royal Collection; on deposit at the National Gallery, London).
di Michele was the guild’s notary (see Appendix 2).29 The second and third payments of, respectively, 90 and 84 lire, date from the months of November and December 1423 (when Antonio was replaced as notary by Castellano di Francesco; see Appendix 2),30 and it seems likely that also in this case the treasurer Ambrogio paid the money directly into Gentile’s hands and that consequently he was still in Siena. The document does not record the reason for the payment, but it is probable that in the second half of 1423 Gentile spent several months in Siena to supervise Vico di Luca’s work (who could have been paid out of the money advanced to Gentile at this time: 284 lire, the equivalent of 71 florins) and also to plan his painting. In the first half of 1424 the newly appointed notary Pietro di Neri recorded, as a debit of the guild, further withdrawals in favour of Gentile, who was still not in Siena because the payments were made on his account to the Sienese cartaio (paper e Gentile da Fabriano’, in idem, op. cit. (note 9), pp.59–69; and idem, in Laureati and Mochi Onori, op. cit. (note 1), pp.256–61. For the Trenta polyptych, see Beck, op. cit. (note 12), pp.151–56, no.5, with bibliography. 29 ASS, CN, 13, fol.22v (where it is recorded that in the second half of 1423 Ambrogio d’Andrea Bonelli served as camarlengo and Antonio di Michele Antoni served as notary for only four months and was then substituted for the last two months by Castellano di Francesco Tani). 30 See note 29 above. the burlington m a g a z i n e
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maker and stationer) Ricciardo di Giovanni: a total of four payments were made, one on 3rd April (a first instalment of 55 lire and a second of 5 lire), on 29th April (40 lire) and on the 3rd June (80 lire), making a total of 180 lire (the equivalent of 45 florins). A little later the painter must have arrived in the city when Pietro di Neri paid him in cash 40 lire in grossi d’argento (that is, 10 florins). Subsequently there seems to have been a pause in the work until the next payment – of 16 lire and 10 soldi – was given to the same Ricciardo on Gentile’s account (who evidently was not in the city) by the guild’s notary Bartolomeo d’Angeli, who held office in the first six months of 1425.31 The treasurer Jacopo Nuccini (who held office in the second half of 1425) made the last two payments: the first, on 24th July, of 16 lire consigned to Ricciardo; the second and final payment of 30 lire and 19 soldi was given directly to Gentile on 17th August, with Giovanni Pocci, Ricciardo and Giovanni di Costanzo acting as witnesses. Evidently the Madonna dei banchetti had been inaugurated a couple of days earlier on the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin on 15th August, the most important and magnificent Marian feast in the liturgical calendar and particularly important for the city of Siena, which was dedicated to the Virgin. For the work of painting the tabernacle and the picture Gentile received from the Notaries’ Guild a total of 593 lire and 40 soldi, equivalent to 148 3 ⁄4 florins: probably the guild and the painter had agreed on a round figure of 150 florins, but in the end there was a small discount. The information gleaned from the accounts of the Notaries’ Guild can now be integrated with the meagre accounts of the Notaries’ tabernacle that are already known. The Cronaca senese detta degli Aldobrandini, usually attributed to Tommaso Fecini, tells the history of Siena from its beginnings to the year 1478, occasionally alluding to artistic events. Under the year 1424 the Cronaca records that ‘Maestro Gientile da Fabriano fe’ la Madonna de’ Notari e tutte l’altre figure’, indicating that this took place in the summer, between the death of Zeno da Soncino, noted on 10th July, and the repair of the pennants in preparation for the Feast of the Assumption in mid-August.32 Contradicting this account is the early sixteenth-century testimony of the humanist Sigismondo Tizio, Sienese by adoption, in his Historiae senenses, the monumental history of Siena composed in the form of a chronology.33 Under the year 1424, wishing to correct Fecini’s statement, Tizio wrote that Gentile did not paint the image of the Virgin and saints that year but finished it the following year, in 1425. He also described that
beneath the Virgin (presumably in a predella) there was a tondo with the dead Christ flanked by two angels painted in a copper colour on a tufa-like stone in such an impalpable and subtle manner that it was only visible to those who looked at it with very keen eyes: as De Marchi has noted, Gentile must have executed this in a technique that he loved, that of gold sgrafitto (and perhaps also granito; the tooling of a gilded surface).34 Yet under the year 1426, Tizio adds that a few days after the festive welcome given by the city to Cardinal Antonio Casini in October, Gentile da Fabriano publicly presented the figures of the Virgin and saints painted for the Notaries which he had begun, but not entirely finished, in August 1425.35 To judge from the timespan of the payments made to Gentile by the Guild of Notaries, it seems probable that most of the work was done in the spring of 1424. A sum of slightly less than 75 florins, corresponding to about half the total fee, was paid to the painter before the end of 1423 and in the following two months another 55 florins was paid out in his favour. On the basis of these payments it is likely that Gentile had finished more that eightyfive per cent of the work by spring 1424, and that he was resident in the city, with some absences, between mid-1423 and the first months of 1424. Such an undertaking would fill the documentary gap in Gentile’s career that follows the completion of the Strozzi altarpiece and also coincides with the date of the so-called Council of Siena, when from July 1423 to the first months of 1424 a vast number of bishops was gathered in the city to continue the work of the synod that had opened in April in Pavia but had transferred to Tuscany on account of fear of the Visconti interference.36 It may be that the Notaries’ Guild dreamt up the idea of getting the greatest living painter in Italy to paint an image of the Madonna on the façade of their palace in anticipation of the council to draw attention to the guild’s prestige. This was a unique opportunity to impress the most powerful men in the Church. In the same period Sassetta was painting the altarpiece for the Arte della Lana of Siena, which contains allusions to some of the debates held during the church council and also shows evidence of Gentile’s stylistic influence.37 It is now possible to read the chronology of work on the Madonna dei banchetti in the light of the synod: work was speeded up between the second half of 1423 and the start of 1424 while the council was in session, and later was slowed down when the council closed. By the first months of 1424 the decoration of the tabernacle was completed which, if it were really made of ‘tufeo lapide’ as Tizio claimed, could have been carved from sandstone, called in Siena ‘tufo’. And it is also possible that Fecini was correct in saying Gentile painted ‘la Madonna de’ Notari e tutte
31
35
ASS, CN, 13, fol.23r (Bartolomeo di Angelo Nardini as notary and camarlengo in the first half of 1425, and Jacopo Nuccini in the second half of the year). 32 T. Fecini: Cronaca senese detta degli Aldobrandini, Siena, Biblioteca Comunale degli Intronati, MSS. A.VI.8–9, II, fol.127v; this is the oldest of the copies of the Cronaca, as noted by G. Garosi in idem, ed.: Inventario dei manoscritti della Biblioteca Comunale di Siena, Siena 2002, I, pp.130–31 and 205–06. 33 For Tizio and his Historiae senenses, see P. Piccolomini: La vita e l’opera di Sigismondo Tizio (1458–1528), Rome 1903. 34 ‘Gentiles Fabrianensis pictor eximius Virginis imaginem ceterorumque sanctorum non hoc anno, ut fertur, pro foro publico apud tabelliones depinxit, sed sequenti perfecit. In imis vero sub Virgine circulus est, in quo Iesu Christi in sepulcro mortui consistentis, quam pietatem Christiani vocant, a destris ac sinistris angeli duo sunt, aereo colore tam tenue picti, tamque exili lineatura in tufeo lapide ut, nisi quis etiam ostensis acutissimum figat intuitum, conspicere non valeat’; S. Tizio: Historiae senenses, part III, vol.IV (1402–59), ed. P. Pertici, Rome 1998, p.178 (where the episode is also recorded between the death of Zeno da Soncino and the repair of the pennants of the musical instruments for the Feast of the Assumption); see also the transcription in Christiansen, op. cit. (note 1), p.137; De Marchi, op. cit. (note 1), p.194; and idem, op. cit. (note 16), pp.41–42.
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‘Diebus tamen paucis elapsis [from the entry into Siena of Cardinal Antonio Casini], Gentiles Fabrianensis pictor Marie Virginis ceterorumque sanctorum supra tabellonium sedilia in publico foro ad Casati fauces pictas imagines iam perfectas annotato augusti mense populo prebuit conspiciendas, tametsi anno elapso inchoatas et non plene absolutas notaverimus’; Tizio, op. cit. (note 34), p.182, previously transcribed by Christiansen, op. cit. (note 1), p.137. 36 For the problem of Gentile’s activity between finishing the Strozzi altarpiece and starting the Quaratesi polyptych (now resolved, at least in part, by the history of the Madonna dei banchetti), see Bernacchioni, op. cit. (note 3), pp.55–57. On the Council of Siena, see W. Brandmüller: Il Concilio di Pavia–Siena 1423–1424. Verso la crisi del conciliarismo, Siena 2004. 37 For the Arte della Lana altarpiece, see M. Israëls: ‘Sassetta’s Arte della Lana altar-piece and the cult of Corpus Domini in Siena’, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 143 (2001), pp.532–43; P. Scapecchi: La Pala dell’Arte della Lana del Sassetta, Siena 1979 (for the connections with the Council of Siena); and Christiansen, op. cit. (note 1), pp.50–53, for the influence of Gentile on some of its predella scenes. 38 Cecchi, op. cit. (note 28), p.61. 39 For the document of the lease of the house (ASS, Patrimonio resti ecclesiastici, 2344, fol.159v), see Christiansen, op. cit. (note 1), p.167, doc.X; and Mazzalupi,
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l’altre figure’ at this time and that the finishing touches were added only the following year: confirmation for this can also be found in Tizio’s account, once one has corrected the dates from 1425–26 to 1424–25. Since the council was over, there was less urgency to finish the Madonna dei banchetti, so Gentile was probably recalled to Florence to work on the polyptych for the high altar of S. Niccolò Oltrarno, commissioned in 1423 by Francesco Quaratesi in accordance with the wishes of his uncle Bernardo, who had died in March of that year.38 When he had finished the Quaratesi polyptych in May 1425, Gentile moved for just over two months to Siena: from 22nd June he rented a house from Leonardo di Betto d’Agnoluccio which he intended to keep until the end of August. Evidently he had carefully calculated the time that he would need to finish Madonna dei banchetti, present it to the Sienese on the Feast of the Assumption on 15th August and receive his payment; having been paid the last instalment on 17th August, he paid the rent on the house the next day and soon after left the city.39 Within a week he was in Orvieto, where he was already contracted to paint the fresco of the Virgin and Child in the cathedral (Fig.26) and on 25th August the dignitaries of Orvieto Cathedral celebrated his arrival with a reception.40 Further payments released by the Notaries’ Guild in the last months of 1425 and the first of 1426 to the locksmith (chiavaio) Niccolò di Paolo and to Master Antonio di Jacopo (see Appendix 4), make it clear that Gentile’s Sienese masterpiece was soon protected by a covering, perhaps a kind of cupboard with a curtain. Sigismondo Tizio recounts that ninety years later, on 15th October 1516, a strange hanging portico to protect the image was constructed by the mason Guerrino da Sansepolcro.41 A hitherto unknown account of expenses for this work was found by Fabrizio Nevola in the Archivio di Stato di Siena among the papers of the Griffoli family. This records all the expenses sustained by the Notaries’ Guild for its construction: 478 lire, 16 soldi and 10 denari, paid for the workmanship and materials, among which were ‘un capitello e un gocciola’ (a capital and guttae) that Guerrino bought for 12 lire from a certain ‘maestro Lorenzo scarpellino’, probably the Sienese sculptor Lorenzo di Mariano, called il Marrina.42 In 1526 Giacomo Pacchiarotti painted an eagle and some inscriptions inside the portico and in 1528 Gentile’s painting was covered with a curtain.43 Supported by iron chains, this curious canopy is recognisable in several sei- and settecento views of the Piazza del Campo (Fig.21); usually it is said to have been destroyed, together with Gentile’s painting, by the violent earthquake that hit the city in 1798. In fact the portico had been demolished some decades
earlier: Giovanni Antonio Pecci recorded that this occurred on 22nd September 1761,44 but in the accounts of the Notaries’ Guild payments to the mason and the blacksmith who dismantled the structure are dated 15th and 16th November 1760.45 Presumably Gentile’s painting was effaced at the same time: a document of 31st July 1762 records that the old image of the Virgin was almost destroyed and that another one was being prepared.46 On 11th June 1764, according to Pecci, Gentile’s was substituted by a painting attributed to the Sienese Francesco Rustici (1592–1626), framed in stucco worked by the Lombard Bernardino Cremoni.47 This was the Virgin and Child with Sts Stephen, Bernardino, Catherine of Siena and Laurence that, unlike Cremoni’s stuccowork, survived the earthquake of 1798 and is still on the wall where Gentile’s painting once was, framed in travertine added after the quake and bearing an invocation to the Virgin (Fig.28).48 The original location of this painting is
op. cit. (note 3), p.81, no.74. 40 L. Riccetti: “‘Dolci per Gentile”: New documents for Gentile da Fabriano’s “Maestà” at Orvieto’, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 131 (1989), pp.541–42. The document that records Gentile’s arrival in Orvieto is transcribed in Mazzalupi, op. cit. (note 3), p.81, no.75. 41 ‘Die [. . .] octobris quinta decima [1516], Guerrinus faber ex Burgo Sancti Sepulcri duos arcus pendentes absque columna ad residentiam Notariorum in Foro erexit Senensis cum guita[?] et basi lapidea pendula; testudinem quoque adiecit, et porticum adoherandum[?] super instruxit, opus sane industriesum atque conspicuum’; S. Tizio: Historiae senenses, VIII (1515–20), Siena, Biblioteca Comunale degli Intronati, MS. B.III.13, fol.95. This passage has hitherto escaped art-historical attention, with reference to the construction of the vault which is confirmed by Giovanni Antonio Pecci’s account; see G.A. Pecci: Relazione delle cose più notabili della città di Siena, Siena 1752, p.64; transcribed in Christiansen, op. cit. (note 1), p.137, who knew the passage but dated it to 1506. 42 ASS, Particolari famiglie Senesi, 82, loose folio, undated document among the papers of the Griffoli family, probably drawn up in 1516. See note 41 above for the identification of Guerrino. 43 ASS, CN, 32, fols.240r–v, 241v, 242r–v, 246v and 247r; these payments were
partially published, with some errors, in S. Borghesi and L. Banchi: Nuovi documenti per la storia dell’arte Senese, Siena 1898, pp.442–43. 44 ‘Gli 22 settembre 1761 fu dato principio alla demolizione della volta pensile per una parte, senza posamento di colonna, benché in forma quadrata, che si è mantenuta finora sopra la porta della Residenza de’ Notai, detta de’ Banchetti, nell’angolo della Piazza vicino alla strada della bocca del Casato, tutta sostenuta con catene di ferro, opera giudicata ingegnosa e che era stata fabbricata nel principiare del secolo XVI per formar baldacchino ad un’immagine di Maria Vergine, che ivi più dall’antico era stata dipinta’; see G.A. and P. Pecci: Giornale sanese (1715–1794), ed. E. Innocenti and G. Mazzoni, Siena 2000, p.193. 45 ASS, CN, 35, ‘uscita’, fol.120r–v. 46 ASS, CN, 35, ‘uscita’, fol.124v. 47 ‘[11th June 1764] nella cantonata de’ Banchetti, dove era dipinta un’immagine di Maria Vergine con più santi da Gentile da Fabriano nel 1425 e sotto alla volta pensile demolita poco tempo fa, come in dietro si è detto, e fabbricata da maestro Guerrino dal Borgo San Sepolcro, si vedé collocata una tavola creduta di Francesco Rustici, pittore sanese, con ornamenti a stucchi lavorati da Bernardino Cremoni dello Stato di Milano domiciliato in Siena’; see Pecci, op. cit. (note 44), p.201. 48 A. Leoncini: I tabernacoli di Siena. Arte e devozione popolare, Siena 1994, pp.28–29.
28. Tabernacle with the Virgin and Child with saints, called the Madonna dei Terremoti, by Francesco Rustici. c.1615. (Piazza del Campo, Siena).
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unknown and, apart from the presence of the Virgin and Child, it would seem to have nothing to do with Gentile’s lost work. Around 1450 Bartolomeo Facio described Gentile’s Sienese painting: it showed the Virgin holding the Child on her lap and covering him with a veil flanked by Sts John the Baptist, Peter, Paul and Christopher; Facio added that the figures exhibited considerable realism in their gestures and movements.49 On the basis of this terse description it is impossible to reconstruct the appearance of the Madonna dei banchetti. Christiansen has suggested that it was a polyptych painted on panel,50 while De Marchi takes Tizio’s reference to the support of ‘tufeo lapide’ for the predella with the sgraffito angels to suggest that it was a fresco, perhaps in the form of a ‘fake’ polyptych. It may also have been embellished with metal decorations.51 Girolamo Gigh’s entry in his Diario Senese (1723) also seems to support the theory that it was a fresco: he remembered Gentile’s Virgin and Child with saints ‘on the wall, under master Guerrino’s vault’.52 Whatever the case, this must have been an extremely valuable work given that Gentile was awarded almost 150 florins for painting it.53 Appendix Documents relating to the ‘Madonna dei banchetti’ painted by Gentile da Fabriano for the Arte dei Notai di Siena. Unless otherwise indicated, all the documents are unpublished and are in the Archivio di Stato of Siena (hereafter cited as ASS). Most dates are given in modern style, but where indicated some are shown in the style ab Incarnatione in use in Siena in the quattrocento. Approximate values for the monetary system of the day are as follows: Sienese money (lira) was subdivided into 20 soldi, each of which was subdivided into 12 denari; in relationship with gold currency in circulation, 4 lire was the equivalent of a fiorino. The equivalents for other measurements in the documents are as follows: 1 libbra (12 once) = .3296681 kilograms; 1 braccio da panno = .6010537 of a metre; 1 moggio (24 staia) da aridi = 545.97 litres.
tradit dictos colores a dictis aromatariis de licentia et voluntate ser Johannis Niccolai Ghuidi Nine ex commissione sibi facta a dominibus consulis tunc residentibus eis collegiis qui faciunt dictam summam in totum decem et settem libras, novem solidos et ad exitum dicti camerarii in folio 14. libras xvii solidos viiii° Item tenetur restituere dictus magister Gentilis libras otto, solidos otto et denarios sex, quos dictus camerarius solvit pro eo, per manum ser Bindi de pecunia Universitatis, Filippo Pieri Augustini aromatarii, ut constat in libro apothece dicti Filippi in folio 147, videlicet pro sex libras biacche crude et quinque libras olei seminis lini et sex unciis dragantorum, libras duas et solidos duodecim, et pro duabus unciis spungne solidos quatuor. Et pro centum quinquaginta peçiis panellarum auri fini de prima posta panellarum descripta in dicto libro dicti Filippi libras quinque et solidos otto et denarios sex, astendentibus ad dictam summam otto libras et et quatuor solido set sex denaros sibi Filippo traditis ex deliberatione dominum consulum, quae biacca, oleum, dragantum et panelle fuerunt tradite Vico predicto, ad supradictum tabernaculum pingendum conducto a magistro Jacobo Pieri predicto pro magistro Gentili prefato a dicto Filippo aromatario, de voluntate ser Johannis Niccolai Ghuidi Nine habentis commissionem a dominis consulibus eis collegiis, et de predicta solutione constat ad exitum supradicti Albertini camerarii tunc Universitatis in folio 174 ex deliberatione dictorum dominum consulum facta. libras viii, solidos iiii, denarios vi Item tenetur restituere dictus magister Gentilis solidos trigintasettem et denarios sex, quos dictus camerarius pro eo ser Bindus predictus ex deliberatione dominum consulum die vi agusti solvit Filippo Pieri Augustini aromatario, pro quinquaginta panellis de auro fino habitis pro voltarella Universitatis Notariorum Senarum de prima posta pro ut constat ad exitum ser Albertini Pieri camerarii in folio 174 et etiamque apparet in libro dicti Filippi Pieri aromatarii vocato memoriale O in folio 168. libras 1, solidos xvii, denarios vi. [in another hand and different ink] positum antea in folio 64 per me Antonium Michelis Antonii notarii Universitatis ideo hic cassum et ibi accensum55 2. Summary of the payments received by Gentile da Fabriano for work on the ‘Madonna dei banchetti’ and occasional notes by the treasurers of the guild of the painter’s debts to the guild to be deducted from his final salary, July–December 1423 to 17th August 1425. (ASS, CN, 29, fol.64r).
Infrascripti erunt in debitores illi de universitate qui non solverunt qui tenebantur tam ex cabellis offitiorum quam ex pensione capsettarum et ex aliis causis quibuscumqque descripti videlicet, tempore consulatum egregium virorum ser Cini Guidi, domini Petri ser Antonii legum doctor et ser Johannis Niccolai Ghuidi Nine54 [. . .] Magister Gentilis pictor de Fabriano tenetur solvere, reddere et restituere Universitati Iudicum et Notariorum Senarum et eorum camerario libras decem et settem et solidos novem quas ser Albertinus Pieri camerarius Universitatis predicte, ex deliberatione dominorum consulum, die ottava aprilis solvit de pecunia Universitatis, scomputanda in salario dicti magistri Gentilis de pretio figurarum Universitatis predicte pro dicto magistro Gentili, Daniello et Açolino Nerii Martini aromatarii de Senis, ut constat in libro dictorum Danielis et Açolini signato l2 in folio 34, pro una libra azurri fini de Alamania ad rationem decem et otto solidum pro uncia, libras xx solidos xv. Et pro una libra azuri meçani libras quinque et solidos otto, et pro una libra cinabri solidos vigintiquinque, qui colores dicti aromatarii tradiderunt Vico Luce pictori de Senis recipienti, pro pingendo ornamenta et maçolarias tabernaculi figurarum Universitatis Iudicum et Notariorum Senarum conducto a magistro Jacobo Pieri dela Guercia sculiture comissario magistri Gentilis circa dicta ornamenta pingenda et sibi
Infra describentur omnes et singuli debentes aliquod solvere Universitati Iudicum et Notariorum civitatis Senarum ex iustis et honorabilis causis de quibus infra servata sit mentio. Et primo describetur quod habuit a dicta Universitate magister Gentilis pictor de Fabriano pro parte pretii figurarum quas dicte Universitati pingere debet ponere ed ipsum debitorem in illis quantitatibus denarii quas habuit usque ultimam diem decembris in qua spiravit semestre officii dominorum et consulum, quorum ego [ser Antonius Micheli] fui notarius tempore egregiorum virorum domini Antonii Johannis de Batignano, ser Galgani Cerbonis et ser Johannis Nicolai Cecchini dominorum consulum dicte Universitatis pro sex mensibus inceptis die prima iulii et finitis ultima decembris anni Domini ab Incarnatione m°cccc°xxiii, inditione prima e partem seconda. Magister Gentilis pictor de Fabriano tenetur dare et solvere Universitati predicte libras viginti septem, soldos undecim, denarios 0, quas apparet ipsum dare debere in tribus postis in hoc libro in folio 63 in facie secunda manu ser Bindi Jacobi olim notarii dicte Universitatis. Ideo ibi cassum et hic accensum56 libras xxvii, soldos xi, denaros 0. Item dare tenetur et solvere dicte Universitati libras centum decem quas pro eo et eo presente et mandante ser Ambrosius Andree camerarius dicte Universitatis57 dedit et solvit apud bancum Jacobi domini Marci suo videlicet capserio[?] Johannis ser Nicolai Bindocci, pro ut constat ad introitum dicti Johannis in folio xli. Et pro dicta prestantia extitit fideiusso Jacobus domini Marci [added in another ink ‘quod prestantia fuit facta ex deliberatione dominorum consulum’] libras c°x soldos 0, denaros 0. Item dare tenetur et solvere libras nonaginta denarii quas eidem prestantiam dominus ser Ambrosius ut clare constat in libro introitum dicte Universitatis manu ser Castellani Francisci Tani notarii dicte Universitatis de mensibus novembris et decembris cum ego fui occupatus in officio Consistorii in parte exitum. libras lxxxx, soldos 0, denaros 0. Item dare tenetur et solvere libras octuaginta quattuor denarii quas eidem prestitit predictus ser Ambrosius, ut clare constat in libro introitum dicte Universitatis manu
49
51
1. Gentile da Fabriano is recorded among the debtors of the Arte dei Notai of Siena for materials (pigments, gold etc.) that the guild’s treasurer bought between 8th April and August 1423 for the decoration of the tabernacle to house the ‘Madonna dei banchetti’; materials given to Vico di Luca, the painter who, under Jacopo della Quercia’s supervision, worked on the decoration of the tabernacle. (ASS, CN, 29, fols.63r–v).
In his account of Gentile da Fabriano, after having alluded to the Adoration of the Magi and before mentioning the fresco at Orvieto, Facio wrote: ‘Eius est opus Senis in foro, eadem Maria mater Christum itidem puerum gremio tenens, tenui linteo illum velare cupienti adsimilis, Iohannes Baptista, Petrus ac Paulus Apostoli et Christoforus Christum humero sustinens, mirabili arte, ita ut ipsos quoque corporis motus ac gestus representare videatur’; see M. Baxandall: Giotto and the Orators, Oxford 1971, p.164; also transcribed in Christiansen, op. cit. (note 1), p.137. The motif of the light veil with which the Virgin covers the Child, which Facio describes in the Madonna dei banchetti, was very popular among Gentile’s followers; see De Marchi, op. cit. (note 1), pp.193–94 and 210, note 15, to which can be added the Virgin of Humility and saints (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence), signed by Nicola da Guardiagrele; see A. Cecchi in Laureati and Mochi Onori, op. cit. (note 1), pp.112–13. 50 Christiansen, op. cit. (note 1), pp.50 and 137, no.56.
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De Marchi, op. cit. (note 1), p.194, who emphasises that Giulio Mancini’s ambiguous passage concerning the Madonna dei banchetti could also allude to a fresco; see G. Mancini: Considerazioni sulla pittura [1617–21], ed. A. Marucchi and L. Salerno, Rome 1956–57, I, p.181: ‘Et in proposito di Gentil [Vasari] lascia un’opera da lui condotta in Siena di meravigliosa bellezza, et è la Madonna detta dei Banchetti, della quale a suo tempo si parlarà. Et adesso si dice esservi un S. Luca che, anco che sia fatto a fresco, è di grandissima fine e bellezza’. See most recently, De Marchi, op. cit. (note 16), p.41. 52 ‘Innanzi all’Ufficio detto de Banchetti vedesi un’Arco, cui è unita una volta, e reggesi senza sostegno di Colonna, o di Muro, essendo raccomandata ad alcune grosse chiavi di ferro, che di fuori non veggonsi, e perciò porge non lieve stupore a riguardanti; onde dal Tizio appellansi: Opus sane industrium, & conspicuum. L’opera fu capriccio di Maestro Guerrino Muratore dal Borgo S. Sepolcro, che terminolla l’anno 1506. Sotto la volta nel Muro vedesi una
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dicti ser Castellani Francisci in parte exitum. libras lxxxiiii°, soldos 0, denaros 0. [from here added in another ink] Item dare et solvere tenetur dominus magister Gentile libras quinquagintaquinque denarii, quas eidem prestitit ser Pietrus Nerii notarius Universitatis [in office in the first half of 1424: ASS, CN, 13, fol.22v] de mandato et deliberatione dominorum consulum, et pro eo recepit Ricciardus cartarius die iii aprilis m°cccc°xxiiii libras lv, soldos 0, denaros 0. Item eadem die habuit dominus magister Gentile in prestantia et pro eo recepit dominus Ricciardus libras quinque denarii libras v, soldos 0, denaros 0. Item dare et solvere tenet dominus magister Gentile dicte Universitati libras quadraginta denarii, quas pro eo recepit Ricciardus die 29 aprilis, de mandato et voluntate consulum libras xl, soldos 0, denaros 0. Item dare et solvere tenet dominus magister Gentile dicte Universitati libras ottuaginta denarii de mandato consulum et quas pro eo recepit Ricciardus die iii iunii libras lxxx, soldos 0. [from here written in another ink] Item dare et solvere tenetur dominus magister Gentile libras quadraginta in grossis argenteis, quas habuit et recepit a me Pietro [Nerii] in contanti, de mandato et voluntate dominorum consulum die 26 iunii libras xl, soldos 0. [from here written in another hand and different ink] Item dare et solvere tenet dominus magister Gentile libras sex decem, soldos decem denarii, quos denarios habuit et recepit a me Bartholomei Angeli notario dicte Universitatis [in office in the first half of 1425: ASS, CN, 13, fol.23r] et pro eo solvi Ricciardo Johannis cartulario de Senis, de mandato dominorum consulum, ad exitum folio 184 libras xvi, soldos x. [from here written in another hand and different ink] Item dare et solvere tenetur dominus magister Gentilis libras sex decum denarii Senensi, quos habuit a ser Jacobo Nuccini camerarioliii die xxiiii° iulii, quos recepit pro dicte magistro Gentile Ricciardus cartarius et hoc de mandato dominorum consulum libras xvi, soldos 0, denaros 0. Item tenetur solvere libras triginta et soldos decem noves denarii, quos habuit a me Jacobo Nuccini camerario58 die xvii agusti pro omni residuo sui salarii, facto calculo cum eo et habita quietantia in presentia ser Johannis Poccii, Ricciardi cartarii et Johannis Gostantii testium et cetera libras xxx, soldos xviiii, denaros 0. 3. The notaries Pietro di Bartolomeo Pecci, Casuccio di ser Francesco and Giovanni Franceschini, in their capacity of elected syndics of the Notaries’ Guild to oversee the activities of the consuls, notaries and the treasurer of the guild, holding office between July and December 1423, reveal certain errors on the part of Antonio di Michele who, in his role of notary of the guild, failed to transcribe the records of the guild’s council assemblies, and, in particular, the contract drawn up between the guild and Gentile da Fabriano. The syndics sentenced Antonio, according to the guild’s statutes, to record everything within ten days under the penalty of a fine of 25 lire; 6th May 1424. (ASS, CN, 15, fols.16v–17r). In nomine Domini nostri Yesu Christi amen. Infrascripte sunt absolutiones et sententie absolutionis date late et in his scriptis [. . .] sententialiter[?] promulgate et pronuntiate per famosissimum et egregium utriusque iuris doctorem et prudentes viros dominum Pietrum Bartolomeii de Pecciis, ser Casuccium ser Francisci et ser Johannes Franceschini, notarios sindicos et sindicatores electos et deputatos ad sindicandum veteres consules, notarium et camerarium Universitatis Iudicum et Notariorum civitatis Senarum per sex mensibus proxime preteritis inceptis in kalendis juliis proximi preteritis millioquadringentesimoxxiii et finitis die ultimo decembris proxime pretetis dicti anni, scripto lecto et publicato per me Pietrum olim Nerii Martini notarium de Senis et nunc notarium et scribam universitatis predicte et dominorum sindicorum sub anno Domini m°cccc°xiiii, die et mense inferius annotatis. Nos dominus Pietrus Bartolomeium utriusque iuris doctor, Casuccius ser Francisci et Johannes Franceschini sindici et sindicatores predicti sedentes pro tribunali Senensi in residentia Universitatis predicte infrascriptas absolutiones et sententias absolutionum Pittura, che rappresenta la Vergine nostra Signora con altri Santi, e fecesi da Gentile da Fabriano valente Maestro nel dipingere, l’anno 1425. La loggia, che sta di sopra è opera di Baldassarre da Siena’; see G. Gigli: Diario sanese, Lucca 1723, II, p.185. I thank Annalisa Pezzo for drawing my attention to this passage. In the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century publications, the hanging portico of the Notaries is often attributed – perhaps not without reason – to Baldassarre Peruzzi. 53 It would seem that the tabernacle cost an exceptional amount when compared with other similar works: 150 florins was paid for the Strozzi Adoration of the Magi, but this may be a final settlement and not the total cost; see the documents transcribed in Mazzalupi, op. cit. (note 3), pp.78–79, no.71; for the Madonna in Orvieto Cathedral Gentile received only 18 florins (ibid., p.81, nos.77–78), but this may be a partial payment. To compare Gentile’s fees with two Sienese painters – in 1408 Taddeo di Bartolo was paid 205 florins for the fresco cycle in the chapel of the Palaz-
damus et proferrimus in hiis scriptis et in hunc modum videlicet: [. . .] Item in eo, de eo et super eo quod dicebatur quod dominus ser Antonius notarius dicte Universitatis fuit negligens et remissus in exercendo dictum eius offitium et non scripsit reformationes et consilia optenta in dicta Universitate et non fecit debitas scripturas pro ut debebatur et maxime et nominatim pacta et conventiones facta inter Universitatem predictam et magistrum Gentilem pictorem, pro ut dictus ser Antonius obligatus erat secundum formam dicte Universitatis et statutorum. Ideo nos sindici et sindicatores prefati sequentes et sequi volentes formam iuris et statutorum dicte Universitatis, dictos dominos consules prefatos non reperitos in aliquo culpabiles de predictis et quemlibem eorum in hiis scriptis absolumus et reddimus [. . .] sententialiter[?] absolutos. Et dictum ser Antonium olim notarium condepnamus ad scribendum in libris et codicibus dicte Universitatis omnes et singulas scripturas de quibus rogatis fuit pertanctes et spectantes ad dictam Universitatem et maxime et nominatim pacta et conventiones facta inter Universitatem et magistrum Gentilem infra terminum decem dierum secundum formam statutorum dicte Universitatis, sub pena xxv libras denariorum, secundum formam statutorum dicte Universitatis contenta. Et ab omnibus aliis per eum gestis pro tempore quatuor mensium et ser Castellanum Francisci tam notarium dicte Universitatis pro duobus mensibus infrascriptos reddimus eos liberos et absolutos. [. . .] Late date et in hiis scriptis [. . .] aliter[?] promulgate et pronuntiate fuerunt absolutiones et sententie abolutione per dictos sindicos et sindicatores sedentes pro tribunali Senarum in solita residentia dicte Universitatis in consilio ipsius secundum formam statutorum eiusdem, sub annis Domini m°cccc°xxiiii, inditione ii, die vi mensis maii, tempore pontificati sanctissimi in Christo patris et domini domini Martini, divina providentia pape quinti Romanorum, sede imperatore vacante ut Senis dicitur, coram et presentibus prudentibus viris ser Cino Ghuidonis, ser Johanne Nicholai Ghuidonis et ser Galgano Cerboni testibus. Ego Pietrus olim Nerii Martinii notarius dicte Universitatis et dictorum sindicorum rogantes scripsi et cetera. 4. Record of payments made by the treasurer of the Notaries’ Guild of Siena in favour of the locksmith Niccolò di Paolo and Antonio di Jacopo for working on an ‘involucro’ to protect Gentile da Fabriano’s painting; 15th December 1425 to 17th April 1426. (ASS, CN, 29, fol.70r). Magister Nicholaus Pauli clavarius de Senis tenetur habere ab Universitate Notariorum pro libras tregentisettuagintaquatuor ferri laborati pro ferramentis tendarium[?] ante figuras videlicet pro libras 225 ad pondus dictorum ferramentorum ad rationem quatuor soldorum pro libras et pro residuo ad rationem duorum soldorum secundum conventionem et pacta per eum habita cum dominibus consulibus et sex tribus[?] de Universitate electis secundum formam deliberationis generalis consilii, facto itaque saldo cum eo die xv decembris 1425, tenetur habere summa sexaginta libras denarii et soldos decem otto libras lx, soldos xviii. Habuit a ser Jacobo Nuccini camerario59 in pluribus postis et summis libras trigintanovem et soldos undecim denarii libras xxxviiii, soldos xi. [in another hand] Habuit magister Niccolaus Pauli clavarius predictus a ser Jacobo Andree Pacinelis notario Universitatis60 in pluribus vicibus a die prima februarii usque totam de [. . .] xvii aprilis, pro residuo dicti[?] in folio 34 et folio 34 prima facie, libras viginteunam et soldos septem denarii. Ideo cassum libras xxi, soldos vii Magister Antonius Jacobi tenetur habere pro eius laborerius ducciorum et scriniorum de super et pro cassinis et lancea libras vigintiduas, solidos quatuor decem libras xxii, soldos xiiii Habuit a ser Jacobo Nuccini notarius61 in pluribus postis libras viginti et soldos sex libras xx, soldos vi Item pro acuti habuit pro dictis laboreriis ab apoteca Petri Cetini[?] quos tenet accordare ipso libras 0, soldos vi[?] Item solvi[?] die 19 januari [1426] de accordo ser Johannis Pocci ser Jacobi Pacinellis solidos viginti sex et denaros sex libras i, solidos vi, denaros vi Item habuit soldos sex pro residuo libras 0, soldos vi. zo Pubblico and 33 florins for the monumental St Christopher, frescoed on the wall of the Anticoncistoro; see Milanesi, op. cit. (note 7), II, p.29; for the commission for an altarpiece for the church of S. Agostino at Asciano, Domenico di Bartolo agreed on a price of 60 florins in 1437; ibid., II, pp.171–72. 54 The two consuls held office in the first half of 1423; see ASS, CN, 13, fol.22r. 55 Antonio di Michele was the notary of the university from July to October 1423; see ASS, CN, 13, fol.22v. 56 A reference to the document in Appendix 1. 57 Held office in the second half of 1423; see ASS, CN, 13, fol.22v. 58 Held office in the second half of 1425; see ASS, CN, 13, fol.23r. 59 Held office in the second half of 1425; ibid. 60 In office in the first half of 1426; ibid. 61 In office in the second half of 1425; ibid. the burlington m a g a z i n e
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Sassetta and the Guglielmi Piccolomini altarpiece in Siena by M A C HTELT ISRAËLS
ON THE EVE of the elevation of Enea Silvio Piccolomini to the bishopric of Siena in 1450, Sassetta died aged about fifty, leaving incomplete, among other unfinished works, an altarpiece in the church of S. Pietro in Castelvecchio.1 This commission and its hitherto unknown patrons, the Guglielmi Piccolomini family, as well as some of the panels of Sassetta’s altarpiece, which was eventually finished by Sano di Pietro, can now be identified and the appearance of the altarpiece partially reconstructed. Stefano di Giovanni, known as Sassetta, who had painted the magnificent double-sided polyptych for the Franciscans of Borgo San Sepolcro (1437–44) and was much favoured by the Sienese government for public commissions, contracted pneumonia while working out of doors painting a fresco of the Coronation of the Virgin on the Porta Romana.2 In April 1451 his widow, Gabriella di Buccio di Biancardo, impoverished by paying for her husband’s medical care and funeral, demanded payment for the fresco.3 Another of Sassetta’s unfinished works was the St Bartholomew (Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena; Fig.33), a side panel from an altarpiece with a provenance from S. Pietro in Castelvecchio (Figs.29 and 30), and its companion St Francis by Sano di Pietro, who apparently took over the commission (Fig.34).4 Alexandra Pietrasanta associated these paintings with an altarpiece that Bishop Francesco Bossi had seen in the church in 1575 on the altar of St Bartholomew.5 This altar can now be identified with the chapel dedicated to Christ’s Nativity founded by Bartolomeo di Francesco Guglielmi. He was a pizzicaiuolo, or grocer, who belonged to the political group, or monte, of the Popolo. Between 1411 and 1451 he held numerous high positions in the city’s government, serving as Capitano del popolo in 1438.6 He lived in the family mansion in the Casato di Sopra in Siena, the street leading up
from the Campo to the oldest and highest part of town called Castelvecchio.7 Bartolomeo was married to Caterina Piccolomini, who had been born in nearby Corsignano – later renamed Pienza – the daughter of Silvio Piccolomini and Vittoria Forteguerri, and the sister of Laudomia and Enea Silvio (the future Pope Pius II). When they married in April 1431, Bartolomeo Guglielmi was considerably older than his bride;8 from a previous marriage he had one surviving son, Francesco (1427–87).9 Bartolomeo and Caterina’s daughter, Antonia Nicola, was baptised on 24th September 1441.10 A son, Giovanni Achille, was baptised on 21st January 1453.11 Exceptionally, his name was entered in the baptismal records with the matronymic ‘di monna Chaterina’, possibly because his father, who died that same year, was already
Philippa Jackson guided me on the trail of the Guglielmi, Fabrizio Nevola provided the introduction to the Siena of the Piccolomini, and Ludwin Paardekooper taught me the ways of the Sienese lira. I thank all three also for reading a previous draft of this article. I am grateful to Roberto Bellucci, Ciro Castelli, Cecilia Frosinini, Anna Maria Guiducci and Elena Pinazuiti and I thank Petra Pertici for sharing her knowledge of the Bichi and Lorenzo Calvelli for his help with epigraphy. Documents in the appendix and those cited in footnotes 5, 20, 24, 36, 43, 45 and 72 are published in full on THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE website: www.burlington.org/israëlsappx.php. The following abbreviations are used: AAS (Archivio Arcivescovile di Siena); ASS (Archivio di Stato di Siena); and BCS (Biblioteca Comunale di Siena). 1 For his birth, see M. Israëls: ‘Sassetta, Fra Angelico and their Patrons at S. Domenico, Cortona’, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 145 (2003), pp.760–76, esp. p.762; for his death, see P. Bacci: Francesco di Valdambrino, emulo del Ghiberti e collaboratore di Jacopo della Quercia, Siena 1936, p.352. 2 K. Christiansen: ‘Three Dates for Sassetta’, Gazette des Beaux-Arts 131 (1989), pp.263–70, esp. p.264. 3 S. Borghesi and L. Banchi: Nuovi documenti per la storia dell’arte senese, Siena 1898, pp.166–69, doc.100; and J. Pope-Hennessy: Sassetta, London 1939, pp.120 and 140–42, note 62. 4 A. Pietrasanta: ‘A “lavorii rimasti” by Stefano di Giovanni called Sassetta’, The Connoisseur 177/712 (1971), pp.95–99. 5 AAS, Sante Visite 21, fols.64r–67r; see Appendix 3. Ascanio Piccolomini,
visiting the church in 1583, gave the original title: ‘cappellania Nativitatis iuris patronatus familiae de Guglielmis’; AAS, Sante Visite 24, fol.10v. 6 ASS, Manoscritti A62, fol.224r; Manoscritti A68, fol.264r; and M. Ilari: Famiglie, località, istituzioni di Siena e del suo territorio, Siena 2002, p.184. 7 In 1430 ‘Bartolomeo di Francescho di Guglielmo pizigaiuolo’ was taxed in the Casato di Sopra for 3,850 lire; ASS, Lira 50, fol.71v. So was his father in 1410 ‘Francescho di Ghuiglelmo pizichaiuolo’ (for 1,100 lire); ASS, Lira 42, fol.119r. For the later history of the palace, see M. Ricci: ‘Architettura all’antica a Siena negli ultimi anni della Repubblica: Bartolomeo Neroni detto il Riccio’, in M. Ascheri, G. Mazzoni and F. Nevola, eds.: L’ultimo secolo della repubblica di Siena: arti, cultura e società, Siena 2008, pp.213–26, esp. pp.217–19. 8 For Caterina’s dowry, see ASS, Gabella 190, fol.58v (30th April 1431). As Bartolomeo does not appear in Siena’s baptismal records, which started in 1380, he was probably born before that year. His siblings Pietro, Guglielmo and Giovanni Bindo were baptised respectively in 1384, 1389 and 1391; ASS, Biccherna 1132, fols.38v, 71r and 103r. His sons Mariano, Guglielmo, Giovanni and Andrea (none of them surviving to adulthood, but see note 9 below) were born in, respectively, 1419, 1421, 1422 and 1426; ASS, Biccherna 1132, fols.391v, 415v and 429r. 9 ‘Franciescho di Bartalomeo di Franciescho di Guglielmo pizichaiuolo si battezzò a dì XXVI d’aghosto [1427] fu chonpare Nicholo di Treghuanuccio orafo’; ASS, Biccherna 1132, fol.497v. His name, accompanied by the Guglielmi family coat of arms (azure a bend or between two lilies or), occurs on Francesco di Giorgio Martini’s 1467 Biccherna
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29. S. Pietro in Castelvecchio, Siena.
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31. Memorial plaque of Giovanni di Bartolomeo Guglielmi with the Piccolomini coat of arms. 1453. White marble, 60.5 by 44 cm. (S. Pietro in Castelvecchio, Siena).
terminally ill or perhaps because of his mother’s high status, since her brother Enea Silvio was already bishop of Siena, a post he held from 23rd September 1450 until his election to the papacy on 19th August 1458. But Giovanni died in infancy and was buried in the church of S. Pietro in Castelvecchio.12 The east end of this old parish church, which had been consecrated in 1255, bordered on the Guglielmi palace and properties in the Casato di Sopra (Fig.30).13 Giovanni was commemorated by a plaque bearing the Piccolomini coat of arms and the phrase: ‘Death snatched Giovanni di Bartolo[meo] while he was still being suckled. He was the nephew of Enea, bishop of Siena’ (Fig.31); the inscription is carved in capitals that are early imitations of classical epigraphy,
while the wording ‘mors rapuit’ (‘death snatched’) suggests that it was composed by someone familiar with the works of Francesco Petrarca and conceivably with some knowledge of Early Christian sepulchral inscriptions.14 Bishop Piccolomini conceded the use of the maternal family name and coat of arms for the infant’s burial inscription. Later, as Pius II, he also bestowed this privilege on his sister Caterina and on Bartolomeo Pieri, prefect of Spoleto and husband of his niece Antonia, thus creating the Piccolomini Pieri line.15 Similarly, he favoured his nephews, sons of his sister Laudomia and her husband, Nanni Todeschini: Francesco (the future Pope Pius III) was created cardinal and archbishop of Siena; Antonio was created Duke of Amalfi through his marriage to the illegitimate daughter of King Ferrante of Naples; Andrea and Iacomo he entrusted with the construction of Palazzo Piccolomini in via Banchi di Sotto in Siena. Laudomia’s sons perpetuated the papal family name in the Piccolomini Todeschini line.16 An ailing Bartolomeo Guglielmi had dictated his will on 17th March 1453 and died before the end of the year (see Appendix 1 below). He was buried with great pomp, at the cost of 150
panel, The Virgin protecting Siena in the time of earthquakes (ASS). In the first half of 1485 he was mayor of Radicofani; ASS, Particolari, Famiglie Senesi b.83. In 1484 he was operaio of S. Agostino and in 1487 he was buried in a new family tomb in the centre of that church; see H. Teubner in P.A. Riedl and M. Seidel, eds.: Die Kirchen von Siena: Abbadia all’Arco–S. Biagio, Munich 1985, 1.1, p.31; and M. Butzek in ibid., p.161. 10 ‘Antonia Nichola di Bartalomeo di Franciescho di Ghuglielmo pizicaiuolo si battezzò a dì XXIIIIo di settenbre fu chonpare Battista di Bartalommeo di Buonristoro’; ASS, Biccherna 1132, fol.669r. 11 ‘Giovanni Achille di monna Chaterina si battezzò a dì XXI di gienaio [1452 old style] fu chonpare Cristofano di Biagio e per lui Piero di Francesco da Roma e mona Tadea di Mariano’; ASS, Biccherna 1133, fol.139r. 12 Also known as S. Pietro alle Scale, and not to be confused with the now-demolished church known as S. Pietro ‘ad bancos’, ‘alle scale’ or ‘buio’, which stood along the Banchi di Sotto, facing the vicolo dei Borsellai access to the Campo (Vanni map no.67). For S. Pietro in Castelvecchio, see G. Macchi: ‘Notizie di tutte le chiese che sono nella città di Siena’, 1708, ASS, Manoscritti D107, fols.108r–109v; B. Spinelli: ‘Relazione storica della parrocchia di S. Pietro in Castelvecchio alias delle Scale’, 1879, BCS, A.VIII.53, fols.145r–168r; and A. Liberati: ‘Chiese, monasteri, oratori e spedali senesi, ricordi e notizie: chiesa di San Pietro in Castelvecchio’, Bullettino senese di storia patria NS 12 (1941), pp.66–69. 13 As can be deduced from the 1466 church inventory: ‘Item una perpetua in Casato
iuxta ecclesiam quam tenet Franciscum Bartholomei et solvit tres libras in anno ecclesie, cui ante via comunis et ex alio Francisci predicti’; AAS, Sante Visite 13, fol.546r. 14 ‘Iohanem Bartho[l]i lacta/ntem mors rapuit Ae/neae Senensis presuli/s nepotem’; see S. Colucci: Sepolcri a Siena tra Medioevo e Rinascimento: analisi storica, iconografica e artistica, Florence 2003, p.222, fig.59 (with an erroneous date). For the formula ‘mors rapuit’ in Early Christian epigraphy, see E. Diehl: Inscriptiones latinae christianae veteres, Berlin 1926–31, ed. Dublin and Zürich 1970, I, 46:23; 1076:7; 1512:5, II, 4805:3. F. Petrarca: Bucolicum carmen VII; De otio religioso II; De remediis utriusque fortune 48; Epystole extravagantes 28; Epystole familiares II:1, XII:7; Epystole metrice II:14; Epystole seniles XIII:8; Rerum memorandarum libri I:15,7, III:71,12. When in 1625–26 Fabio Chigi (the future Pope Alexander VII) saw Giovanni’s memorial plaque, he was aware that the infant had been a nephew of Pope Pius II and was also a member of the Guglielmi family, a link probably suggested by the plaque being near to the Guglielmi family chapel; see P. Bacci: ‘L’elenco delle pitture, sculture e architetture di Siena: compilato nel 16256 da Mons. Fabio Chigi poi Alessandro VII’, Bullettino senese di storia patria 10 (1939), pp.197–213 and 297–337, esp. p.31; see also G. Faluschi: ‘Chiese senesi’, c.1821, BCS, E.V.17, fol.227r. 15 C. Ugurgieri della Berardenga: Pio II Piccolomini, con notizie su Pio III e altri, Florence 1973, pp.220 and 545; and F. Nevola: Siena: Constructing the Renaissance City, New Haven and London 2007, p.70. 16 Ugurgieri della Berardenga, op. cit. (note 15), pp.135 and 220–21; and Nevola, op. cit. (note 15), p.73.
30. Map of Siena, by Francesco Vanni, printed by Pieter de Jode the Elder. c.1595. Key: I. S. Pietro in Castelvecchio; II. via del Casato; III. Palazzo Guglielmi; IV. Palazzo Bichi; V. S. Agostino.
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32. (Left). St Catherine of Siena, by Liberale da Verona. 1470s. Fresco, c.280 by 90 cm. (S. Pietro in Castelvecchio, Siena). 33. (Centre). St Bartholomew, by Sassetta. 1449–50. Tempera and traces of gold on panel, 139.5 by 45.5 cm. (Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena). 34. (Right). St Francis, by Sano di Pietro. c.1451–55. Tempera and traces of gold on panel, 138.8 by 45 cm. (Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena).
florins, in the convent of S. Agostino.17 At his father’s death, as recorded in the Sienese tax records of December 1453, his son Francesco stated that under the terms of his father’s will he had to endow a chapel and pay for an altarpiece in S. Pietro at a total cost of 350 florins (see Appendix 2). He had taken over the family mansion in the Casato with its contents ‘befitting his status’. His stepmother, Caterina, had her own taxable household and was then waiting for Francesco to give her her dowry, personal belongings and some rent-bearing property, in accordance with the wishes of her late husband.18 When Enea Silvio became pope, his sister Caterina reassumed her maiden name and, from 1459, built a princely palace in the via di Città, now known as the Palazzo delle Papesse, probably because the succession of this branch of the family descended through the female line. Caterina lived there with her daughter, Antonia, who, aged twelve, was given in marriage to
Bartolomeo Pieri from Massa Marittima with a dowry of 850 florins.20 Later in life Caterina became a Dominican tertiary at S. Caterina del Paradiso, where in 1482 she served as one of the first prioresses for a year.21 In his will Bartolomeo Guglielmi charged his son and heir, Francesco, to provide for the completion of the altarpiece for his chapel of the Nativity of Christ in S. Pietro in Castelvecchio. The chapel was to be endowed within ten years of his death with property worth 300 florins. Francesco and his descendants, together with the rector of the Hospital of S. Maria della Scala and the friars of S. Agostino, shared the right to select a chaplain to be confirmed by the bishop. Bartolomeo chose to build his chapel and provide it with a third of its chaplaincy in his local parish church; the Ospedale was probably included because it had been left a right to the church’s patronage in 1298 by the Antolini family,22 while the Augustinians, in whose nearby
17
21
According to the convent’s sepoltuario, the tomb of ‘Bartholomeio di Francischo di Gulglelmi’ was in the portico in front of the refectory; AAS, 3554, fol.48v; M. Butzek in Riedl and Seidel, op. cit. (note 9), 1.1, p.161, note 499. 18 ASS, Lira 136, fols.16r–17r. In the district of Casato di Sopra ‘Franciescho di Bartholomeo di Franciescho di Ghulielmo’ is taxed for 5,675 lire and ‘Monna Katherina dona fu di Bartolomeo di Franciesco di Ghuglielmo’ for 725 lire; ASS, Lira 57 (started 3rd December 1453), fols.21r and 22v. The declaration of ‘donna Caterina donna che fui di Bartolomeo di Francesco di Guglelmo e figluola di Silvio di Silvio Picholhuomini’, is in ASS, Lira 136, no.13. 19 F. Gabbrielli: ‘Il Palazzo delle Papesse’, in E. Bruttini et al.: Il Palazzo delle Papesse in Siena, Asciano 2006, pp.13–36; A.L. Jenkens: ‘Caterina Piccolomini and the Palazzo delle Papesse in Siena’, in S.E. Reiss and D.G. Wilkins, eds.: Beyond Isabella: Secular Women Patrons of Art in Renaissance Italy, Kirksville 2001, pp.77–91; Nevola, op. cit. (note 15), pp.70–72. 20 ASS, Lira 136, fols.16r–17r.
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H. Trottmann: ‘Chronologie’, in P.A. Riedl and M. Seidel, eds.: Die Kirchen von Siena: Oratorio della Carità–San Domenico, Munich 1992, 2.1.1, p.7, note 4. 22 Macchi, op. cit. (note 12), fol.108r. 23 A. Sozzini: Diario delle cose avvenute in Siena dal 20 luglio 1550 al 28 giugno 1555, ed. G. Milanesi, Florence 1842, pp.393–404; and G.A. Pecci: Memorie storico-critiche della città di Siena, Siena 1760, IV, pp.213–17. 24 ASS, Bollari 109, fols.259v–261r, referred to by Spinelli, op. cit. (note 12), fol.148v. For their baptisms, see ASS, Biccherna 1133, fols.310v (1st February 1468) and 423v (29th September 1476). From 1505 to 1515 Giovanni Battista Guglielmi was one of the three operai of Siena Cathedral; see M. Butzek: ‘Chronologie’, in W. Haas and D. von Winterfeld, with M. Butzek, ed.: Der Dom S. Maria Assunta: Architektur, Munich 2006, 3.1.1.1, pp.1–262, esp. pp.176 and 180–82. In 1509 Giovanni Battista was taxed for 3,500 lire when living in the family palace in Casato di Sopra; ASS, Lira 111, fol.55r. His son Alessandro was living there in 1549; ASS, Lira 242, fols.155r–156r; see also note 7 above.
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convent Bartolomeo was buried, may also have catered for his spiritual needs. Only between 1513 and 1519 did Bartolomeo’s grandsons, Giovanni Battista (born 1468) and Girolamo (born 1476) di Francesco Guglielmi, and great-grandson Alessandro di Giovanni Battista (born 1501) – who in 1555 mediated the capitulation of the Sienese Republic to Florence 23 – finally provide for the dowry of the chapel of the Nativity (also called the chapel of St John the Baptist at this date). The Guglielmi heirs stipulated masses should be said on the feast days of Sts Anthony of Padua and Bartholomew, as well as on a weekly basis.24 The Guglielmi chapel in S. Pietro already existed when the infant Giovanni was buried there in 1453. The decision to dedicate a chapel to the Nativity may have been related to Bartolomeo and Caterina’s frustrated wish for a male heir, but their foundation of a chapel was also part of the general refurbishment of the parish church and its surroundings. The church was reconfigured between 1452 and 1456, a period in which the annual obligatory meal offered to two representatives of the Ospedale on 29th June, St Peter’s feast day, was cancelled because of the reconstruction works (‘acconcio’).25 In 1466 steps were built in front of the façade and the adjacent walled cemetery.26 In the 1440s Giovanni di Guccio Bichi (1409–68) erected a luxurious palace next to the church (now Palazzo Bichi Tegliacci, housing the Pinacoteca) and probably also endowed a chapel in S. Pietro.27 Loyalty to the Piccolomini was strong in the parish and, when on 17th December 1456 Enea Silvio was created a cardinal, the façade of the house of the church’s parish priest was adorned with a plaque with the Piccolomini coat of arms surmounted by a cardinal’s hat, to which, on his elevation to the papacy, an inscription was added.28 In 1446 the parish priest of S. Pietro in Castelvecchio counted eight altars in his church, three of which had no altarpiece.29 On 11th July 1575 Bishop Francesco Bossi paid a visitation to the church and noted the high altar was flanked to the south by an altar dedicated in 1350 to the plague saints Fabian and Sebastian, and to the north by the altar of St Paul (see Appendix 3).30 He ordered the removal of a decrepit altar near the sacristy door.31 On the southern nave wall was an altar dedicated to the Virgin and on the northern nave wall one dedicated to St Bartholomew which had a very beautiful altarpiece with the Virgin and saints that was not gilded. As we shall see, this was the Guglielmi chapel of the Nativity. In 1621 Rutilio Manetti’s Rest on the flight to Egypt was installed on the high altar (still in situ), replacing Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s polyptych of 1344, which was hung on the counterfaçade over the church’s main door.32 The arrival of Manetti’s altarpiece may have prompted the reduction of the number of altars in the church, since an inventory of 1646 lists
25
ASS, Spedale 140, fols.40v–41r. On 17th July 1466 the parish priest Andrea di Cecco lists among the fixed property of the church: ‘Una platea iuxta domum ecclesie quam modo tenetur Laurentius et Gabriel de Thigliaccis [in 1458 the Bichi family had sold their new palace to the Tegliacci] pro qua solventur X solidi in anno, qui sunt per quodam appodio quod dederunt mihi pro faciendo schalam’; AAS, Sante Visite 13, fol.548r. 27 Nevola, op. cit. (note 15), pp.53–57. 28 ‘[Pi]o.pp.ii.senese.assa/lito.alsacro.ponti/ficato. adi xviii.da.gosto. M.CCCC.LVIII.’; ibid., pp.67–70. 29 ‘Et in prima dentro in nella chiesa si visò 8 altari, a cinque sono la tavola e a l’atri tre no’; AAS, Sante Visite 16, fol.322r, inventory of 9th August 1446. 30 Faluschi, op. cit. (note 14), fol.222r. 31 The 1592 inventory lists only five altars: ‘Cinque altari nella detta chiesa con sue tavole dipente’; AAS, Parrocchia di S. Pietro in Castelvecchio 110. 32 Lorenzetti’s Virgin and Child with Sts Helen, Peter, Paul and Michael is still in the 26
35. Annunciation to the shepherds, by Sano di Pietro, perhaps following a design by Sassetta. c.1451–55. Tempera and gold on panel, 54.5 by 69 cm. (Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena).
only the high altar and two others belonging to the Guglielmi and Bichi families.33 The three altars are also listed in the ‘Opere osservate in Siena del 1660’, with a short description of Manetti’s panel and of ‘a beautiful altarpiece by Pietro of Siena of 1451 and opposite it another one by the same painter, not less beautiful’.34 It therefore recorded, apparently incompletely, Sano di Pietro’s signature on the two altarpieces and the date of the inscription on one of them. In fact, there are surviving fragments from two mid-fifteenth-century altarpieces from S. Pietro in Castelvecchio; the four saints by Sano di Pietro in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, first mentioned in the catalogue of 1842 (Fig.38) are the lateral panels of a second altarpiece.35 Other late seventeenth-century descriptions provide further details of the two altars facing each other across the nave. Inventories record that the Guglielmi altar, placed against the northern or left wall, was dedicated to the Nativity (although in 1666 it was said to be dedicated to St Joseph). They describe its altarpiece as ‘painted on wood in the old fashion’ (1660), as ‘an old gilt altarpiece with the coat of arms of the Guglielmi and with the Nativity of Our Lord and other figures’ (June 1666), and as ‘an old altarpiece in the Greek manner, in which are depicted the Nativity of Our Lord with the Guglielmi coat of arms’ (after 1694; see Appendix 4). The Guglielmi altarpiece was therefore a gold-ground polyptych with a central image of the Nativity flanked by saints and the family coat
church, while the central pinnacle of God the Father is in the Museo Diocesano d’Arte Sacra, Siena. For its signature and iconography, see L. Cateni: ‘Un polittico “too remote from Ambrogio” firmato da Ambrogio Lorenzetti’, Prospettiva 40 (1985), pp.62–67. 33 Compare also Bacci, op. cit. (note 14), p.307. 34 ‘A S. Pietro alle Scale un quadro di Rutilio Manneti molto ben laudato dell’anno 1621, e una cona di Pietro da Siena del 1451 bella et una incontro del medesimo non meno’; ‘Opere osservate in Siena del 1660’, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Manoscritti Chigiani, G.I.15, fol.282r; for Manetti’s painting, see A. Bagnoli, ed.: exh. cat. Rutilio Manetti: 1571–1639, Siena (Palazzo Pubblico) 1978, pp.97–98, no.32. The present author is preparing an edition of this description of seventeenth-century Siena. 35 C. Pini: Catalogo delle tavole dell’antica scuola senese riordinate nel corrente anno 1842 ed esistenti nell’I. e R. Istituto di Belle Arti di Siena, Siena 1842, p.16, no.49; and C. Brandi: La regia Pinacoteca di Siena, Rome 1933, p.248, who erroneously presumed that Figs.33, 34 and 38 all belonged to a single heptaptych; Pietrasanta, op. cit. (note 4), p.98, note 2. the burlington m a g a z i n e
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36. God the Father blessing, by Sassetta. 1449–50. Tempera, silver and traces of gold on panel, 62.2 by 39.8 cm. (Museo Diocesano d’Arte Sacra, Oratorio di S. Bernardino, Siena).
37. Back of the panel in Fig.36.
of arms. In 1703 Antonio Nasini (1643–1715) replaced it with a Nativity of Christ on canvas (present whereabouts unknown).36 Inventories record that the Bichi altar, on the southern nave wall, was dedicated to the Virgin and describe its altarpiece as similar to that of the Guglielmi and ‘all’antica’ (1660), as ‘an old gilt altarpiece with various figures and similar predella’ (June 1666), and as ‘an old altarpiece in the Greek manner, with the image of the Virgin and other saints’ (1687). The Bichi altarpiece was a gold-ground polyptych by Sano di Pietro with the Virgin and Child with saints and a predella with figures of saints. In 1693 Jacinto Fornari commissioned a Dead Christ supported by an angel with Sts Peter, Philip Neri and Hyacinth from Antonio Nasini (present whereabouts unknown) in a new stucco frame,
to replace the polyptych.37 In the first two decades of the eighteenth century the parish priests Pietro Miniati and Michelangelo Lenzi made further modifications to the exterior and the interior of the church.38 Sassetta’s St Bartholomew and Sano di Pietro’s St Francis, which had entered the Pinacoteca by 1852 with a provenance from S. Pietro in Castelvecchio, can now be identified as the right-hand side panels of the Guglielmi altarpiece, representing the name saints of its patron, Bartolomeo, and his son Francesco.39 Sassetta’s involvement provides a terminus ante quem for the commission, since he died in April 1450. In his tax declaration of December 1453, Francesco Guglielmi recorded that he was still
36 ‘L’altare a mano sinistra parimente sotto la gradinata della Natività del N.S.G.C. di stucco simile all’antecedente fu fatto l’anno 1703, ha il suo quadro in tela dipinta dal Nasini, e rappresenta il Padre Eterno, il Bambino Gesù nel Presepio, la Santissima Vergine, San Giuseppe, e angioli con cornice dorata. Questa cappella [. . .] fu fondata da Bartolommeo di Francesco Guglielmi’; Spinelli, op. cit. (note 12), fol.148r–v. By that date, the Guglielmi Guidini family, through Canon Piero Guidini’s 1647 adoption of Tommaso di Flavio Guglielmi, continued the Guglielmi line. For Nasini’s altarpiece, see AAS, Parrocchia di S. Pietro in Castelvecchio 110, under 1721. 37 ‘L’altare a mano destra sotto le scale parimente di stucco fatto fare dal signore Jacinto Fornari speziale l’anno 1693, con suo quadro in tela, e piccola cornice dorata dipinto dal Nasini e rappresenta il Nostro Signore morto sostenuto da un angelo con le immagini di San Pietro e di San Filippo Neri e di San Giacinto. In detto Altare vi è una cappella sotto il titolo di San Sebastiano di nomina della nobil famiglia illustrissimi marchesi Bichi Ruspoli dell’Arco de Rossi’; Spinelli, op. cit. (note 12), fol.148r–v. The two Nasini altarpieces had been removed by the time of E. Romagnoli: Biografia cronologica de’ bellartisti senesi, 1200–1800, c.1835, [Florence 1976], XI, p.230. 38 Macchi, op. cit. (note 12), fols.108r–109v. 39 Identified as Sano di Pietro in G. Milanesi: Catalogo della Galleria dell’Istituto di Belle Arti di Siena, Siena 1852, p.45, no.17; and P. Torriti: La Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena: i dipinti, Genoa 1990, pp.195–96, no.240. 40 It is possible that the Guglielmi also considered using the services of the painter
Francesco di Bartolomeo Alfei (c.1421–c.1490), for Francesco di Bartolomeo Guglielmi was a witness on 31st July 1452 at the baptism of that painter’s daughter Bartolomea; ASS, Biccherna 1133, fol.134r. For documentation on Alfei, of whom no identifiable works survive, see C. Alessi and P. Scapecchi: ‘Il “Maestro dell’Osservanza”: Sano di Pietro o Francesco di Bartolomeo?’, Prospettiva 42 (1985), pp.13–37, esp. pp.29–33. 41 M. Frinta: Punched Decoration on Late Medieval Panel and Miniature Painting, Part I: Catalogue Raisonné of All Punch Shapes, Prague 1998, pp.111, 227 and 421; R. Bellucci: ‘Chart of the Use of Punch Marks in Sassetta’s Borgo San Sepolcro Altarpiece’, in M. Israëls, ed.: Sassetta: The Borgo San Sepolcro Altarpiece, Leiden and Florence 2009, II, pp.590–93, esp. figs.395, 402 and 403. 42 For the working sequence and workshop organisation, see R. Bellucci and C. Frosinini: ‘Art in the Making: Sassetta and the Borgo San Sepolcro Altarpiece’, in ibid., I, pp.383–96. Between 1467 and 1473, for the chapel of Mary Magdalene in S. Domenico, Sano also painted an altarpiece that had been gilded long before (by Sano di Andrea di Bartolo?); see I. Bähr in Riedl and Seidel, op. cit. (note 21), 2.1.2, pp.738 and 739, notes 92 and 95. 43 MS, op. cit. (note 36). 44 Brandi, op. cit. (note 35), p.248, no.240; and Torriti, op. cit. (note 39), p.195. 45 28th March 1513; AAS, Bollari 109, fols.259v–261r. The iconography seems to have confused other visitors as to the altar’s dedication: Bossi thought it was dedicated
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under the obligation to complete his father’s altarpiece for 50 florins (Appendix 2).40 The date of 1451, recorded by the author of the ‘Opere osservate in Siena del 1660’, may relate to Bartolomeo Guglielmi’s altarpiece, started by Sassetta and finished by Sano di Pietro who may have taken over in 1451, dating but not completing it in that year. The halo around Sano’s St Francis is identical to that around Sassetta’s St Bartholomew and the tooling and build-up as well as the individual punchmarks are distinctive of Sassetta’s workshop.41 Sano must have had to finish an altarpiece that was already gessoed, gilded and partially painted.42 According to Bossi’s testimony of 1575 the gold grounds had by then been scraped off the altarpiece (see Appendix 3), although the June 1666 inventory appears to mention a goldground painting.43 Sano’s other polyptych and Lorenzetti’s painting also suffered this brutal treatment, possibly for the gold to be sold on behalf of the church. In 1933 there was still blue overpaint concealing the gesso, but this was removed in 1970 when all the panels from S. Pietro in the Pinacoteca were restored.44 The left-hand lateral panels of the Guglielmi altarpiece are either missing or unidentified. The saint in the position of honour may have been John the Baptist, to whom the chapel is said to be dedicated in the document of 1513 concerning the election of a chaplain.45 The Baptist would have represented the name saint of Giovanni di Bartolomeo, the lamented Piccolomini Guglielmi heir. The saint in the outer position may have been a Franciscan, paired with St Francis on the outside right of the main tier, possibly St Anthony of Padua, the namesake of Antonia, the only surviving Piccolomini Guglielmi descendant, whose feast day was celebrated at the altar. The apparent omission of the name saint of Caterina Piccolomini seems to have been made good later when Liberale da Verona, who was active in Siena between 1467 and 1476, executed a fresco of St Catherine to the left of the Guglielmi altar (Fig.32).46 In 1461 Pope Pius II had canonised the Sienese Dominican Caterina Benincasa, and in her widowhood Caterina Piccolomini took vows as a Dominican tertiary so it was obvious for her to choose her Sienese namesake rather than St Catherine of Alexandria. Sano di Pietro’s Annunciation to the shepherds is in all probability the fragmentary top section of the central Nativity of the Guglielmi altarpiece (Fig.35).47 Its herd of black and white sheep might correspond to an image of the Virgin with sheep in the
colours of the Sienese balzana, or civic coat of arms, that Girolamo Macchi in 1708 and Girolamo Gigli in 1723 noticed in the church’s presbytery.48 The Guglielmi Nativity had its roots in a popular Sienese altarpiece tradition originating with Bartolomeo Bulgarini’s triptych Nativity with adoration of the shepherds with Sts Victor and Corona of 1351 for Siena Cathedral (Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge MA, and Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen).49 Later examples of the same subject include Taddeo di Bartolo’s 1404 Bindi altarpiece in the Servite church, Siena,50 and Bartolo di Fredi’s pentaptych with a central narrow Adoration of the shepherds painted in the 1390s, probably for the church of S. Agostino in Montalcino (dispersed).51 As in the case of the Porta Romana fresco, Sano may well have followed Sassetta’s design for the Adoration of the shepherds. The angel floating on a cloud and the curved horizon recall Sassetta’s solutions for the hovering Virtues in St Francis in glory (Villa I Tatti, Florence), while narrative details such as the shepherds warming themselves by a fire and the alternate colours of the penned-in sheep could well have sprouted from his playful imagination, clumsy as their execution may be.52 The stacked-up composition, with an upper scene with small figures separated by a hilltop from the main scene below, was a device that Sassetta also employed in his Adoration of the magi of around 1433 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and Chigi Saracini Collection, Siena). In the lower part of the Guglielmi panel there may have been either an Adoration of the shepherds or a simpler Nativity, its composition possibly reflected in Sano di Pietro’s small-scale panel formerly in the Barbara Piasecka Johnson Collection.53 Ideas of birth and lineage may have inspired the choice of a Nativity in Siena around 1450, as in the Sassetti chapel in S. Trinita in Florence in 1479–85.54 A God the Father blessing was listed as the work of Giovanni di Paolo in inventories of the contents of S. Pietro in Castelvecchio in 1925, 1931 and 1961,55 but it is now attributed to Nicola di Ulisse (Fig.36). However, it has little to do with the sprightly style of Nicola (documented 1430–70) who, for a brief period, was active in Siena.56 Like the panels of saints, the God the Father has been scraped bare of its gold background, and was also repainted in a dark blue colour according to the twentieth-century inventories (‘Il fondo è rifatto con colore scuro’). The imprints of the punches are still visible in the exposed gesso and correspond to Sassetta’s punching in the St Bartholomew and St Francis.57 The pink mantle is created with hatching in red lake and lead white on silver, a
to St Bartholomew, the anonymous inventory writer of 1666, possibly impressed by the central Nativity, thought it was dedicated to St Joseph. 46 For the attribution of the fresco discovered in 1968, see C. Del Bravo: ‘Un affresco di Liberale a Siena’, Antichità viva 10 (1971), pp.17–19. For Liberale’s Sienese period, see H.-J. Eberhardt: Die Miniaturen von Liberale da Verona, Girolamo da Cremona und Venturino da Milano in den Chorbüchern des Doms von Siena: Dokumentation – Attribution – Chronologie, Munich 1983. Vasari stated that there were books illuminated by Liberale ‘nella libreria de’ Piccolomini’; see G. Vasari: Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568, eds. R. Bettarini and P. Barocchi, Florence 1966, IV, p.567. 47 It was first documented in the Pinacoteca in Siena in 1852; Milanesi, op. cit. (note 39), p.33, no.42; and Torriti, op. cit. (note 39), pp.200–01. 48 ‘In chiesa c’è una tavola antica con la beata vergine Maria e sotto ci sono delle pecore bianche e nere denotano la fameglia del pubblico di Siena . . .’; Macchi, op. cit. (note 12), fol.108r. ‘Vedesi nella tribuna un’antica pittura di Nostra Donna con alcune pecore bianche, e nere, esprimenti l’insegna della città’; G. Gigli: Diario Senese, Lucca 1723, ed. Siena 1854, I, p.376. 49 H. van Os: Sienese Altarpieces, 1215–1416: Form, Content, Function, I, 1215–1344, Groningen 1984, pp.113–22; E.H. Beatson, N.E. Muller and J.B. Steinhoff: ‘The St. Victor Altarpiece in Siena Cathedral: A Reconstruction’, The Art Bulletin 68 (1986), pp.610–31; and R. Hiller von Gaertringen: Italienische Gemälde im Städel, 1300–1550,
Mainz am Rhein 2004, pp.82–96. 50 G. Solberg: ‘Taddeo di Bartolo: His Life and Work’, (unpublished Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1991), pp.1074–89. 51 G. Freuler: Bartolo di Fredi: Ein Beitrag zur sienesischen Malerei des 14. Jahrhunderts, Disentis 1994, pp.368–81. 52 The punchmark used for the halo is Sano’s; see Frinta, op. cit. (note 41), p.345. 53 K. Christiansen in idem, L.B. Kanter and C.B. Strehlke: exh. cat. Painting in Renaissance Siena, 1420–1500, New York (Metropolitan Museum of Art) 1988, pp.166–67. 54 E. Borsook and J. Offerhaus: Francesco Sassetti and Ghirlandaio at Santa Trinita, Florence: History and Legend in a Renaissance Chapel, Doornspijk 1981, p.19. See, however, the qualifications in J.K. Cadogan: Domenico Ghirlandaio: Artist and Artisan, New Haven and London 2000, pp.234–35. 55 MS, op. cit. (note 36), ad annum, 1925, no.83; 1931, no.200; 1961, no.162; and P. Torriti: Tutta Siena contrada per contrada, Florence 1988, p.285 (as ‘ambiente del Sassetta’). 56 For a biography, see C.B. Strehlke: Italian Paintings, 1250–1450, in the John G. Johnson Collection and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia 2004, p.346. 57 See note 41 above. The punches used for the angels’ halos were Sassetta’s distinctive ovals with a defect and lozenges; Frinta, op. cit. (note 41), pp.81 and 184; and Bellucci, op. cit. (note 41), p.590, figs.388–90. the burlington m a g a z i n e
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38. Sts Hugh (of Cluny or Lincoln?) and John the Baptist and Sts Peter and John the Evangelist, by Sano di Pietro. 1450s. Tempera and traces of gold on panel, each panel c.135.5 by 73 cm. (Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena).
luxurious technique often used by Sassetta.58 The thick eyebrows, staring eyes with carefully drawn eyelashes and knobbly nose, as well as the abstract depiction of hair and features, are similar to other figures in Sassetta’s late style, such as the St Francis in glory in his Borgo San Sepolcro altarpiece and the St Bartholomew. We can assume that the God the Father was the central pinnacle of the altarpiece in the chapel of the Nativity of Christ in S. Pietro in Castelvecchio and was painted by Sassetta.59 The St Bartholomew was attached by dowels to the St Francis to its right, but not to the central panel.60 The panels would have been battened to the panels in the main tier.61 The top batten was positioned at the height of the saints’ heads, a common practice in polyptychs, since the spaces between the tops of the main tier panels did not allow for battens. In each panel, X-radiography reveals the presence of nails from the lower batten that went
through the support and were bent back into the front surface.62 Traces of a horizontal batten on the back and dowels on either side of God the Father indicate that pieces of wood were originally attached to the sides and that this central pinnacle was wider.63 This is also suggested by the halos of angels below and to the sides of the God the Father having been cut. The pinnacle was also connected by two vertical battens to the central panel of the main tier (Fig.37).64 The altarpiece’s side pinnacles, flanking pilasters and possibly a predella are unidentified or lost. Like the other panels known to have come from S. Pietro in Castelvecchio, the gold backgrounds of the lateral panels of the Bichi altarpiece have been removed (Fig.38). To the left of the now-missing Madonna, in the position of honour, was St John the Baptist, flanked by a Carthusian saint who, notwithstanding the absence of an abbot’s staff, may represent either Hugh of Cluny
58 R. Bellucci, C. Castelli, C. Frosinini and M. Israëls in Israëls, op. cit. (note 41), II, p.482. 59 This God the Father may give an idea of the lost pinnacle at the top front of the double-sided Borgo San Sepolcro altarpiece; see J.R. Banker: ‘Appendix of Documents’, in ibid., II, p.572, doc.XXIV. Such a figure also surmounts Bulgarini’s Nativity and those by Domenico di Niccolò (intarsia panel, Cappella dei Signori, Palazzo Pubblico, Siena) and by Giovanni di Paolo (Musée du Petit Palais, Avignon). 60 As indicated by the height of the pavement, the St Bartholomew was trimmed slightly more at the bottom than the St Francis. In the former, there are three dowel holes in the right side about 11 cm. deep, at 8.7, 72.7 and 137.5 cm. from the bottom. In the latter there are two similar dowel holes in the left side at 10 and 72.5 cm. from the bottom and a single 7 cm. deep one in the right-hand side at 118 cm. from the bottom. The latter was probably for a dowel connecting the main tier to the flanking pier. 61 The backs have been partially thinned and covered with white and grey paint. In both the St Bartholomew (at 8.5 cm. from the top) and in the St Francis (at 3.5 cm. from the top), there are three holes left by the extracted nails that fixed the battens. 62 At about 24 cm. from the bottom in the St Bartholomew and about 27 cm. from the bottom in the St Francis. An X-radiograph was made in 2009 by Ottavio Ciappi, Opificio delle Pietre Dure, Florence.
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Sections of dowels or dowel holes are present on the left at 7 and 45.4 cm. from the bottom, and on the right at 7.5 and 45.1 cm. from the bottom. 64 Discolouration of the wood shows that there was a 4 cm. wide horizontal batten 15 cm. from the bottom, with a nail hole 20 cm. from the left and 17.5 cm. from the bottom, also two 5>7 cm. wide vertical battens attached with nails; one nail is at 8 cm. from the bottom and 7 cm. from the left; the other at 7.5 cm. from the bottom and 4 cm. from the right (measurements taken from the back). 65 The figure was identified as a holy nun by Milanesi, op. cit. (note 39), p.56, no.49; P. Torriti: La Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena: I dipinti dal XII al XV secolo, Genoa 1977, pp.270–72, catalogued it as a holy monk. 66 G. Prunai: ‘Bichi, Giovanni’, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (1968), X, pp.348–49; T. Bichi Ruspoli: ‘L’archivio privato Bichi Ruspoli’, Bullettino senese di storia patria 87 (1980), pp.194–225, esp. p.200; P. Pertici: ‘Per la datazione del “Libro d’ore” di Filiziana Bichi’, in M. Ascheri, ed.: Renaissance Siena and its Territory, Siena 2000, pp.161–69; P. Pertici: ‘Il viaggio del papa attraverso il territorio senese: Le tappe di una vita’, in A. Calzona, ed.: Il sogno di Pio II e il viaggio da Roma a Mantova: Atti del convegno internazionale, Mantova 13–15 aprile 2000, Florence 2003, pp.143–62, esp. p.160; and Nevola, op. cit. (note 15), pp.53–57. 67 He and his brother Galgano had a wall-hanging painted with large-scale figures,
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or Hugh of Lincoln.65 They seem to have represented the name saints of one of the richest and most powerful men of Siena, Giovanni di Guccio (abbreviation of Uguccio) Bichi (1409–c.1477), whose new palace flanked S. Pietro in Castelvecchio and whose banking business thrived on the nearby Croce di Travaglio.66 He served four times as Capitano di popolo, congratulated the newly anointed Pope Pius II on behalf of Siena, was one of the captains in that pope’s crusade, and was knighted by King Sigismund of Luxemburg probably in 1434 and by King Ferrante of Naples in 1465. He may have been the patron of Sassetta’s Adoration of the magi.67 He must have been knowledgeable about art since he was asked to establish the price of Michele di Matteo’s frescos in the Baptistery in 1447 and to help lure Donatello to Siena in 1457.68 In 1439 Giovanni Bichi founded a burial chapel dedicated to the Baptist in S. Agostino, and the Bichi family’s patronage in S. Pietro in Castelvecchio is documented from 1466.69 On the right side of the Bichi altarpiece were St Peter, titular of the church, and St John the Evangelist, reinforcing the namesake of the patron at the other side. Sano di Pietro’s roundel with the Angel of the Annunciation (Fig.39), also with a provenance from S. Pietro in Castelvecchio, bears Sano’s distinctive punch marks.70 As this cut-out fragment is painted on a support three cm. thick, consisting of two vertically grained planks abutting in the middle, it probably surmounted the Sts Hugh and John the Baptist. The roundel would have shared, with the side panels of the main tier, a continuous support composed of two planks, and the polyptych may have been similar in type to the polyptychinscribed-within-a-triptych of Sano’s Scrofiano altarpiece and Giovanni di Paolo’s St Nicholas altarpiece (both Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena, inv. nos.255 and 173). The predella of the Bichi altarpiece can now also be identified. It had saints and a Crucifixion in roundels of a diameter roughly corresponding to the width of the main tier panels. From left to right these included St Catherine of Alexandria, St Augustine (both Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena, inv. nos.243 and 248), Christ on the Cross with the Virgin and St John the Evangelist (Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht), St Benedict (Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican City) and St Lucy (Museo Diocesano d’Arte Sacra, Siena).71 In 1458 Sano painted a similar predella for his altarpiece in S. Giorgio in Montemerano. Bartolomeo Guglielmi and Caterina Piccolomini would have chosen Sassetta as the most prestigious painter in Siena, but also as a personal acquaintance. Around 1430 Sassetta and his father,
an immigrant from Cortona and a servant in the Palazzo Pubblico, had been living in the same Casato in which the Guglielmi Piccolomini had their home.72 Sano di Pietro was an obvious second choice. Some five years younger than Sassetta, Sano was trained in the older painter’s style. In 1432 he acted as Sassetta’s arbiter when the price of the latter’s Madonna della Neve (Contini Bonacossi Collection, Florence) had to be established,73 and in 1452 he represented the Sienese government in appraising Sassetta’s unfinished Coronation of the Virgin on the Porta Romana, himself completing the fresco between 1459 and 1468.74 After his work for the chapel in S. Pietro in Castelvecchio, Sano continued to be favoured by the Piccolomini family; he was one of four painters whose services were sought around 1460 by Pius II to paint the altarpieces in his newly constructed cathedral in Pienza.75 The Nativity polyptych for S. Pietro in Castelvecchio
which, when Sigismund visited Siena in 1432–33, was used to adorn the court’s temporary dwellings; ibid., p.38; and M. Israëls in M. Seidel, ed.: exh. cat. Da Jacopo della Quercia a Donatello: Le arti a Siena nel primo rinascimento, Siena (S. Maria della Scala) 2010, forthcoming. 68 Butzek, op. cit. (note 24), pp.143 and 155. 69 For the chapel in S. Agostino, see idem in Riedl and Seidel, op. cit. (note 9), 1.1, pp.180, 182 and 461, doc.13; and p.464, doc.22. See also ASS, Lira 137, no.108. In an inventory of 17th July 1466, various items with the Bichi coat of arms were listed in S. Pietro in Castelvecchio: liturgical vestments and two chalices (‘pulcri et magni cum armis de Bichis’); AAS, Sante Visite 13, fol.546r–v. 70 Frinta, op. cit. (note 41), pp.190, 238 and 328. 71 The first, second and fifth of these panels are known to have come from S. Pietro in Castelvecchio; see H.W. van Os: ‘Problemi senesi a proposito della mostra “Pitture senesi in Olanda”’, Commentari 22 (1971), pp.69–72; F. Zeri: review of P. Torriti: La Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena, in Antologia di belle arti 2 (1978), p.151; and W.F. Volbach: Il Trecento, Firenze e Siena, Vatican City 1987, pp.47–48, no.57, figs.97–98, who reconstructed the predella, without noticing its relationship with the main tier panels from S. Pietro in Castelvecchio. 72 In the Sienese tax records, or Lira, Sassetta and his father, Giovanni di Consolo,
from Cortona, were assessed for 200 lire in the district of the Casato di Sotto. 1430; ASS, Lira 50, fols.71r and 79v. By 1439 Sassetta was living in the terzo of Camollìa; Bacci, op. cit. (note 1), pp.349–50, note 1; and Pope-Hennessy, op. cit. (note 3), pp.111 and 134, notes 29 and 30. 73 M.-H. Laurent: ‘Documenti vaticani intorno alla “Madonna della Neve” del Sassetta’, Bullettino senese di storia patria 42 (1935), pp.265–66; and M. Israëls: Sassetta’s ‘Madonna della Neve’: An Image of Patronage, Leiden 2003, p.29. 74 Idem: ‘New Documents for Sassetta and Sano di Pietro at the Porta Romana, Siena’, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 140 (1998), pp.436–44. The appraisal (ASS, Notarile Antecosimiano 414) was published by G. Milanesi: Documenti per la storia dell’arte Senese, Siena 1854–56, II, pp.276–78, doc.193; and Pope-Hennessy, op. cit. (note 3), pp.120 and 144–45, note 64. 75 H. van Os: Sienese Altarpieces, 1215–1460: Form, Content and Function, II, 1344–1460, Groningen 1990, pp.193–214; P. Palladino: “‘Pittura in una casa di vetro”: un riesame e una proposta sul programma decorativo di Pio II per la cattedrale di Pienza’, Prospettiva 75–76 (1994), pp.100–08. For the socio-political ideal informing the construction of Pienza, see G. Chironi: ‘Un mondo perfetto: istituzioni e societas christiana nella Pienza di Pio II’, in F. Nevola, ed.: Pio II Piccolomini: il Papa del Rinascimento a Siena; Atti del convegno internazionale di studi 5–7 maggio 2005, Colle Val d’Elsa 2009, pp.39–50.
39. Angel of the Annunciation, by Sano di Pietro. 1450s. Tempera and gold on panel, diameter 41.5 cm. (Museo Diocesano d’Arte Sacra, Oratorio di S. Bernardino, Siena).
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was testimony to the continued regard for a traditional Sienese type of altarpiece; the Guglielmi and the Bichi families, as representatives of the ruling classes, sought to maintain civic visual culture in their choice of the type and style of their altarpieces.76 However, perhaps it may have had some all’antica effects in its architectural detail, reflected in the innovative almond-shaped coat of arms and classical inscription on the Piccolomini boy’s tomb plaque, by his mother’s choice of Liberale da Verona to paint her namesake’s fresco, and by all’antica elements such as classical colonette and string courses that their neighbour Giovanni Bichi used for his otherwise traditional palace.77 The polyptych’s form harked back to the canonical patron-saint altarpieces in Siena Cathedral, its iconography reflected dynastic preoccupations78 and, with its mixture of all’antica detail and traditional Sienese form, it was a precursor of the altars made for Pienza Cathedral.
Appendix All dates are given in the modern style unless otherwise indicated. 1. Bartolomeo di Francesco Guglielmi endows the chapel of the Nativity in S. Pietro alle Scale, Siena, for which he is having an altarpiece made. Testament of 17th March 1453. (ASS, Spedale 140, fol.69r–v). Copia fundationis cappelle in ecclesia Sancti Petri in Castro Veteris facte per Bartolomeum de Gulielmis, et iuspatronatus eiusdem. In Dei nomine Amen. Anno ab Incarnatione millesimo quadragentesimo quinquagesimo secundo indictione prima secundum stilum . . . [sic], et consuetudinem nota riorum civitatis Senis die vero decimo septimo mensis Martii tempore pontificatus sanctissimi in Cristo patris, et domini domini Nicola divina providentia papa quinti. Pateat omnibus evidenter qualiter honorabilis vir Bartholomeus olim Francisci Gulielmi de Senis, sanus per gratiam Iesu Cristi mente, et intellectu licet corpore languens volens, et intendens, per nuncupatum testamentum [. . .] in hunc modum, et formam facere, procuravit, videlicet. Et inter cetera disposuit. Item prout idem testator asservit, cum edificari fecerit in ecclesia Sancti Petri Castris Veteris de Senis unam cappellam, et iam inceptam est fieri per eum quemdam tabulam pro cappella voluit et mandavit quod si tempore mortis ipsius testatoris fulcita non est, quod heres suus institutus ipsam fulciri faciat et poni in cappella predicta et pro ipsius dotibus seu dote ipsius cappelle per eumdem heredem expendantur in bonis inmobilibus floreni trecenti de soldis octuaginta pro quolibet floreno intra tempus decem annorum a die obitus dicti testatoris incipiendus. Quo tempore decem annorum durante per eumdem solvantur parroccho dicte ecclesie anno quolibet florenis octo de soldis octuaginta denariorum prout in presentiam solvit dictus testator, et quod rector ecclesie predicte teneatur celebrari facere in dicta cappella ad minus tres messas qualibet hebdomada, et hoc in casu quo dictus testator non exposuisset pro predictis denariis trecentos florenos et quod solutis expenderet supra dictis florenis trecentis pro dote ipsius cappelle in ea semper et in perpetuum stet, et stare debeat unus cappelanus qui celebret in ea missas, et alia divina officia secundum discretionem reddituum, et fructuum dicti dotius, cuius cappellani electio pertineat ad filios suos masculos, et femenas natos et nascituros, et alios descendentes per lineam directam pro una voce, et ad dominum rectorem piissimi domus hospitalis pauperum Sancte Marie della Scala de Senis pro alia voce, et ad priores, et fratres capituli et conventus heremitarum Sancti Augustini de Senis pro alia voce, ita quod vacante cappellanie electio pertineat ad prefatos omnes concordes et non aliter vel alio modo constituendo, eligendo, et creando eos patronos ipsius cappelle in perpetuum concedendo eis influentiam declarandi quibus temporibus missae et alia divina offizia celebrari debeat in cappella prefata.
testamento chome n’è roghato ser Antonio da Bangniaia. E simile mi lasò vi faciese fare dipengniare una tavola che chosta fiorini cinquata. In tuto fiorini ttre ciento cinquanta: fiorini 350, soldi [. . .] 3. Description of the altars in the church of S. Pietro in Castelvecchio from the record of the apostolic visit by Bishop Francesco Bossi, 11th July 1575. (AAS, Sante Visite 21, fols.64r–67r; unpublished transcription by G. Catoni and S. Fineschi). Curata sancti Petri in Castelvecchio [. . .] Visitavit altare maius lapideum cuius mensa est ex tabulis et cooperta tamen duabus tobaleis et mandavit apponi tres cum celebratur, quod etiam fieri iussit in reliquis altaribus, quae in ea ecclesia sunt. Petra sacra est decens et cooperta, sed mandavit aequare mensae. Predella est incongrua et mandavit firmam et maiorem fieri. Adsunt duo candelabra octonea magna et duo alia parva ac duo alia ferrea. Adest imago Crucifixi. Icona licet antiqua sit et tamen decens cum multis sanctorum figuris depictis super tabulas et auro ornatis. Super altare maius non adest capella testudinata neque baldachinum et apponi iussit baldacchinum saltem ex tela intra tres menses. A latere sinistro ipsius altaris adest altare sub titulo Sancti Fabiani et Sebastiani lapideum et eius mensa lignea, cuius petra sacra est decens et cooperta, et mandavit adaequari, adest una tobalea longa et lata et una alia nimis areta. Adsunt duo candelabra ferrea et crux lignea et deaurata. Predella est lignea et decens. Mandavit supra hoc altare apponi coelum seu baldacchinum ex tela saltem depicta sumptibus eorum qui dotem exigunt huius capelle in termino unius anni. Icona super dictum altare erecta est antiqua et decens cum figura beatae Mariae Virginis et aliorum sanctorum. Hec capella est dotata et deservivat fratres Carmelitani cum onere celebrandi duas missas singulis hebdomadis. Deservit etiam alter capellanus dominus Fortunius Milandronus cum eodem onere, videlicet duas missas singulis hebdomadis ad libitum, sed non satisfacit. Habet duodecim florenos singulis annis et fuit mandatum ut dicti oneri inserviat sub poena unius librae pro qualibet vice in qua defecerit. A latere dextero altaris maioris adest aliud altare sub capella testudinata et lapideum, et eius mensa est lignea, cooperta duabus tobaleis; quas padrinus dixit esse ecclesiae, sicut etiam omnia alia paramenta, quae sunt in singulis altaribus dictae ecclesiae. Predella est congrua. Petra sacra est decens, quam mandavit equare mensae. Icona est cum figura beati Pauli et aliorum sanctorum. Altare non est dotatum nec habet aliquod emolumentum nec onus. Item visitavit aliud altare subtus ostium sacristiae male retentum et sine titulo ac onere, quod in termino trium dierum dirui mandavit, ita tamen ut nequa saxa neque cementum aut alia materia, ipsius altaris in usus prophanos convertatur. Item visitavit altare sub titulo Beatae Mariae Virginis quod est lapideum, et eius mensa est lignea cooperta unica tobalea decenti et alia areta, ornatum duobus candelabris ferreis et cruce lignea et pallio ex panno depicto. Hoc altare est dotatum et habet onus celebrandi singulis hebdomadis unam missam cum suis emolumentis, et ser Angelus Tadei, qui est capellanus monialium Sancti Abundii, et padrinus ecclesiae, dixit satisfieri per dictum capellanum. Visitavit altare Sancti Bartolomei lapideum, eius mensa lignea, non est sacratum, sed adest petra sacra, quam iussit aequari; pallium est ex tela depicta et adsunt duo candelabra ferrea. Icona est pulcherrima cum figura beatae Mariae Virginis et aliorum sanctorum, non est deaurata et tela viridia ante eam ducitur. Predella est lignea, sed mandavit accomodari, ut firma sit. Non est dotatum nec habet aliquod onus, sed quandoque ibi celebratur in aliquibus diebus festivis. [. . .] Prope altare Sancti Bartolomei adinventi sunt quidam libri cartae pergamenae, qui incongrue retinentur et mandavit reponi in sachristia et addi inventario. [. . .] Vidit sacristiam, quae est prope altare Sancti Pauli, ubi adest lavacrum [. . .] 4. Description of the Guglielmi and Bichi altarpieces in the inventories of S. Pietro in Castelvecchio, 1660, 1666, 1687 and after 1694. (AAS, Parrocchia di S. Pietro in Castelvecchio 110).
Anno Domini 1453 [. . .] Item o a paghare fiorini treciento per la dotta d’una chapella abiamo in San Pietro in Chastelvechio, la quale m’a lasato Bartalomeo mio padre per lo suo
[1660] Altare della Natività dipento in legname all’antica. Altr’altare d’incontro simile all’antica. [1660; ‘Obblighi da sodisfarsi in detta chiesa di San Pietro’] Un altare a man dritta de’ signori Bichi, nel quale era obligo di due messe la settimana, hogi per riduttione, d’una la settimana, dal cappellano perpetuo. Un altare a man sinistra de’ signori Guglielmi, nel quale era obbligo di due messe la settimana; hoggi per riduttione de una la settimana dal cappellano perpetuo. [6th June 1666] All’Altare della Madonna, una tavola antica dorata con più figure, e gradino simile [. . .] All’altare di S. Giuseppe una tavola antica dorata coll’arme di casa Guglielmi, con la Nascita del Nostro Signore et altre figure. [13th August 1666] All’Altare della Natività la tavola con la Natività di Nostro Signore [. . .] All’Altare della Madonna, la tavola con l’imagine della Madonna et altri santi [. . .] [10th September 1687] L’altare della Natività di Nostro Signore fu fondata per
76
78
2. Tax declaration of Francesco di Bartolomeo di Francesco Guglielmi in the Sienese district of Casato di Sopra. December 1453. (ASS, Lira 136, fols.16r–17r).
L. Syson: ‘Stylistic Choices’, in L. Syson et al.: exh. cat. Renaissance Siena: Art for a City, London (National Gallery) 2007, pp.43–59. 77 Colucci, op. cit. (note 14), p.182; and Nevola, op. cit. (note 15), pp.54–55.
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As Ludwin Paardekooper has suggested was intended at Pienza; see L. Paardekooper: ‘La diffusione della tavola quadrata nel senese: un influsso pientino o meno?’, in Nevola, op. cit. (note 75), pp.393–94.
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THE GUGLIELMI PICCOLOMINI ALTARPIECE
quanto si vede, da casa Guglielmi, mentre vi sono l’armi de medesimi. Vi è una cappella sotto il medesimo titolo padronato di detti Guglielmi, con obbligo d’una messa la settimana, quale si sodisfa puntualmente. Rettore è il reverendo Giovanni Battista Galluzzi. Vi è una tavola antica alla greca esprimente la Natività di Nostro Signore, la croce di legno, tavola di Gloria [. . .] L’altare dirimpetto della Madonna ha la mensa di legno con pietra sagra, una tavola antica alla greca, con l’imagine della Madonna e d’altri santi, una croce di legno vecchia, tavola da gloria con cornice intaglia e dorata [. . .] padronato del signore marchese Bichi.
[post 1694] L’altare della Natività di Nostro Signore fu fundato per quanto si vede, da casa Guglielmi. V’è una cappella sotto il medesimo titolo, padronato de’ reverendissimi padri di Sant’Agostino, dello Spedale, e della signora Jacinta Guglielmi; con obligo d’una messa la settimana, quale vi sodisfa. Rettore il reverendo chierico Pietro Maria Spagni fiorentino; de’ beni di detta cappella sono una casa nella via del Casato, sotto la sagrestia di San Pietro confina da una parte la casa di Giovanni Battista Allori dall’altra la casa d’Alessandro Giovannelli. S’appigiona per lire 35 l’anno [. . . ] Vi è una tavola antica alla Greca, ov’è dipinta la Natività di Nostro Signore coll’arme di casa Guglielmi [. . . ]
An overlooked triptych by Vecchietta by FRANCIS RUSSELL
PICTURES BY SIENESE PAINTERS of the mid-quattrocento are unevenly represented in British collections, public or private. Thus it was something of a surprise to realise that a particularly beautiful example has escaped notice, although it was bequeathed to the Aberdeen Art Gallery by Miss Georgina Forbes in 1895 and reached the museum as long ago as 1899 (Fig.40). The work in question is a portable triptych. The central panel represents the Madonna of Humility, her crown held by two angels, with Christ on the Cross between the Virgin and St John the Evangelist in the gable above; on the wings are Sts Francis and Dominic, below the Angel of the Annunciation and the Virgin Annunciate. The triptych is remarkably well preserved, the gold ground virtually intact. Much of the original trompe l’œil decoration of the reverse is also intact, although this has been covered by the vertical strips at the sides of the hinges. The triptych is a characteristic work, presumably dating from soon after 1450, by the most versatile Sienese artist of the period, Lorenzo di Pietro, known as Vecchietta.1 It exquisitely expresses the subtleties of a mind which we are accustomed to experience in works that differ either in scale or medium. The intimacy of the Virgin and Child, the delicate rhythm of the two angels, the subtle asymmetry of the pavement that recedes so convincingly, the calm fervency of the lateral saints and the refinement of the smaller figures in the pinnacles all attest to the visual sensibility of the man and remind us why he was so significant an influence on such artists of the emerging generation as Francesco di Giorgio Martini. Georgina Elizabeth Forbes (1818–95), who left the picture to Aberdeen in 1895, subject to a life interest to her elder sister, Christina Frances (1810–99), was the younger daughter of Lt. Col. Arthur Forbes (1760–1850) of the 32nd Regiment, himself the third son of Sir Arthur Forbes, 5th Baronet of Craigievar, most magical of Aberdeenshire tower houses. Their brother Arthur Forbes-Gordon inherited the estate of Rayne from a cousin in 1857, but the sisters lived at 10 The Chanonry, Old Aberdeen, not far from King’s College, of which their maternal grandfather, Roderick Macloed, had been Principal. While they resided in Aberdeen during the summers, the obituary of Miss Forbes in the Aberdeen Weekly Journal for 21st June 1899 states
I am indebted to Jennifer Melville of the Aberdeen Art Gallery for the generosity with which she has responded to my questions, and for supplying copies of contemporary references to the Forbes sisters. 1 The attribution, surely self-evident, has been endorsed, on the basis of photo-
40. Madonna of Humility, by Lorenzo di Pietro called Il Vecchietta. c.1450. Triptych panel, overall dimensions 47 by 40.5 cm. (Aberdeen Art Gallery).
that until the year before Miss Georgina’s death the sisters spent their winters ‘in a flat in Via San Niccolo, Florence’. The triptych was clearly evidently acquired in Italy, as a label on the reverse reads: ‘To be given on my Death and my sisters to the new Picture Gallery at Aberdeen/Georgina E Forbes/Florence/ October 1885’. Miss Forbes’s bequest can be seen as a testament to the affection so many members of the large British colony in Florence had for the art of the quattrocento. graphs, by Everett Fahy, Gianni Mazzoni and Luke Syson. Vecchietta’s painting has been lent to The Arts of Siena exhibition opening in Siena later this month (see this month’s Editorial).
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Some documents for Mattia Preti’s S. Vigilio altar in Siena by LINDA BAUER and NELLO BARBIERI
MATTIA PRETI (1613–99), a knight of Malta, who was known as the Cavaliere Calabrese, developed his dynamic and influential pictorial language over the course of a long and prolific career. Efforts to clarify his development as a painter, although impeded by the paucity of documented works, have recently culminated in a catalogue raisonné and a volume of documents, as well as in exhibitions marking the anniversary of the artist’s death.1 Nevertheless, the number of dated or closely datable paintings, even from the artist’s later years, is still not large. Two are well-known altarpieces commissioned for Siena. The Canonisation of St Catherine is now in S. Domenico, Siena, but was originally painted for the chapel in S. Francesco of the Piccolomini family, one of whose members had become a knight of Malta in August 1671. It is datable shortly thereafter by a document relating to the second painting in Siena.2 In May 1673, during deliberations in the Opera del Duomo over the commission for an altarpiece of the preaching of S. Bernardino of Siena, Preti’s painting for the Piccolomini was praised and the artist hailed as one of the leading painters of the century.3 Preti’s third Sienese painting, however, St Ignatius in glory (Fig.42), until recently on deposit at S. Vigilio, the former Jesuit church in Siena, but now restored to its high altar (Fig.41), was the least documented of the three, connected to the artist only through brief mentions by Pascoli and De Domenici (the latter gave an erroneous description) and by local publications on the city.4 In the sombre tonalities illuminated by flashes of brilliant light typical of his work in his later years, Preti depicted Ignatius kneeling in a glory of clouds and angels, his head thrust back and arms opened to receive the insignia of the Jesuit order on his chasuble directly from Christ’s body, while the Virgin looks on. Below, an angel presents the book of Constitutions bearing the motto of the order ‘Ad majorem Dei Gloriam’; lower still two angels, before a brightly lit churchscape, point to the shrinking figure of a bare-breasted old hag, the personification of envious Heresy. With discarded books at her knee and classical statuary behind her, Preti’s Heresy anticipates the iconography later used in the chapel of St Ignatius in the Gesù, Rome, which elaborated in sculptural groups of Faith and Religion the conceit of the saint’s and the Society’s double triumph over heresy and paganism.5 Now newly discovered documents allow us to confirm the reports of the earlier sources on the painting in S. Vigilio and add further information about the circumstances of its
commission and that of the altar, even if they also raise other questions that cannot be answered as yet. The earliest document, in the State Archives in Siena, is a contract dated 6th July 1681 between the Sienese nobleman Lattanzio Biringucci and the three Mazzuoli brothers, Giovanni Antonio, Agostino and Francesco, the last not present at the time of the signing (see Appendix 1 below). The brothers agreed to complete an elaborate high altar for S. Vigilio within two years, and earlier if possible. For this they were to receive a total of 2,500 scudi, which had to cover all costs, including the quarrying and transport of the stone, the ironwork and the masonry. Although the drawing originally attached to the contract is now missing, the detailed specifications for the altar describe the elements we see today: four Corinthian columns in alabaster – two freestanding and two attached – the remaining elements in white and richly coloured marbles – giallo di Siena, rosso di Francia and nero di Porto Venere – with a frontispiece ornamented with angels supporting the monogram of Christ.6 In its present form, angels kneeling on a broken segmental pediment flank a painted image of the bishop-saint Vigilius, attributed in the guidebooks to Dionisio Montorselli, that recalls the dedication of the church and forms the lower portion of a frontispiece.7 Above, two further angels, not the ‘testine’, or heads, stipulated in the contract, surmount the frontispiece’s triangular pediment, flanking the monogram. The altar was admired by a contemporary as the most beautiful altar in Siena, not only for the nobility and understanding of its architecture, but also for the rarity and beauty of its materials.8 No contract for the painting has yet been found, but two further documents in the State Archives in Florence also credit its commission to Lattanzio Biringucci. One, an undated anonymous critique of Preti’s painting, must have been written around the time the altar was unveiled (see Appendix 2); the other, a memoria of work done on the high altar of the church, was compiled from earlier sources, including the critique, in 1755 (see Appendix 3).9 Beyond identifying the patron as Biringucci, whose death on 22nd March 1688 and burial in S. Vigilio are recorded elsewhere,10 both documents state that the total cost of the project was 4,000 scudi, but only the critique explains that the picture, its frame and transportation accounted for 100 doppie, that is, about 285 scudi, a sum not too far removed from the 60 doppie that had been remitted to Preti for the Preaching of St
1
3 Spike 1999, op. cit. (note 1), no.215; and idem 1998, op. cit. (note 1), p.197, 3rd May 1673: ‘. . . e sua Signoria Illustr.ma havería ocasione di far dipingere il quadro dall’ istesso Pittore che ha dipinto il quadro de’ Signori Piccolomeni nel Tempio di San Francesco di questa città, l’opera del quale Artefice, dimonstrata nella pittura di questo quadro, lo fa conoscere per uno de’ primi dipintori nel secolo corrente’. 4 See Spike 1999, op. cit. (note 1), no.217, for the early literature. Only G. del Taja: Nuova guida della città di Siena per gli amatori delle belle arti, Siena 1822, p.118, refers to the altar’s patron, confusingly naming him as Marcello Biringucci and dating the commission to 1712, for which, see below.
J.T. Spike: Mattia Preti: catalogo ragionato dei dipinti = catalogue raisonné of the paintings, Florence 1999; idem, ed.: Mattia Preti: i documenti = the collected documents, Florence 1998; G. Ceraudo et al., eds.: exh. cat. Mattia Preti: il cavalier calabrese, Catanzaro (Convento di S. Giovanni) 1999; and N. Spinosa et al., eds.: exh. cat. Mattia Preti: tra Roma, Napoli e Malta, Naples (Museo di Capodimonte) 1999. 2 For the Canonisation of St Catherine, see Spike 1999, op. cit. (note 1), no.216, with reference to H. Trottmann: ‘La “Canonizzazione di Santa Caterina da Siena” di Mattia Preti: rappresentazione liturgica e glorificazione della famiglia Piccolomini’, Prospettiva 52 (1988), pp.79–84, explaining its importance for the Piccolomini family.
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PRETI’S S. VIGILIO ALTAR
41. High altar of S. Vigilio, Siena. The altar by Giovanni Antonio, Agostino and Francesco Mazzuoli; the altarpiece by Mattia Preti; the frontispiece attributed to Dioniosio Montorselli. Begun 1681.
Bernardino about a decade before.11 Evidently expenses for the altar exceeded the original figure agreed in the contract. Both documents state that the altar was unveiled on the feast day of St Ignatius on 31st July but disagree over the year, which
is given as 1683 in the critique, 1682 in the memoria. The latter appears to be a mistake made when its author looked back to an earlier heading for the date, for other documents in the same fascicle as the critique are dated to 1683. The altar and Preti’s
5
della città di Siena, Siena 1752, p.107; and Del Taja, op. cit. (note 4), p.118. 8 E. Toti, ed.: La descrizione della città di Siena di Curzio Sergardi, 1679, Siena 2008, p.52. 9 Florence, Archivio di Stato (hereafter cited as ASF), Companie religiose soppresse da Pietro Leopoldo, filza 1118, fascicolo 496, fol.141r, for the heading Notizie di questo collegio raccolte l’anno 1755; and fol.164r for the Altar Maggiore and document itself. 10 ASF, Compagnie religiose sopprese da Pietro Leopoldo, filza 1118, fascicolo 496, fol.56r. 11 For the payment to Preti, see Spike 1998, op. cit. (note 1), p.207.
For the sculptures of the St Ignatius Chapel in the Gesù, see R. Enggass: Early eight eenth-century sculpture in Rome, University Park PA and London 1976, pp.67–68 and 131–33. 6 For ‘giallo di Siena’ (‘Cavasi otto miglia di là dalla Città di Siena; e se ne trova d’ogni lunghezza e grossezza’) and ‘rosso di Francia’ (‘tinta d’un color rosso molto vivo, con macchie bianche alquanto livide; vale a far colonne ed altri ornamenti. Trovasi in gran pezzi e riceve maraviglioso pulimento’), see F. Baldinucci: Vocabolario toscano dell’arte di disegno, Florence 1681, pp.67 and 138. 7 For the attribution to Montorselli, see G.A. Pecci: Relazione delle cose più notabili
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PRETI’S S. VIGILIO ALTAR
42. St Ignatius in glory, by Mattia Preti. 1681–83. Canvas, 300 by 250 cm. (S. Vigilio, Siena).
painting, as well as its patron, the ‘pious and generous’ Lattanzio Biringucci, are mentioned in Curzio Sergardi’s Descrizione della città di Siena, in a manuscript bearing the year 1679 in its title (it was later amplified in another manuscript of 1686),12 but this date must be wrong; as it is for Prince Francesco Maria de’ Medici’s appointment as governor of Siena, a post he only assumed in 1683.13 The memoria adds considerably to our knowledge of the altar and its prehistory. It indicates that the gilding of the stucco decoration was completed only in 1690 for Cavaliere Marcello Biringucci, Lattanzio’s son, whose tomb is to the right of the altar. Marcello’s intervention explains why the Biringucci family arms – a horizontal band with three vine leaves, two above and one below – seen on the pedestal of the altar’s right-hand column, is accompanied by a Maltese cross on the corresponding pedestal on the left, for in 1665 Marcello was inducted into the Order of S. Stefano, which adopted a red Maltese cross for its insignia.14 The memoria also suggests what had happened before Lattanzio was involved. It relates that the high altar had first been tried out
12
Toti, op. cit. (note 8), with discussion of the manuscripts by P. Turrini, pp.27–30; a third manuscript of the same text contains ‘Miscellanea del sacerdote Giovacchino Faluschi’ and is dated 1821. 13 See Toti, op. cit. (note 8), p.52 for the discussion of S. Vigilio and Preti’s painting, and p.27, where the anomalous reference to Prince Francesco Maria is noted. 14 For Marcello Biringucci, see L. De Angelis: Biografia degli scrittori sanesi, Siena 1824, I, pp.138–39; for the order of S. Stefano and its relation to the knights of Malta, see L. Vigni: ‘Le carriere dei Sansedoni fra ordine di Malta e cariche di corte (XVII–XIX)’, in M.R. de Gramatica, E. Mecacci and C. Zarrilli, eds.: Archivi carriere committenze: contributi per la storia del patriziato senese in età moderna, Siena 2007, p.123: ‘Moltissimi furono infatti i cavalieri di Malta provenienti da Siena, dove si continuò a preferire questo ordine cavalleresco sovranazionale all’altro, regionale, di Santo Stefano’. 15 See Appendix 3. For Nasini, see M. Ciampolini: exh. cat. Drawing in Renaissance
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in a ‘disegno di tela’, that is, either a painted full-scale model or temporary version, and that in 1678 it included a painting of St Ignatius by the Sienese artist-priest Antonio Nasini, brother of the better-known Giuseppe.15 Five years later, in 1683, an entirely new altar (‘tutto il nuovo altare’) with its painting by Preti was installed; Preti had probably begun work on it only after 1681 when the contract for constructing the altar was signed. No other mention of what would have been one of Nasini’s earliest documented works has been traced, but making such a model or temporary version of an altar was not unique. The ‘disegno di tela’ is analogous to the ‘disegno in tela’ that Lanfranco offered to make in 1640 in the hope of winning an important commission.16 More directly pertinent were the models of architectural elements made to the size of a projected work; while many of these were of architectural details either carved in wood, modelled in stucco or painted illusionistically to test the appearance of the design, others, as at S. Vigilio, temporarily filled the liturgical function of the proposed work.17 In 1638 the decorations for the forty hours devotions at S. Lorenzo in Damaso, Rome, included a ‘bellissimo altare in modello’ that Cardinal Francesco Barberini was planning to have built.18 Sometimes, as may have been true of the structure in S. Vigilio, these stood for years, as had Pietro da Cortona’s model for the high altar at S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini, Rome, which was unveiled in 1634 on the feast day of the saint and coloured to imitate the richly variegated marbles listed in a estimate for constructing the altar in stone.19 Whatever may have been the reason for the change in plan, the installation of the new altar in S. Vigilio did not complete the story. The painting was severely censored by the anonymous author of the critique. Its author judged the face of the saint to be entirely lacking in devotion, then listed eleven other faults. Some criticisms address the realism of the image – the figure of the saint seems to have no left foot; the muscle attaching Christ’s left arm is too low, the ‘written’ verses in the book continue across the book’s gutter. Others show a concern for decorum – the Virgin’s mouth is half open; she rests her arm on her son’s bare shoulder; still others question the painting’s historical or iconographic accuracy or correctness – the saint is not bald as he should be; the Virgin’s mantle is not blue as it ought to be when she is shown in glory; Christ’s beard is too long and he lacks a moustache, and so on. While some of the criticisms could be dismissed as the naive reaction of an untrained observer, the list is useful in providing a contemporary reaction to a religious painting. On another occasion Preti’s work was looked on unfavourably and the artist was required to ‘retouch [. . .] repair [. . .] and transform to greater perfection’.20 Indeed, such
and Baroque Siena: 16th- and 17th-century drawings from Sienese collections, Athens (Georgia Museum of Art) and Siena (Palazzo Pubblico) 2002, nos.55 and 56, with bibliography. M. Ingendaay Rodio: ‘Antonio Nasini nella Cappella di Santa Teresa in San Donato a Siena’, Prospettiva 27 (1981), pp.90–98, states that the earliest documented works of the artist date to 1679 (p.90). However, a painting in the Palazzo Pubblico, Siena, of Pius II holding an audience under a chestnut tree, is signed ‘Antonius Nasinus’ and dated 1674; see C. Brandi, ed.: Palazzo Pubblico di Siena: vicende costruttive e decorazione, Milan 1983, p.179. 16 O. Pollak: ‘Italienische Künstlerbriefe aus der Barockzeit’, Jahrbuch der königlich preussischen Kunstsammlungen 24 (1913), Beiheft, p.26, letter of 14th July 1640; cited in F. Haskell: Patrons and Painters, London 1963, p.11. 17 For the discussion of full-scale architectural models, see G.C. Bauer: ‘From Architecture to Scenography: The Full-Scale Model in the Baroque Tradition’, in
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criticism is typical of the objections raised during the canonical visitations that followed in the wake of Church reform, which required an examination ‘into the condition of churches [. . .] with their furnishing and appurtenances’.21 The writer of the critique even suggested that the altarpiece ought to be retouched once the ‘autore’ was dead. There is a certain ambiguity as to whether the ‘autore’ refers to the artist or the patron. There is little reason to suppose that such deference would be paid to an artist, even one as well known as Preti. Moreover, the concluding sentence of the document takes Biringucci to task for choosing an artist who was so far away that he could not receive proper instruction. This point was not unreasonable, for at about this time, in 1684, Preti, in Malta, painted the habits of the Carmelite brothers black rather than the correct brown in an altarpiece destined for Naples, which resulted in the picture having to be returned to the artist for repainting.22 Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti, reflecting the scholastic distinction between principal and instrumental causes, that is, between agency and execution, holds the patron responsible for the errors in the representation of religious images.23 Thus it would seem more probable that the ‘autore’ whom the writer of the critique is unwilling to offend while he still lived was Biringucci to whom deference was due, given his status and generosity. Happily, neither the death of Lattanzio Biringucci in 1688, nor that of Preti eleven years later, resulted in the corrections demanded in the critique being made, and the powerful image of the triumphant saint, now restored to its original position, can take its place among the documented works of the artist’s later years and be securely dated to 1681–83. Appendix 1. Contract between Lattanzio Biringucci and the Mazzuoli brothers for the high altar for S. Vigilio. (Siena, Archivio di Stato, Sergardi Biringucci e Spannocchi, no.406, unnumbered fols). [Annotation in margin] Scrittura celebrata tra il nobile signore Lattanzio Biringucci e li Maestri Francesco, Giovanni Antonio e Agostino Mazuoli per fare l’Altar maggiore della Chiesa dei Gesuiti per scudi 2500.
Angeli di stucco, e due testine che regghino il nome di Dio di marmo conforme il disegno. Da terminare il detto lavoro almeno in due anni e prima se sarà possible, il tutto per prezzo di scudi due milia cinque cento di lire sette l’uno in tutto e per tutto, con peso a’ medesimi di dover pensare a ciascheduna cosa che possa occorrere in detto Altare, cioè condutture, cavature di pietre, ferramenti e murature, compreso il tutto in detto prezzo, dichiarando che detto prezzo deva essere in contanti eccetto qualche portione in grascie secondo i suoi bisogni, dovendosi pagare di mano in mano per i lavori che si farà. E per l’osservanza di quanto sopra li detti Giovanni Antonio e Austino Mazzuoli, tanto in nome proprio quanto in nome di Francesco loro fratello assente per il quale promettano de rato s’obligano come principali e principalmente obligati, non volendo etc., renuntiando ciascheduno di loro ad ogni legge, e statuto, che in contario a lor facesse o far potesse, e obligorno loro medesimi in ogni modo megliore, e obligorno lor beni presenti e futuri, e beni di heredi etc., e per confermatione di quanto sopra tutte le dette parti si sottoscriveranno di propria mano. Io Lattanzio Biringucci affermo, e m’obligo a quanto sopra. Io Giovanni Antonio Mazzuoli affermo e mi obliga [sic] a quanto sopra tanto in nome mio che di Francesco mio fratello assente etc. Io Austino Mazzuoli affermo e mi obligo quanto sopra. 2. Critique of Mattia Preti’s altarpiece for S. Vigilio. (ASF, Compagnie religiose sopprese da Pietro Leopoldo, filza 1118, fascicolo 499, fols.51v–52r). Per questa medesima festa di Sant’ Ignatio si è scoperto finito tutto l’altar maggiore a spese del Signore Lattantio Biringucci il quale tra marmi e quadro fatto fare in Malta da Fra’ Mattia Preti detto il Cavalier Calabrese havrà speso verso quattromila scudi. Il quadro, tra ogni costo, cioè portatura, cornici etc. sarà costato 100 doppie, ancorché sia piaciuto poco, onde morto che sia l’autore sarebbe bene di farlo ritoccare, particolarmente la faccia di Sant’ Ignatio, la quale non concilia niente di divotione. Gli errori notati e da emendarsi son questi: 1. La barba di Sant’ Ignatio l’ha fatta arrivare sin a cima all’orecchio; non ha fatto calvo il capo, né amabile il volto come era il Santo. 2°. Il piè sinistro pare che non l’habbia, havendoglielo nascosto in tal maniera, che naturalmente senza storpiatura così non può stare. 3°. La pianeta l’ha fatta assai semplice, grossa che pare un tricolone, colla striscia d’avanti slargata verso il fine, e senza la traversa della croce nel petto. 4°. La corona della Madonna è troppo piccola e sarebbe meglio che non ci fusse. 5°. Il manto della medesima è troppo fosco e vorrebbe essere di azzurro, massime essendo nella Gloria. 6°. La faccia della medesima sta colla bocca mezzo aperta poco a proposito, e tiene una mano sopra la spalla ignuda del Salvatore poco decentemente. 7°. Il volto del Signore è poco venerabile et ha del puerile, oltre che gli ha fatta una barba non poco lunga e senza ne pur segno de’ baffi. Anche la carnagione del medesimo è scolorita e smorta. 8°. L’uscita de’ raggi del costato è una cosa assai ideale, che non sapete che voglia dire, né ha fondamento veruno nell’istoria. 9°. Il musculo attrahente del braccio sinistro glie l’ha ligato troppo in giù. 10°. L’angelo che tiene il libro è assai brutto, sì come quello anche che gli sostiene il braccio destro. 11°. Il libro è scritto con versi continuati da una carta all’altra molto impropriamente. Da tutto questo si cavi essere molto mal consigliato chi fa fare le pitture tanto lontane, che non si possano commodamente dire i suoi sentimenti al pittore.
Adi 6 Luglio 1681 Apparirà [per] la presente e privata scrittura, quale l’infrascritte parti volsero che fusse che valesse come se fusse publico instrumento, come li maestri Francesco, Giovanni Antonio, e Austino [sic] Mazzuoli fratelli, e figli del già Dionisio Mazzuoli, hoggi habitanti in Siena, s’obligano et hanno convenuto con me Lattanzio Biringucci di fare l’Altare grande de’ Gesuiti conforme il disegno accluso e sottoscritto da me, e da me [sic] e da medesimi, con numero quattro colonne, due intere, e due terzi di colonne d’alabastro di Castelnuovo dell’Abbate, e il restante di marmi bianchi, e gialli di Siena, e rosso di Francia, e nero di Porto Venere, e sopra frontespitio due
A. Schnapper, ed.: La scenografia barocca (Atti del XXIV Congresso internazionale di storia dell’arte), Bologna 1979, pp.141–49. 18 Ibid., p.145. 19 Ibid. 20 ‘. . . ritoccare [. . .] raccommodare [. . .] e ridurre à miglior perfettione’; taken from Preti’s agreement of 7th January 1661 to modify and complete work for S. Andrea della Valle, Rome; see J. Montagu: ‘Mattia Preti in S. Andrea della Valle: An unfulfilled contract’, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 133 (1991), pp.708–10. In his life of Ludovico Carracci, Malvasia recounts that the artist had to paint out the figure of a Jew with his finger in his mouth spitting at Christ in a Christ crowned with thorns; see C.C. Malvasia: Felsina pittrice vite de’ pittori bolognesi, ed. G.P. Zanotti, Bologna 1841, I, p.285. The painting is now in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna, the figure now visible; see A. Emiliani, ed.: exh. cat. Ludovico Carracci 1555–1619, Bologna
3. ‘Memoria’ on the high altar of S. Vigilio. (ASF, Compagnie religiose sopprese da Pietro Leopoldo, filza 1118, fascicolo 496, fol.164r). Altar Maggiore. L’Altar Maggiore prima era in disegno di tela e nel 1678 vi fu collocato il quadro di Sant’ Ignazio di mano del sacerdote Nasini. Nel 1682 [sic] per la festa del Santo Padre si scuoprì tutto il nuovo altare, fatto a spese del Signore Lattanzio Biringucci, il quale tra marmi e quadro fatto fare in Malta da fra’ Mattia Preti detto il Cavaliere Calabrese, vi spese circa scudi 4000: ricordi E p.51. Il Signore Cavaliere Marcello Biringucci nel 1690 finì d’indorare gli stucchi . . .
(Pinacoteca Nazionale) 1993, no.47. 21 The New Catholic Encyclopedia, XVI, under ‘canonical visitation’, pp.717–18; see also A. Zuccari: Arte e committenza nella Roma di Caravaggio, Rome 1984, pp.11–13. 22 Spike 1999, op. cit. (note 1), no.137: The Virgin consigning the scapular to St Simon Stock and the Blessed Franco, S. Maria del Carmine Maggiore, Naples. 23 G. Paleotti: Discorso intorno alle imagini sacre e profane in Trattati d’arte del Cinquecento, ed. P. Barocchi, Bari 1961, II, p.12: ‘. . . ciò essere non tanto errore degli artefici che le formano, quanto de’patroni che le commandano [. . .] essendo essi come i principali agenti, e gli artefici esecutori della loro volontà’. An earlier example of this is the contract with Fra Filippo Lippi for the Coronation of the Virgin (Uffizi, Florence), where the responsibility for the painting was shared by the artist and the patron, Messer Francesco Maringhi; see J. Ruda: Fra Filippo Lippi, life and work: With a complete catalogue, London 1993, no.36. the burlington m a g a z i n e
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Obituary Anthony Ray (1926–2009) ANTHONY GEORGE RAY ,
who died on 7th August 2009, was born in Darjeeling, India, in 1926. His father, Reginald Ray, had a distinguished career as Commissioner of Police in Bengal. His mother, Marion Huggan, was the talented daughter of the mayor of Pudsey in Leeds. Ray inherited his linguistic abilities from both parents but it was to his mother, who died when he was ten, that he owed both his musical gifts and his dynamism. He was sent to school in England with his two elder siblings and was brought up by English relatives in what was not, by all accounts, an easy childhood. After Charterhouse where, during Robert Birley’s headmastership, he was head boy, Ray briefly served in the Navy in the last months of the Second World War before going up in 1945 to University College, Oxford, to read Modern Languages. It was there that he discovered the superb ceramic collections of the Ashmolean Museum, which were to stimulate his love as a collector and as a scholar of English and Continental tiles and ceramics. In 1951 Birley, then headmaster of Eton, invited Ray to join the school as a teacher of modern languages. It was the beginning of a long and distinguished career as a teacher and housemaster, for Ray was an educator in the broadest sense. The memorial service for him at Eton in November 2009 commemorated his unique contribution to Eton life and his influence over thirtyseven years, until his retirement in 1988. Eton gave Ray much in return, particularly in his friendly, admiring, but somewhat competitive relationship with Oliver van Oss, himself a keen collector and distinguished authority on English Delft. It also brought him into contact with the ceramic artist Gordon Baldwin, of whom he wrote a perceptive appreciation for the English Ceramics Circle in 2006. Ray and his wife, the art teacher Veronica Slater whom he married in 1956, owned one of the largest private collections of Baldwin’s work, some of which will be shown in the major retrospective of the artist’s work at the Barrett Marsden Gallery in London later this year. Despite the demands of his Eton career, Ray became a leading ceramics specialist, first in English Delftware and later in Spanish and Italian ceramics. This grew out of his passion for collecting, and his indefatigable spirit. He thought nothing of driving from Eton to Burford on a Friday evening to buy tiles from the dealer Roger Warner, who became a close friend. He had a Portobello instinct as a collector, squirrelling his latest purchases on visits to London into his capacious and rather scruffy coat which, his family remember, would often crackle on his return home. One of his rarest finds was a Tuscan albarello of around 1440, with decoration in relief in green rather than the more usual blue. He spotted this in an antique shop one Sunday and got a special dispensation from Birley to be let off teaching the following morning in order to secure the pot, which has since been on long-term loan to the Ashmolean Museum. He never forgot the encouragement he had received at that museum from Ian Robertson and Karl Parker, and his loyalty to both Oxford and the Ashmolean became a strong element in his life.
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He published English Delftware in the Robert Hall Warren Collection in the Ashmolean Museum in 1968, and two further books, English Delftware Tiles (1973) and Liverpool Printed Tiles (1994), and, finally, a book on English Delftware in the Ashmolean in 2000. It was with the people, language and culture of Spain that Ray had a special affinity and, after his retirement from Eton in 1988, he largely dedicated his energies to the study of Spanish ceramics. This resulted in his greatest achievement, Spanish Pottery 1248–1948 with a catalogue of the collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum (2000). This established him as probably the leading scholar in the world in one of the most demanding areas of the history of the applied arts. The tin-glazed lustred pottery first made by Muslim potters in Spain and in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries by potters, mainly of Muslim faith or descent in the Christian kingdom of Valencia, constitutes one of the most remarkable achievements in the history of world ceramics. It introduced Europe to the concept of pottery as a luxury art form. Despite this, it has never received the attention it deserves, in comparison with that traditionally given to Italian maiolica. Ray brought to the V. & A. catalogue his critical assessment of all the archival, archaeological and historical evidence, as well as his knowledge of collections around the world. He worked from first principles and always made this clear when a specific attribution could not be made on the basis of current knowledge. The result was, in Timothy Wilson’s words, ‘the most reliable, thorough, comprehensive, wide-ranging and important work on Spanish pottery’ produced to date in any language. It is a measure of Ray’s achievement that the only comparable volume is Summa Artis: Ceramica Española (Madrid 1997), a collective work by eleven Spanish specialists. Looking at Spanish lustred ceramics with Ray was always enlightening, as he had a visual classification for everything he saw, which gave an extra degree of intensity to his looking. When he handled a pot or tile it was immediately evident that he not only knew how it was made, decorated and fired, but that he had an intuitive understanding of the Spanish craft tradition, particularly in its Moorish inheritance. This was demonstrated in a short but incisive article he wrote for this Magazine in 2000, ‘The Rothschild “Alfabeguer” and Other Fifteenth-Century Lustred Basil-Pots’. There he described a form of basil-pot evolved from Moorish potters, named Alfabeguer in Valencian from al-‘habac, the Arabic for sweet basil. The fifteenth-century type made in Manises shared an ingenious construction, with turrets containing apertures which allowed the basil plants to be watered. Anthony’s study of sherds and the few surviving examples indicated that they were luxury pots of the finest and most expensive variety, commissioned by leading families in Spain and beyond. Ray also published in this Magazine on the ceramics of sixteenth-century Castile (1990) and of fifteenth- and sixteenthcentury Seville (1987 and 1990). In the early 1990s he turned his attention to the study of the Italian potter Francisco Niculoso Pisano, who settled in Seville in the late fifteenth century, bringing the pictorial Italian maiolica tradition to Spain. Niculoso invented the tile picture, a new form of architectural ceramic incorporating the latest Renaissance designs and ornament. Ray published on Niculoso in Italian Renaissance Pottery, edited by his friend Timothy Wilson in 1991, and some years before his death started on a monograph to be written with another friend, Alfonso Pleguezuelo of Seville. It is to be hoped that this book
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will be published in his memory, since it promises to be the definitive study of this problematic and mysterious figure in the diffusion of the Italian maiolica tradition beyond Italy. Ray is widely and affectionately remembered for his scholarly generosity, his musical intelligence and the warmth of his friendship. His was always a highly civilised presence, even in the most unpromising surroundings. The quality of his talk, his responsiveness and charm remained undiminished by age or illness. His work was recognised in Spain by his election to the Academia di Toledo, and in Britain through his election to the Society of Antiquaries in 1995, and the award of a DLitt by Oxford University in 2002. It was his intention to leave to the Ashmolean what is by far the most important collection of English tiles in private hands, along with his collecting archive and his specialist library on Spanish and Italian ceramics. Timothy Wilson recently put on display in the Ashmolean’s Warren Room some of Ray’s donations of ceramics to the Museum in tribute to his memory. DORA THORNTON
The reshaping of French Gothic by PAUL CROSSLEY
IN 2004 I REVIEWED for this Magazine the first two volumes of an extraordinary enterprise, John James’s projected sevenvolume history of the growth of Gothic architecture and architectural sculpture in the north of France and Paris in the area he calls the ‘Paris Basin’.1 To call it a ‘history’ may seem a misnomer, because as it stands so far it is really more of a photographic inventory and description of around 1,420 churches, each containing work from the period from c.1130 to c.1250. Most of these churches have never before been recorded or published; and few of them have been brought together to be analysed in terms of date and style. One of the aims of this almost superhuman exercise is to provide a photographic description of all the more significant churches built during this 130-year period. In itself this alone would make the book an invaluable resource. But the enterprise is a history, albeit of a rather unusual kind. For its wider purpose is to analyse the stylistic development of early and High Gothic in France by examining changes to foliate capitals and the evolution of building techniques, thus pinpointing the time and place of the leading inventions of Gothic architecture. Yet another historical aim is to establish a solid and inclusive foundation for dating the construction phases of these churches, by comparing the little that remains of the documentary evidence for their construction with the changing patterns of their
1
P. Crossley: review of J. James: The Ark of God, vols.I and II, THE BURLINGTON 146 (2004), p.266. 2 The Creation of Gothic Architecture – an illustrated thesaurus: The Ark of God. III: The evolution of foliate capitals in the Paris Basin: the archaic capitals prior to 1138; The Ark of MAGAZINE
visual details (especially capital design). And all this effort is directed towards the goal of establishing a vast chronological matrix, which allows the specialist to identify the time and place for each of the creative ideas, inventions and innovations that produced the Gothic style, and to follow their evolution, identifying their major creators. For James, medieval carved capitals are our best visual evidence for showing morphological change and chronology. ‘Capitals’, he asserts, ‘reflect the average mode of their time’ (vol.I, p.2). The first two volumes of this magnum opus are accordingly filled with over nine thousand black-and-white photographs of foliate capitals in the ‘Paris Basin’ churches from c.1170/80 to c.1220. Rather misleadingly, James calls these capitals ‘natural’ because they contain organic forms which become increasingly naturalistic, until they reach the really imitative leaf forms of Reims Cathedral and the SainteChapelle in Paris. But to locate the origins of these ‘natural’ capitals in the austere and rigid crocket capital (of the 1170s onwards) seems strange, given the fact that they supersede the lush and vegetal capitals of the late Romanesque. The volumes under review here (vols.III–V),2 represent an earlier phase in Gothic (some might say late Romanesque) design, and deal with foliate capitals from c.1130 to c.1170. The capitals in this stage James designates, again a little misleadingly, as ‘formal’, whereas in fact they display, as he says ‘an eccentric wilfulness’, the masons’ ‘personal paeon of praise to life and its fulfilment’ (vol.IV, p.2). They are certainly rich and intricate. Consistent with the method of the first two volumes, James then establishes a list of historically verifiable dates for certain buildings and their capitals, and from that evidence, and by way of analogy and comparison, he then establishes the character of each of his thousands of capitals, dating and organising each according to their decade (‘decadic mode’). This ‘decadic’ criterion is central to James’s method. Capitals tend to change in character every ten years (he argues), thus providing a matrix for the dating of any capital – and therefore also the buildings (over a thousand of them) to which they belong. As in volumes I and II, James is in his element when immersed in the detail. The hidden parts of a medieval building, he suggests, show us the craftsman at his most natural. As in his controversial monograph on Chartres Cathedral, James starts his analysis in the hidden crannies of the church, photographing and analysing details that have remained hidden and unstudied since their installation. There is a strong sense in these volumes, as in the earlier ones, of a kinship between James and the medieval mason; of a man who knows the stones better than anyone except their original makers. The nine thousand or so capitals, which he and his wife have photographed in these first five volumes, present us with an unprecedented conspectus of Gothic carving in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The photographs, all black and white, are mostly of very high quality, especially given the obscurity and inaccessibility of their subjects (Figs.43–45). The thirty-four pages of capitals from Saint-Remi at Reims, for example, or the 126 pages of capitals at Saint-Denis, form a remarkable treasury (he calls his
God. IV: The evolution of the foliate capitals in the Paris Basin: the formal capitals 1130–1170; The Ark of God. V: The evolution of the foliate capitals in the Paris Basin: the formal capitals 1130–1170. By John James. 1778 pp. incl. numerous b. + w. ills. (Boydell and Brewer, West Grinstead, 2008), £595. ISBN 978–0–97574–2418. the burlington m a g a z i n e
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43. Choir aisle capital, Saint-Martin-des-Champs. c.1135. Photograph by John James.
44. South chapel capital, parish church of Glennes. c.1160. Photograph by John James.
45. Apse capital, parish church of Glennes. c.1160. Photograph by John James.
3
J. James: The Contractors of Chartres, Dooralong 1979 and Wyong 1981; idem: Chartres Cathedral. The Masons who Built a Legend, London 1982; idem: The TemplateMakers of the Paris Basin, West Grinstead 1989; idem: ‘The Rib Vaults of Durham Cathedral’, Gesta 22 (1983), pp.135–45; and idem: ‘Multiple Contracting in the SaintDenis Chevet’, Gesta 32 (1993), pp.40–58. See also S. Murray: review of J. James: The Contractors of Chartres, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 38 (1979),
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photographs ‘thesaureses’) of visual evidence. And there are remote and obscure buildings which may well have enjoyed their art-historical debut thanks to James (see, for example, Oulchy-le-Château, vol.V, pp.1033–46). These five volumes on capital design bring to an end what James calls the preparatory work on his project. They set the stage and provide the evidence; they even allow that evidence to ‘speak for itself ’. And now, as he hopes, ‘the real work on finalizing the chronology for over 700 buildings and tens of thousands of capitals can get underway’ (vol.IV, p.4). The last two volumes (still to appear) suggest that all this evidence will go towards a broad picture of the architectural development of Gothic in northern France, starting with the evolution of the rib vault in Europe and then the inventions that created Gothic, finishing with a corpus of early Gothic churches. Somehow all this detail will provide the basis for a complex chronology, and beyond that, a history of architectural development. This is induction with a vengeance, a belief that God dwells in the detail, and that Gothic is best studied not only from the vantage point of the great cathedrals, but also from the myriad small churches, each providing clues to a vast network of influence and exchange. But does this method of proceeding from the bottom upwards, from the ultra-particular to the universal, have its methodological flaws? Can we really date these buildings to a plus–minus approximation of a decade? Do the capitals of the Trinity chapel in Canterbury show a more advanced progress towards the ‘natural’ and away from the formal because they belong to a decade later than those in the choir, or because the classicising character of the chapel demanded something more like a Corinthian acanthus? Why do all forms of ornament have to appear similar simultaneously and in tandem? Does an older sculptor have to change styles to conform to the ‘natural’ fashion of the decade, or can he not continue to carve (with the aesthetic freedom James attributes to him) in his older, ‘formal’ manner? Perhaps James’s datings are just too tidy, a little too categorical. I find his statement about the so-called ‘Wall Master’ and his successor, the ‘Vault Master’, in the choir of Saint-Denis too neat and accurate to be convincing: ‘These [the ambulatory piers] are the work of the Vault Master who changed the earlier plan for deep chapels into the present open arrangement. He succeeded the Wall Master who had had to leave the site while the mortar of the window arches was setting’ (vol.V, p.1275). The implication of this analysis – that changes in setting out and design mean changes in architect, and that changes in capital design fall into definite decades – are far-reaching in their implications. In James’s deterministic summa, chronology can be plotted with astonishing accuracy by comparative analysis, while the smallest changes in detail and setting out can herald the appearance of a new architect. Yet we know (and James knows) from (for example) Gervase of Canterbury’s description of the work of William of Sens in Canterbury, that medieval architects could introduce considerable changes to their initial
pp.279–81; and idem: review, The Art Bulletin 63 (1981), pp.149–52. 4 James 1989, op. cit. (note 3), pp.127–41. A few other scholars had come to the same conclusion, but James was the first to demonstrate it archaeologically. 5 Idem: The Ark of God, vol.I, Foliate Capitals 1170–1250, West Grinstead 2002, pp.294–300; see also Crossley, op. cit. (note 1), p.266. 6 P. Kidson: ‘Bourges after Branner’, Gesta 39 (2000), pp.147–56.
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designs during their period of office. No change in personnel need be inferred. James will not be surprised by this kind of scepticism. From his massive two-volume study of Chartres Cathedral of 1979 to his formidable book on Early and High Gothic in France of 1989, to his individual studies of the vaults of Durham and the ‘multiple contractors’ of Saint-Denis, he has been criticised for an over-mechanical and ahistorical approach to chronological and archaeological analysis.3 Where he is unassailable is in his almost superhuman knowledge of the buildings themselves. The value of these volumes on the foliate capitals, like those on the formal capitals, lies in their superb collection of visual data, and the potential of this data to reshape our history of French Gothic. Incidentally, James has already done this in his earlier two volumes, and in his Template-Makers book, where his extraordinarily close analysis of the fabric of both Bourges and Soissons cathedrals has established a new dating for both – a dating which throws into a wholly new light the birth of High Gothic architecture in France. Most of the present, High Gothic elevation of the choir of Soissons was, he argued convincingly, already planned by 1190, that is, four years before the beginning of the new cathedral at Chartres, which, until then, had been usually accepted as the first of the High Gothic cathedrals.4 The same radical rethinking was reserved for his analysis of the crypt capitals at Bourges Cathedral in his volume II of
The Ark of God.5 Here he could confirm Peter Kidson’s case for the beginning of the chevet at Bourges, and therefore probably for the basic shape of the whole cathedral, in the early 1180s. And James did so by the most convincing comparison of the crypt’s capitals with a broad swathe of capital-carving in the Ilede-France dating to the same decade, and earlier. Interestingly, James’s method here was not concerned so much with influence as with chronology, so he missed the clear connections (first pointed out by Alexandra Gajewski) between the Bourges crypt capitals and those in the choir of Vézelay, dated to the late 1170s and early 1180s. The relative proximity of Bourges to Burgundy makes the connection all the stronger. But what matters in this context is the beneficial impact James’s visual inferences have on our conventional stylistic categories. Like Soissons, Bourges has now emerged, not as a High Gothic successor to Chartres, but a clear predecessor – perhaps, indeed, the first High Gothic design in France.6 If this is the kind of broad conclusion which will come out of James’s mountains of detail, then we can only look forward all the more keenly to the final volumes of this massive enterprise, which promise to deal with no less than 650 buildings in the ‘Paris Basin’ – and in terms of broader questions of architectural invention: with vaults, construction techniques, economic influences and the building industry. In the meantime we have to thank James for giving us a remarkable ‘treasury’ of visual data.
Art History Reviewed VIII: Clement Greenberg’s ‘Art and Culture’, 1961 by BORIS GROYS
THE ESSAY ‘AVANT-GARDE AND KITS C H ’
(1939) that opens Clement Greenberg’s Art and Culture (1961) remains the critic’s most famous text, yet it is also his strangest.1 It was obviously written with the intention of legitimising the avant-garde, of defending avant-garde art against its critics. However, it is difficult to imagine a text that would be less avant-garde in its main presuppositions and its rhetorical make-up. Texts from the epoch of the early avant-garde argue for the new and vital against the old and dead, for the future against the past. These texts preach a radical break with European art traditions – and in some cases even the physical destruction of traditional art. From Marinetti and Malevich avant-garde artists and theoreticians expressed their unreserved admiration for a new technological
era. They were impatient to abandon tradition and to create a zero point, a new beginning. They were only afraid that they lacked the will to break with tradition radically enough, to be new enough – to overlook something that should be rejected and destroyed but, instead, still connected their work to the art of the past. All works of art and texts of the historical avant-garde are dictated by this competition in radicalism, a will to find some traces of the past that others had overlooked, with the goal of completely erasing these traces. Greenberg, however, starts his essay with the assertion that the avant-garde is a continuation of the great European artistic tradition, a way to ‘keep culture moving in the midst of ideological confusion and violence’ (p.5), and may even be
We are grateful to the Azam Foundation for sponsoring this article. 1 All page references in this article are to the first paperback edition of Art and Culture, Boston 1965. ‘Avant Garde and Kitsch’ was originally published in the Partisan Review (Autumn 1939), and appeared in revised form in Art and Culture. This
collection also contains Greenberg’s post-War critical essays about art in Paris, eight essays on American art from Thomas Eakins to David Smith and a ‘general’ section including ‘The crisis of the easel picture’. The volume ends with four essays of literary criticism on T.S. Eliot, Brecht, Kafka and the Victorian novel. the burlington m a g a z i n e
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described as a type of Alexandrianism. And he praises the avantgarde for being precisely such a continuation. For Greenberg the avant-garde is not an attempt to create a new civilisation and a new mankind but an attempt at ‘the imitation of imitating’ (p.7) the masterpieces inherited by modernity from the great European past. If classical art was an imitation of nature, avant-garde art is an imitation of this imitation. According to Greenberg, successful avant-garde art reveals the techniques that traditional artists used to produce their works. In this respect an avant-garde artist is comparable to a well-trained connoisseur who is interested, not so much in the subject of an individual work of art (because, as Greenberg states, this subject is mostly dictated to the artist from the outside, by the culture in which this artist lives), but in ‘the disciplines and processes of art and literature themselves’ (p.6). For Greenberg the avant-garde artist is indeed such a professional connoisseur: the avant-garde artist reveals the techniques that his or her predecessors used but ignores their subjects. Thus, the avantgarde operates mainly by means of abstraction: it removes the ‘what’ of the work of art to reveal its ‘how’. This shift in interpretation in the practice of avant-garde art – no longer understood as a radical, revolutionary new beginning, but as a thematisation of the techniques of traditional art – a ‘superior consciousness of history’ (p.4) – corresponds to a shift in the understanding of the politics of avant-garde art. Greenberg believes, namely, that the connoisseurship that makes the spectator attentive to the purely formal, technical, material aspects of the work of art is accessible only to those who ‘could command leisure and comfort that always goes hand and hand with cultivation of some sort’ (p.9). For Greenberg this means that avant-garde art can hope to get its financial and social support only from the same ‘rich and cultivated’ people who historically supported traditional art. Thus the avant-garde remains attached to the bourgeois ruling class ‘by an umbilical cord of gold’ (p.8). To say to an avant-garde artist such as Marinetti or Malevich that he continues tradition instead of breaking with it is actually to insult him – and Greenberg knew this, of course. So why does he so obstinately insist on the avant-garde being a continuation of and not a break with traditional art? The reason, it seems to me, is more a political than an aesthetic one. Greenberg is not interested in avant-garde art per se, or even in avantgarde artists as producers of art – rather, he is interested in the consumer of art. The actual question that informs Greenberg’s essay asks: who is supposed to be the consumer of avant-garde art? Or, in different terms: what constitutes the material, economic basis of avant-garde art, where that art is understood as a part of the societal super-structure? In fact, Greenberg is more concerned with establishing the socio-economic basis of avantgarde art than in analysing its utopian dreams. This attitude reminds the reader of a question that tormented the Marxist revolutionary intelligentsia throughout the twentieth century: who is supposed to be the material, social recipient or, let us say, consumer of the revolutionary idea? It is well known that any initial hope that the proletariat could be such a driving material force bringing the Socialist revolution to realisation
2
See B. Groys: The Total Art of Stalinism. Avant-Garde, Aesthetic Dictatorship, and Beyond, Princeton 1992, p.37ff.
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dwindled soon enough. Greenberg does not expect from the start that the half-educated masses could be consumers of avant-garde artistic revolutions. Rather, he finds it reasonable to expect that the cultivated bourgeoisie will support the new art. However, the historical reality of the 1930s brings Greenberg to the conclusion that the bourgeoisie is no longer able to fulfil the role of the economic and political supporter of high art. Time and again he states that the secured domination of high art can only be guaranteed by the secured domination of the ruling class. At the moment at which a ruling class begins to feel itself insecure, weakened and endangered by the rising power of the masses, the first thing that it sacrifices to these masses is art. To keep its real political and economic power the ruling class tries to erase any distinction of taste and to create an illusion of aesthetic solidarity with the masses – a solidarity that conceals real power structures and economic inequalities: ‘the encouragement of kitsch is merely another of the inexpensive ways in which the totalitarian regimes seek to ingratiate themselves with their subjects’ (p.19). Greenberg cites as examples the cultural politics of the Stalinist Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. But he also indirectly suggests that the American bourgeoisie follows the same strategy of aesthetic self-betrayal and false solidarity with mass cultural kitsch in order to prevent the masses from visual identification of their class enemy. Ultimately, Greenberg sees no great difference between democratic and totalitarian regimes in their relationship to the avantgarde. Both regimes accept the cultural taste of the masses to create an illusion of cultural unity between ruling elites and wider populations. Modern elites will not develop their own distinctive ‘high’ taste because they do not want to expose their cultural difference from the masses, nor to irritate them unnecessarily. This aesthetic self-betrayal of the modern ruling classes leads to a lack of support for any ‘serious art’. In this respect Greenberg obviously follows conservative critics of modernity such as Oswald Spengler or T.S. Eliot – they and their writings figure throughout all Greenberg’s criticism. According to these and similar writers, modernity leads to a cultural homogenisation of European societies. The ruling classes begin to think practically, pragmatically and technically. They become unwilling to lose their time and energy through contemplation, selfcultivation and aesthetic experience. It is this cultural decline of old ruling elites that worries Greenberg in the first place – and thus, at the end of the essay, he expresses a more than vague hope for the coming victory of International Socialism (a codeword for Trotskyism) that would not so much create a new culture as secure ‘the preservation of whatever living culture we have right now’ (p.21). In an uncanny but very instructive way these final words of Greenberg’s essay remind the reader of the main principle of Stalinist cultural politics reiterated innumerable times through all the Soviet publications of the same historical period: the role of the proletariat is not so much to create a new culture, but rather to appropriate and secure the best of what world culture has already created, because this heritage was betrayed by the bourgeoisie by its submission to Fascist rule – and by its support of the decadent, destructive, elitist avant-garde.2 In fact, Greenberg’s understanding of art was not very different from the famous Stalinist definition of writers and artists as ‘engineers of the human soul’. However, it should not be overlooked that by allying the avant-garde with the high art of the past Greenberg found a
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new enemy for the avant-garde: kitsch. This he defines in a far more original way than the avant-garde: ‘Kitsch is mechanical and operates by formulas. Kitsch is vicarious experience and faked sensations. Kitsch changes according to style, but remains always the same. Kitsch is the epitome of all that is spurious in the life of our times’ (p.10). Greenberg radically displaced the avant-garde by dehistoricising the opposition between avantgarde and non-avant-garde. Instead of being understood as an opposition between the art of the past and that of the future, it became an opposition between high and low art inside the same modern, contemporary, present culture. According to the traditional, historicist scheme, the avant-garde was an artistic manifestation of modernity just as Renaissance, Baroque, Classicism or Romanticism were artistic manifestations of earlier historical epochs. And there is no doubt that the artists of the historical European avant-garde shared this view. Greenberg himself speaks at the beginning of his essay of historical reflection as a precondition for the emergence of the avant-garde. But he also indicates that this succession within historical art ignores folk art and described only the art history of the ruling class. Now, Greenberg believes that in modernity the art taste of the masses can no longer be ignored. Accordingly, the kitsch that is understood by Greenberg as an artistic manifestation of this mass taste also cannot be ignored. The conflict between different historical formations is substituted here by a class conflict inside the same Capitalist modernity. The true achievement of ‘Avant-Garde and Kitsch’ is not Greenberg’s theory of the avant-garde but his discovery of kitsch as a specific artistic formation. In the best Marxist tradition he turns his attention to the art of the oppressed classes and puts this art at the centre of his cultural analysis – even if his own aesthetic attitude towards this art remains extremely negative. It is not accidental that ‘Avant-Garde and Kitsch’ served as a starting point for the analysis of the culture industry undertaken by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer in their Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947). Even today our understanding of mass culture remains deeply indebted to ‘Avant-Garde and Kitsch’ because it is still informed by an opposition between mass culture and ‘high’ avant-garde art. Of course, Greenberg was not the first writer who had reacted to the growth of modern mass culture. But this mass culture was mostly understood by avant-garde artists and writers simply as a sum of leftovers from previous cultural epochs that would disappear under the influence of the new avant-garde art, which would embrace the whole of society. European avant-gardes believed that the disappearance of these remnants of the past was inevitable, because the laws of artistic progress are intimately connected to those of technological and social progress. On the contrary, Greenberg argues in his essay that kitsch is not simply a residue of the previous epochs but a thoroughly modern phenomenon – in fact, as modern as the avant-garde itself. For Greenberg, kitsch reflects the sensibility of the modern masses who, precisely because of that, prefer kitsch to the art of the past. At the same time kitsch is a product of new technology and the new social order to an even greater extent than avant-garde art, because the avant-garde is still analysing the masterpieces of the past instead of simply using them as does kitsch, which in fact borrows from a ‘fully matured cultural tradition [. . .] its devices, tricks, stratagems, rules of thumb, themes, converts them into a system, and discards the rest’ (p.10). In fact, Greenberg is very pessimistic
about the historical prospects of the avant-garde, which he considers increasingly economically and politically abandoned, together with the high art of the past. But he is at the same time extremely optimistic about the prospects of kitsch, which he sees as being an increasingly successful – if also extremely unpleasant and even hateful – competitor of the avant-garde. However, these two competitors are too heterogeneous in their goals and strategies to enter any genuine competition. kitsch substitutes traditional art – the avant-garde simply analyses it. By discovering kitsch as a distinct phenomenon, Greenberg opens the way for the new avant-garde to analyse kitsch just as the historical avant-garde analysed the art of the past. One can argue that without this Greenbergian discovery of kitsch as a specific aesthetic and artistic domain, Pop art and Conceptual art, as well as different practices of institutional critique, would be impossible even if their representatives liked to criticise Greenberg, and notwithstanding the fact that these practices were not endorsed by Greenberg himself. In fact, he redefined kitsch as the only true aesthetic manifestation of modernity, the true heir of the art of the past. Greenberg redefined the avant-garde by reducing it to the role of analytical and critical interpreter of the glorious art of the past. The next step could only be to transfer this analytical approach from traditional art to its legitimate heir – namely, kitsch. Not accidentally, this critical attitude towards mass cultural kitsch is time and again accused of being elitist and reflecting the arrogant, anti-democratic attitudes of the ruling bourgeoisie. However, even if one is ready to agree with Greenberg that the avant-garde is not a truly innovative, creative and prophetic break with the past but merely a technical analysis of the art of the past, it remains hard to believe that this techno-analytical attitude reflects the aesthetic taste of the bourgeoisie. Obviously, the ruling elites are not interested in the production of art but only in its consumption, even if their taste is more refined than popular taste. De facto, Greenberg gives to avant-garde art a definition that puts it beyond any possible evaluation by taste – be it popular or elitist taste. According to Greenberg, the ideal spectator of avant-garde art is less interested in it as a source of aesthetic delectation than as the source of knowledge, of information about art production, its devices, its media and its techniques. The art here ceases to be a matter of taste and becomes a matter of truth. In this sense one can say that avantgarde art is, indeed, autonomous – as a modern science is autonomous, e.g. independent of any individual taste and political attitude. Here the famous Greenbergian ‘autonomous art’ ceases to be a synonym for ‘elite taste’ and ‘ivory tower’. It becomes instead simply a manifestation of technical mastery and knowledge that is accessible and instructive for everybody who is interested in analysing and possibly acquiring such mastery and knowledge. Greenberg thus sounds more realistic when he says that avant-garde artists are artists’ artists. But this insight seems to disappoint him because it does not provide avant-garde art with any solid social basis. It is like saying that revolution is only interesting for revolutionaries – which could also be true but remains somehow depressing. For Greenberg, artists are bohemians living without a secured position in a society in which they are working. That is why he assumes that a taste for truth is a minority concern, especially in the case of artistic truth understood as artistic technique. This answer seems to be correct if one has traditional or avant-garde art in mind. However, it ignores the fact that the popular spreading of art, be it also the burlington m a g a z i n e
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kitsch, presupposes also a growing involvement of the masses not only in the consumption of art but also in its production. Already Russian formalists, whose theory of the avant-garde was understood as an analysis of the purely formal, material ‘madeness’ of the work of art, was used by Greenberg to refer to the fact that works of art are technically produced objects in the world and that they should therefore be analysed in the same terms as objects such as cars, trains or planes. From this point of view there is no longer any clear difference between art and design, between a work of art and a mere technical product. This constructivist, ‘productivist’ point of view opened the possibility of seeing art, not in the context of leisure and informed contemplation, but in terms of production, e.g. in terms that refer more to the activities of scientists and workers than to a lifestyle of the leisure class. In fact, Greenberg follows the same line of reasoning when he praises the avant-garde for demonstrating techniques of art, instead of simply using its effects. The second essay included in Art and Culture, titled ‘The Plight of Culture’, was written after the War, in 1953. Here, Greenberg insists even more radically on the productivist view of culture, citing Marx as his most important witness. He states that modern industrialism devalued the concept of leisure – even the rich must work and are subject to the rule of efficiency as a measure of achievement, rather than being distinguished by their mastery of leisure activities: ‘The rich themselves are no longer free from the domination of work; for just as they have lost their monopoly on physical comfort, so the poor have lost theirs on hard work’ (p.31). That is why Greenberg agrees and disagrees at the same time with the diagnosis that T.S. Eliot gave to modern culture in his book Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948). Greenberg agrees with Eliot that traditional culture based on leisure and refinement had gone into a period of decline because modern industrialisation compels everyone to work. But at the same time Greenberg writes: ‘The only solution for culture that I conceive of under these conditions is to shift its centre of gravity away from leisure and place it squarely in the middle of work’ (p.32). Indeed, the abandonment of the traditional ideal of cultivation through leisure seems to be the only possible way out of innumerable paradoxes that were produced by Greenberg’s attempt to connect this ideal with the concept of the avant-garde. He writes further about the proposed solution: ‘I am suggesting something whose outcome I cannot imagine’ (p.32). And again: ‘Beyond this speculation, which is admittedly schematic and abstract, I cannot go [. . .] But at least it helps if we do not have to despair of the ultimate consequences for culture of industrialism. And it also helps if we do not have to stop thinking at the point where Spengler and Toynbee and Eliot do’ (p.33). The difficulty of imagining culture as situated ‘in the middle of work’ has its roots in the Romantic opposition between work of art and industrial product, an opposition that still informs Greenberg’s writing even when he praises the avant-garde for shifting the attention of the spectator from the content of art to its technique. This is why Greenberg comes to the somewhat counter-intuitive assumption that only the ruling class, excluded from the production process, has enough leisure time to contemplate and aesthetically appreciate the technical in art. In fact, one would expect this kind of appreciation rather from the
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people who are immediately involved in the production of art. And, of course, the number of such people permanently grew in the course of modernity, and has grown exponentially in recent times. At the end of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first centuries art entered a new era – namely, an era of mass artistic production that followed the era of mass art consumption, as it was described by many influential theoreticians: as an era of kitsch (Greenberg), of ‘cultural industry’ (Adorno) or as a society of spectacle (Guy Debord). This was the era of art that was made for the masses, of art that wanted to seduce and be consumed by the masses. Now, the situation has changed. There are primarily two developments that have led to this change. One is the emergence of new technical means of image production and distribution, the other is a shift in our understanding of art, a change of the rules used for the identification of what is and what is not art. Contemporary design gives to the same populations the possibility of shaping and experiencing their own bodies, homes or work places as artistic objects and installations. Contemporary art has thus become a mass cultural practice. Today’s artist lives and operates primarily among producers of art, not among its consumers. For a long time this everyday level of shared artistic practice remained overlooked, even if many art theorists such as the Russian formalists, or artists such as Duchamp, tried time and again to attract our attention to modern everyday life as a field of art. In our own time everyday life has become even more artificial, theatricalised and designed. Today, the artist shares art with the public as earlier they shared with it religion or politics. To be an artist has ceased to be an exclusive fate – instead, it has become representative of society as a whole on its most intimate, everyday level. Thus, one can say that in contemporary society the roles of the producer and the consumer of art have been combined, producing an ambiguous relationship on the part of the individual and the work of art. On the one hand, as producers and, therefore, as producers of art, we are attentive to the technical side of art with a goal to learn from, imitate, modify or reject. In this sense contemporary man looks at art necessarily by means of an avant-garde perspective, e.g. of its technicality, its ‘madeness’. On the other hand, the same contemporary man is able simply to enjoy the effects of art without giving much attention to its technique, e.g. to perceive this art as kitsch. Thus, one can argue that the distinction between avant-garde and kitsch, as introduced by Greenberg, does not describe two different areas, types or practices of art but, rather, two different attitudes towards art. Every work of art – and every object, for that matter – can be seen and appreciated from the avant-garde and from the kitsch perspectives. In the first case one is interested in its techniques, in the second case one is interested in its effects. Or, to put it in a different way, in the first case one looks at art as a producer and in the second case as a consumer. These two different attitudes cannot be rooted in the class structure of modern society because everybody has to work and everybody has time for leisure. Thus, our perception of art is permanently shifting between the avant-garde and kitsch. The opposition that Greenberg described as macro-cultural defines, in fact, the aesthetic sensibility of every individual member of contemporary society.
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Books
Sassetta: The Borgo San Sepolcro altarpiece. Edited by Machtelt Israëls. 2 vols. 636 pp. incl. 415 col. + 232 b. & w. ills. (Harvard University Press, Boston and London, 2009), €84. ISBN 978–0–674–03523–2. Reviewed by JENNIFER SLIWKA
richness, seductive accents and elusive beauty of the paintings of Stefano di Giovanni, known as il Sassetta (1392– 1450/51), will be delighted by the extraordinary, indeed exhaustive depth of this twovolume study devoted to the polyptych once to be seen on the high altar of the church of S. Francesco in Borgo San Sepolcro, painted between 1437 and 1444. The book is a collaborative study by a team of specialists in history and art history, painting technique and conservation, woodwork, architecture and liturgy from eight different countries brought together by Machtelt Israëls and Harvard University’s Center for Italian Renaissance Studies at Villa I Tatti. The first volume is divided into five sections addressing Sassetta’s critical fortune, the altarpiece’s commission and the space for which it was made, the proper reconstruction of the altarpiece and consideration of its type, its meaning and technique. The second volume is devoted to reports of technical examinations and is divided according to the various sections of the altarpiece’s predella, main tier, upper tier and piers. In autumn 2007 the team of specialists descended on the small Tuscan town of Borgo San Sepolcro for a two-week conference devoted to the polyptych. Together, they have created a virtual reconstruction of this double-sided altarpiece, originally standing some six-metres high, featuring the Virgin and Child flanked by saints on one side and St Francis in glory flanked by scenes from his life on the other, the whole enclosed within a magnificent gilt frame. The polyptych was removed from the high altar towards the end of the sixteenth century and subsequently disassembled and sold off to collectors during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The surviving panels are now dispersed between twelve museums throughout Europe and the United States. Bernard Berenson was one such collector. After discovering three of the panels, the Blessed Ranieri, St Francis in glory and St John the Baptist, in a Florentine antique shop in 1900, he immersed himself in Franciscan literature for three years before writing his first article on the altarpiece for this Magazine.1 Those panels remain at Villa I Tatti. While Berenson initially proposed that his panels formed part of a double-sided triptych, the publication of his article initiated an animated discussion ADMIRERS OF THE
among scholars regarding the subjects of the additional Franciscan scenes, the original appearance and the meaning of the polyptych. Israëls introduces the volumes with an engaging essay on the history of the panels since their dispersal and a critical assessment of the literature preceding this publication. While she demonstrates how aspects of the different methods of these scholars have converged over time to form the more unified approach with which we now view the altarpiece, she also traces the historiography of Sienese quattrocento studies. The literature begins with what might now be considered somewhat subjective stylistic discussions, such as Berenson’s excursus on Sassetta’s ‘mythopoetic personality’ or John PopeHennessy’s reconstruction of the artist’s ‘aesthetic personality’ in relation to the Florentine canon, and moves to the more objective material studies of Henk van Os among others. Israëls’s evaluation of the scholarship underscores the shift in focus from the attribution and composition of an artist’s œuvre to an investigation of the original context, purpose and function of the works. This shift is also registered by Van Os, whose essay in this volume includes a methodological reflection on the history of reconstructing altarpieces, the success of which, he argues, lies in the ability to effectively weigh physical evidence with historical documentation and morphology. The first section addresses Sassetta’s critical fortune. Keith Christiansen examines how a century of scholarship has influenced the way we think of Sassetta’s œuvre. He argues, by his own admission somewhat arbitrarily, that the iconic power of the panel of St Francis in glory as an object of devotion is comparable to that of Piero della Francesca’s fresco of the Madonna del parto (Monterchi). Puzzlingly, however, the author begins the following paragraph with the statement that Piero’s work is ‘quite simply, incomparable’. Christiansen’s argument (p.31) regarding Sassetta’s creative use of lettere antiche and Gothic script in the Madonna della Neve is similarly perplexing given that the Baptist holds a scroll inscribed with lettere antiche, not Gothic script as he suggests. His essay is most useful for its visually acute discussion of Sassetta’s range of artistic references. Carl Brandon Strehlke’s essay focuses on how Berenson’s appreciation of Sassetta was largely conditioned by his fascination for the spiritual in Asian art. His growing interest in the art of the Far East led him to identify affinities with the painting of Siena: their shared visionary qualities, emphasis on pure line and rich decorative beauty.2 Those unfamiliar with Sassetta’s work, or the many subjects which make up his polyptych, might, however, find these detailed stylistic analyses hard to follow and may prefer to save these two essays until the end of their reading. Similarly, before diving into Volume I, it is worth familiarising oneself with each panel through the beautiful reproductions in Volume II. This back-and-forth referencing is unwieldy, but forgivable given the high quality of the reproductions.
In the second section, James Banker and Donal Cooper painstakingly reconstruct the fifteenth-century appearance and interior arrangement of S. Francesco based upon surviving documentation and an analysis of the remains of the medieval structure now concealed behind a late Baroque decorative shell. Recently discovered documentary evidence has allowed them to confirm the original presence of a retrochoir, provide more precise information on the arrangement and appearance of the choirstalls and verify the presence of a rood screen. These discoveries are key for any subsequent considerations regarding the visibility, accessibility and function of Sassetta’s high altar. The document-based reconstruction of the numerous side altars and chapels of the church and chapterhouse constitutes a lengthy and detailed description which could have been relegated to an appendix. Yet the discovery of fragments of the fresco decoration of the cappella maggiore and the analysis of the nature of the Blessed Ranieri’s burial shrine beneath the high altar provide greater insight into the appearance and symbolic associations of the space and its furnishings and into the inter-relationships between chapel, polyptych, altar and tomb, revealing stronger affinities to the decoration and organisation of the mother-church of S. Francesco, Assisi, than previously suggested. The fresco of St Francis in glory (c.1315) in the Lower Church of Assisi must have been an important source for Sassetta. However, Banker’s publication in 1991 of the scripta, the agreement between the friars of S. Francesco and Sassetta, revealed that the artist was instructed to take the (now lost) image of St Francis ‘in uno trono’ (enthroned?) in Città di Castello as his model.3 This phrase has lead to much speculation as to why Sassetta, who otherwise carefully followed the friars’ prescriptions, painted St Francis standing with arms outstretched against a backdrop of glowing clouds and floating above an extraordinary waterscape. Roberto Cobianchi has identified a new, intermediary iconographical source between the fresco at Assisi, which shows Francis enthroned, and Sassetta’s panel in a fresco at Castelfiorentino, which shows Francis enthroned with his arms outstretched. This fresco leads Cobianchi to question Banker’s (1991) and Cooper’s (2005) proposal that the earlier Città di Castello altarpiece represented the saint standing in a mandorla. Building upon her extensive research on the close relationship between Sassetta and the Franciscan reformer San Bernardino, Israëls argues for the preacher’s role in securing the San Sepolcro commission for the artist. She makes careful suggestions as to what might have been Bernardino’s contribution to the programme of the altarpiece and demonstrates the degree to which the success of the final work is a result of the artist’s own innovative artistic personality and his Sienese heritage. In contrast, Christa Gardner von Teuffel considers Sassetta’s polyptych as an epitome of Umbrian and Franciscan traditions and cults, cautioning: ‘it might be thought highly unlikely that Bernardino, the busy vicar the burlington m a g a z i n e
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general of the Observants, was personally involved in the Franciscan’s commission for a small, ordinary conventual house in the hinterland at Borgo San Sepolcro’ (p.218). Even within this highly unified study, it is clear that there is still room for dissent and constructive scholarly debate. The section devoted to the reconstruction of the altarpiece is written in a necessarily involved language of angles, measurements, plans, grooves, struts, sockets and dowels. Attentively organised and carefully diagrammed, this section will satisfy specialists but may challenge even the most dedicated of readers. However, a helpful glossary is provided in the second volume, and there are rewards for those who stay the course, such as the delightful anecdote about how, through reading Dante, it was deduced that the term ‘spranga’ in official contracts must describe the iron bars used for sustaining piers. Dante poetically describes a pair of lips joined by frozen tear drops: ‘Con legno legno spranga mai non cinse/forte cosi’ (‘clamp never bound board on board so strongly’; Inferno, XXXII:49). While the careful physical investigation of the panels does ‘solve long-standing riddles regarding the original position of various figures and scenes’, as the book claims, this is primarily true of the Life of St Francis panels. Accordingly, the seven panels in the National Gallery, London, have been beautifully rehung so as to give a clear sense of their original sequence (the eighth narrative panel from the back of the altarpiece is at the Musée Condé, Chantilly). It is clear from the various contributions to this study, however, that there are still differing voices with regard to the organisation of the scenes in the predella which, like the main tiers of the altarpiece, was double-sided. In box form, it contained scenes from the Passion of Christ on one side and scenes from the Life of Blessed Ranieri on the other. Three scenes have been identified for each side, while the scripta and spacing of the upper tiers suggests there were at least four scenes on each side. The reconstruction thus leaves two scenes unaccounted for and an undefined broader space for a panel, tabernacle, pastiglia decoration or possibly an aperture for viewing the celebration of mass from behind the altarpiece, beneath the central main tier panels. Additionally, the decoration of narrow panels at the extreme ends of the predella box (beneath the piers) remains an enigma. The contributors variously propose a Lamentation, Flagellation, Entombment, Resurrection or Crowning with thorns as possibilities for the missing scenes from the Life of Christ. They agree that the missing scenes from the legend of Blessed Ranieri were probably derived from the Liber miraculorum, a record of the posthumous miracles performed by Ranieri, but precisely which miracles were chosen remains unknown, and their relative positions within the sequence of the predella continue to be contested. These volumes do not constitute a monographic study but rather propose a model for future collaborative studies dedicated to a more holistic view of an art object which
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nevertheless leaves room for debate. It examines problems of connoisseurship, historiography and artistic technique as well as social, political, economic and religious themes, while engaging directly with the most up-to-date technical information and scientific evidence available. In doing so it keeps counsel with Van Os’s admonition that ‘authoritarian statements can never fill the gaps in our knowledge’ (p.159). 1 B. Berenson: ‘A Sienese Painter of the Franciscan Legend. Part I’, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 1 (1903), pp.3–35. 2 Ibid. 3 J. Banker: ‘The program of the Sassetta altarpiece in the church of S. Francesco in Borgo S. Sepolcro’, I Tatti Studies 4 (1991), pp.11–58.
Prato: Architecture, Piety, and Political Identity in a Tuscan City-State. By Alick M. McLean. 250 pp. incl. 32 col. + 102 b. & w. ills. (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2008), £40. ISBN 978–0–300–13714–9. Reviewed by FLAVIO BOGGI
researched and well-illustrated study, Alick McLean asks readers to consider the built environment of late medieval Prato in relation to the competing interests of religious, civic and private agencies within the city-state. Basing his arguments on a clear series of propositions, the author contends that changes in design and planning ‘contributed to the successes and failures of the citizens’ (p.viii), a claim that is bound to excite discussion and controversy. Among the many questions he raises is the manner in which a medieval city-republic’s communal architecture and public sites ‘can document, even negotiate, political relationships’ (p.5). In this regard, especially, McLean’s book is an important contribution to the growing body of literature that presents the piazza, so central to Italian life, as a form of political art where power relations are inscribed in space. Most significant of all, however, it is the first English-language monograph to treat Prato as an artistic centre worthy of sustained scholarly scrutiny. Studies of late medieval Tuscan art and architecture have tended to focus on Florence first and foremost, and on Siena and Pisa to a lesser degree, so this examination of one of the region’s more neglected towns offers new material and fresh observations on the complex bonds between communal society and urban form. At the same time, the author’s comparative approach affords useful insights into Prato’s near and distant neighbours – Lucca and Pistoia as well as Florence and Pisa – and prompts broader questions about the rise and fall of Italy’s city-states, both large and small. The book is structured chronologically, not as a comprehensive survey but as an investigation organised around key sites and issues. It
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opens evocatively with a description of the ceremonies associated with the display of the Sacred Girdle of the Virgin. The city’s most prized possession, the relic was intimately bound up with popular piety and political identification, and its cult was promoted as much by local communal officials as by the clergy. The ritual surrounding the Girdle and its symbiotic relationship with the Piazza della Pieve (now the Piazza del Duomo) are at the heart of McLean’s text: an exploration of the many ways in which the citizens of Prato collectively cultivated a unique urban image distinct from the rival and adversarial cities around its borders. The following two chapters scrutinise the city’s early history – in part to establish the framework within which buildings and urban spaces were later situated or reconfigured – and the institutional development of the provost and canons of S. Stefano, Prato’s most important ecclesiastical foundation. In reconstructing the circumstances and implications of the eleventh-century church and cloister complex, the author casts new light upon the power struggles of the bishopric of Pistoia, the local Alberti family, the city of Florence and the citizens of Prato. The episode raises broader questions about the built environment and notions of sovereignty. The fourth chapter returns to S. Stefano, considering the authority of Prato’s church officials and, more specifically, the ways in which Carboncetto (a marmolarius, or local master mason) transformed the site in the twelfth century and gave visual expression to the growing power of the propositura (the provost’s church). Here, McLean accommodates the political and economic impulses of the laity into his analysis, although the documents that are cited are generally not transcribed nor are their contents given in full in the notes. This probably makes the book more accessible for the non-specialist, as does the helpful inclusion of a timeline and glossary, but impedes the more informed reader’s full appraisal of the author’s fresh archival material. The early chapters devoted to the formation of S. Stefano and the propositura usefully set the scene for the discussion of Prato’s secular architecture, the focus of much of the second half of the book. With the rise of Prato’s communal regime in the early thirteenth century came the construction of consular government buildings, a palatium curie and turris curie, as well as the transformation of key public spaces, especially the platea plebis next to S. Stefano, renamed the plaza comunis. McLean’s marshalling of the available visual and written evidence proves that the city’s consuls worked closely with the provost and canons in their efforts to use architecture as an expression of civic power. His analysis focuses attention upon the dissenting forces of the old rural and urban nobility, faithful to the emperor, whose autonomy was undermined by the ideological aspirations of the new consular government with its pro-papal outlook. Through a critical reading of the forms and titles of the new secular buildings, including the palatium imperatoris that was built around
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the earlier Casa degli Alberti and enlarged under Emperor Frederick II after 1238, the author raises compelling questions about the ways in which Prato’s institutions and individuals may have embedded political and social meaning into the city’s buildings and spaces. While the propositura had cultivated an urban landscape of ‘fraternal equality’, as McLean posits, the consular regime promoted a built environment of ‘paternal hierarchy’ in opposition to the emperor and his local supporters. He considers the dynamics of the mendicant orders in spreading ‘sacred space’ and ‘images of brotherhood and conciliation’ through the city. While the broader arguments and supporting data are both relevant and persuasive, especially in relation to the Franciscans and Dominicans, the strategies of the Augustinians and Carmelites might have been afforded a little more space. In spite of some minor quibbles, there is much that is convincing in this study, so painstakingly and cogently constructed with a sharp eye to urban architecture and space, and the specific social and political circumstances within which a visual civic ideology operated. The above summaries cannot do justice to the complexity of McLean’s book, which exhorts its readers both to rethink assumptions and ponder new material. His whole text is a moving affirmation of the distinctiveness of the urbanistic project of Prato and will endure as a source of information and analysis.
The Ceremonial City. History, Memory and Myth in Renaissance Venice. By Iain Fenlon. 448 pp. incl. 50 col. + 120 b. & w. ills. (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2008), £30. ISBN 978–0–300–11937–4. Reviewed by D.S. CHAMBERS V E R Y I N F O R M A T I V E and generously illustrated book originated, so we are told in the author’s introduction, as a study of cultural reactions to the Ottoman defeat in the Battle of Lepanto (October 1571). Although the scope and time-span have been much extended, its main stress and appeal still seems to lie in certain events of the 1570s which obtained lasting significance, and particularly in its concern with what the author, Professor of Historical Musicology at Cambridge University, calls ‘the soundscape of Venice’. In the first part rather well-worn themes such as the sacrality of Venice, the ‘Myth’ of the chosen city, ritual spaces and the ubiquitous cult of St Mark possibly become a little tiresome, even if continuity is an essential point to make about Venetian history, but there is a valuable discussion about choral liturgies of the patriarchino and polyphony, both composed and improvised. By the second part (rather coolly entitled ‘A Disquietening Decade’) we reach the heart of the matter, with detailed accounts of recent Christian–Turkish conflict (especially the
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46. Procession to the church of the Redentore, by Joseph Heintz the Younger. c.1630. Canvas, 115 by 205 cm. (Correr Museum, Venice).
Siege of Malta) and of Lepanto and its celebration. A full chapter then covers the visit to Venice in 1574 of Henry III of France, on his way from Poland to receive the French crown, a post-Lepanto event which inspired a disproportionate amount of patriotic and artistic initiatives (considering that Venice’s famous sights and institutions had never lacked distinguished visitors). These commemorations, which reached a peak, strangely enough, about twenty years later, Fenlon explains as the reaffirmation of Venice’s sacred status – in spite of the opportunistic peace with the Turks and loss to them of Cyprus – and the need to strike a firm note against Habsburg power. The remaining chapters discuss reinvigorated religion, renewed insistence on divine protection of the city, the boom in publishing (including descriptive news bulletins, pamphlets, popular prints, pious manuals, triumphal poems and plays) and vocal performances. Lepanto celebrations were more spectacular than ever in the 1590s, Gabrieli’s masses being ‘equivalent in sound to the large scale battle pieces painted by Tintoretto and others’. Throughout the book the author’s special knowledge of Venetian music, both sacred and secular, is effectively used, even if verbal description is not quite enough. Perhaps it should be accompanied by a CD to help the reader enter the ‘soundscape’, although much of this might consist of a raucous din of drumming and tuneless fife playing, in addition to gondoliers’ and hucksters’ cries, church bells, splashing water, explosions of fireworks etc. Nor is visual material quite sufficient as compensation, although there is a rich quantity, not all of it too familiar, and paintings are reproduced with exceptional clarity, both in full and in some cases also in detail. Prominence is given to Joseph Heintz the Younger’s splendid Procession to the church of the Redentore (c.1630; Fig.46), commemorating the cessation of the 1575–77 plague which – with the great fire of the Doge’s Palace – had further shaken the confidence
inspired by Lepanto. The central section is reproduced full-page on p.272, while the complete work (Correr Museum, Venice) is reproduced as pl.135; most of it also forms the dust jacket. The horror and chaos of the naval battle itself is vividly conveyed by the detail from Andrea Vicentino’s scene in the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, which is difficult for the spectator on site to appreciate (the whole work, painted between 1595 and 1605, appears as pl.97). Space does not permit enumeration of many other well-chosen examples, but among them is Jacopo Palma il Giovane’s painting in the church of S. Fantin, Doge Alvise Mocenigo giving thanks to the Virgin for Lepanto (pl.99, detail on p.174), which includes a portrait of the Dogaressa. In general, the production and editing of this book seem impeccable, complete with its endnotes, bibliography and index (although there is no list of illustrations). One obvious slip may be noted; Veronese’s drawing from Chatsworth, The allegory of the Holy League, reproduced as pl.142, has been dated in the caption a century too early, c.1470.
Italian Renaissance Ceramics, a Catalogue of the British Museum Collection. By Dora Thornton and Timothy Wilson. 2 vols., 840 pp. incl. 800 col. + 60 b. & w. ills. (British Museum, London, 2009), £175. ISBN 978–0–7141–2816–0. Reviewed by J.V.G. MALLET
was originally projected for publication to coincide with the exhibition of Italian maiolica held at the British Museum in 1987. For that occasion, Timothy Wilson produced instead a slimmer guide-catalogue, Ceramic Art of the Italian Renaissance, which has ever since held sway as the most reliable introduction to its subject.
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When Wilson moved to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the project for a full catalogue seemed endangered but, by joining forces with Dora Thornton, his successor at the British Museum, the work has now been triumphantly concluded. Even at the last moment there have been delays, in consequence of which full account has not been taken of literature from the last two years. The catalogue has, however, been worth the wait. In the introduction Wilson recounts how two parallel London collections, at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Museum, arguably the two greatest of their kind in the world, both came to be purchased largely from Government funds. A key moment was 1855, when great tranches of Ralph Bernal’s collection were divided between those titans of connoisseurship, A.W. Franks (1826–97) of the British Museum and J.C. Robinson (1824–1913) of Marlborough House (now the Victoria and Albert Museum). For that occasion Franks devised for the British Museum a collecting policy, to which appeal has since spasmodically been made, of collecting works not just for their beauty but also for their importance in documenting and dating whole categories of ware. By contrast, Marlborough House was at least theoretically concerned with objects useful as examples of design. Thornton and Wilson cover 496 items in the British Museum, compared to the 1,444 in the V. & A.’s collection catalogued in 1940 by Bernard Rackham. The earlier author included eighteenth-century maiolica, which Thornton and Wilson have not, but excluded several categories that Thornton and Wilson have included: French and other northern maiolicas; fakes; Medici porcelain; items lost during the Second World War. The Museum’s smaller collection, combined with advances in photographic and printing techniques, have allowed the new catalogue to illustrate each piece immeasurably better than was possible in 1940, with excellent colour reproductions often showing a piece from more than one angle or illustrating comparative material. The preface outlines in broad terms the division of work between Wilson and Thornton but, since both accept responsibility for opinions expressed, we may imagine compromise was sometimes necessary. The growth of specialist literature is reflected in the new catalogue’s 122 tightly printed pages of bibliography. To have evaluated and compressed so much new fact and speculation is no mean feat. Increases in evidence available since the Second World War, archival, archaeological and scientific, have created as many new problems of attribution as they have resolved, and this must excuse some tentative judgments. For instance nos.54 and 262, for which connoisseurship alone might have suggested a Deruta origin, have been thrown into attributional limbo, not only because local experts have been unable to match them with fragments so far excavated at Deruta, but also because Neutron Activation analysis of the clay has suggested analogies with samples from Rome. One wonders whether, despite the
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distance between Deruta and Rome, the Tiber valley that links the towns may not, besides facilitating carriage of Deruta wares to Rome, have allowed the Tiber itself to deposit near each town clays that are not too unlike. Nor was it just the natural action of rivers that transported clays around Italy: Piccolpasso’s mid-sixteenth-century treatise tells us that ‘Venice works the clay of Ravenna and of Rimini, and for the best that of Pesaro’. Clay analysis is in its infancy, and its practitioners may not yet fully have understood its limitations. For instance, unless sherds used for comparison are restricted to kiln-wasters, they are likely to include imports not made at the place of excavation. This is particularly likely to happen, as Thornton and Wilson agree, in a large centre like Rome, but even sherds dug at a smaller administrative centre like Pesaro can by no means be assumed to have been made there. That privileges were repeatedly granted to local Pesaro potters suggests previous edicts had been breached, and the privileges are in any case riddled with
47. Broad-rimmed bowl showing Three men in an academic dispute, made in the workshop of Maestro Giorgio of Gubbio and painted by Francesco Xanto Avelli(?). Dated 1525 in lustre. Tin-glazed earthenware, diameter 26.1 cm. (British Museum, London).
exceptions, such as permission to import any kind of pottery to the town during the annual fair, permission granted to local potters to retail wares made by colleagues in other centres, or simply exemption granted from the general embargo for the more expensive categories like istoriati or the white wares of Faenza and Urbino. So well have the two authors done their exacting task, that it is hard to fault them. This reviewer, however, still finds himself at odds with them over the painter Francesco Xanto Avelli’s connections with Maestro Giorgio of Gubbio. The authors are surprisingly tenacious of the hypothesis that a group of istoriato wares dated 1525 in lustre, including cat. nos.300–02 (Fig.47), may be by a painter called Giovanni Luca da Casteldurante, who was contracted in 1525 to work for a year with Giorgio. This contract, however, was signed some three months after the date, 6th April 1525, inscribed in lustre on a dish at the Wallace Collection, London, that Thornton
and Wilson unhesitatingly accept as part of the grouping. It is perhaps unwillingness to abandon altogether the Giovanni Luca attribution, unlikely though the three months’ gap makes it, that prompts them to deny stylistic evidence that their group includes pieces dated 1524. One thinks particularly of nos.298 and 299 and at least the central putti on nos.304 and 305 which bear, in blue, the same ‘S’ symbol as nos.300–03 and were therefore probably from the same service. The longer the interval between the painting of a piece from this group and the signing of Giovanni Luca’s contract, the less likely it is that such a piece is by him, so it is worth recalling that pieces bearing the lustred date 1525 might, as explained under no.319, have received their polychrome decoration the previous year. Arguments based on style for the alternative attribution of this disputed group to Xanto are of course subjective, but evidence of printsources shared between the group and work accepted as Xanto’s is not so easily dismissed. Xanto could have held a one-year contract with Giorgio, bridging the years 1524–25. The alternation of hands observable in Maestro Giorgio’s production suggests there must have been very many painters for whom Gubbio’s archives have provided no evidence; even the painter Francesco Urbini, whose work shows him to have been active at Gubbio for a number of years before moving to Deruta, has not been irrefutably identified in the archives of either town. That the archives of Gubbio have till now yielded no evidence for Xanto’s presence is thus a weak argument against his having worked there. It is the master-potters who bought and sold property and goods, rather than young employees like Xanto, whose activities the notaries most frequently recorded. Lack of archival evidence does not inhibit Thornton and Wilson from countenancing Francesco Cioci’s argument for what they call ‘the likely presence of Xanto in Gubbio around 1528–29’, a time when it seems more plausible to assume that he was already established at Urbino. An argument ex silentio also makes the authors deny the likelihood that the name Andrea da Negroponte, which forms part of the inscription under a dish at Arezzo, gives us the name of a painter active in Casteldurante in the 1550s and 1560s and responsible for nos.229–32. There is no reason to imagine, as some authors have done, a ‘workshop’ of Andrea da Negroponte; Thornton and Wilson rightly assert the likelihood of this painter having worked for the Picchi workshop at Casteldurante. Yet to suggest that the name under the Arezzo dish is that of an owner, as the authors do under no.229, seems more fanciful than to read the name as a painter’s signature. A further point on which this reviewer is in disagreement concerns the supposed signature ‘Nicola da .V.’ on no.148, a rather inferior plate that surely cannot be from the hand of Nicola di Gabriele Sbraga (or Sbraghe), perhaps the finest of all the Urbino istoriato painters. One wonders whether, after studying the seven other pieces I recently listed as also inscribed in Nicola’s handwriting but not painted by him,1 the authors may come round
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to the view that Nicola inscribed his name on no.148 in his capacity as workshop-master and not, in this instance, as painter. The predominance in the British Museum of sixteenth-century wares, particularly those with figural decoration, results from the way the collection was formed. Wares from before 1450 are thinly represented, and coverage of the seventeenth century is patchy. The museum has, however, been lucky to have had on its staff since the Second World War three scholars, Hugh Tait, Timothy Wilson and now Dora Thornton, who have been alert to opportunities for making the maiolica collection more rounded. Without ‘in house’ scholar-curators of this calibre, such purchases could not have been made, nor would gifts have been attracted. Although the contextual studies popular in universities are to be welcomed, and have indeed informed many entries in the catalogue under review, this awe-inspiring work is a monument to the kind of objectbased scholarship that can only flourish in symbiosis with a great collection. For many years to come it will be impossible to undertake serious scholarship in the field of Italian maiolica without having this catalogue at one’s elbow. The notes and quibbles that follow in no way diminish the present reviewer’s deep respect for what has been accomplished.
mentioned in the catalogue description. This might have had a bearing on the attribution to Padua, since such ‘Candiana’, or Iznik-style pieces, besides blue berettino plates attributed to that town (e.g. no.347) and istoriato wares including no.66, which is marked ‘1564 a padoa’, often bear similar crosses. Such a simple sign may of course also have been used elsewhere. The crosses potent that occur on two early seventeenth-century fritware porcelain bowls in the V. & A., or even the more elaborate cross underneath the ‘Candiana’ Iznik-style maiolica dish of 1629 at Vienna, to which the entry for no.345 alludes, might have been made elsewhere. no.470: To the list of centres that in the sixteenth century anticipated Florentine attempts to make porcelain, one might add Rome, whence Marco Spallanzani has shown that already in 1564 a pharmacist called Sebastiano Manzoni was able to send Cardinal Altoviti specimens of porcelain made by an un-named ceramicist active there.2 Later, in 1571, Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici reported to his brother, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, that Manzoni was travelling from Rome to Florence with a young porcelain-maker. This last may possibly have been Flaminio Fontana.
p.25: The map of maiolica-producing towns, by omitting such Sicilian centres as Caltagirone, Burgio, Trapani and Collesano, reminds one of the collection’s total lack of wares attributed to the island, even to Palermo and Sciacca, which do feature on the map. no.55: Neutron Activation analysis confuses the issue over an albarello of late quattrocento appearance bearing the arms of the Duke of Calabria, which would otherwise seem a straightforward case for attribution to Naples or its district. p.230, note 10: The authors perpetuate what I believe to be an error launched by Francesco Liverani in 1987, that the plate in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, attributable to Nicola da Urbino, painted with the Calumny of Apelles, is not by the same hand as the Ridolfi dish with the same subject in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. p.257, note 10: It is not just Xanto’s collaborators ‘Lu Ur’ and Giulio who were allowed or even encouraged to initial or mark their work, but also the painters signing ‘B’ and ‘S’, the latter probably the young Sforza di Marcantonio, later active at Pesaro. no.167: The authors may underestimate the representational as opposed to the allegorical element on Xanto’s plate concerned with the Battle of Pavia. For instance, the white horse at the plate’s centre, whether allegorical of Spain or not, is shown breaking through a wall, surely representing the breaching of the wall of the Barco outside Pavia by the Imperial troops at the beginning of the battle. no.215: This plate may surely be grouped also with the splendid vase at Dijon (C. Barral: Faïences italiennes: catalogue raisonné du Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon, Dijon 1987, no.2 and colour plate). no.217: Maiolica seems to have been sent to have lustre added, at least occasionally, from Urbino to Gubbio well before 1530, the approximate date accepted by the authors as the start of this practice: a coppa dated 1525 in lustre, in the Mazza collection at Pesaro (M. Mancini Della Chiara: Maioliche del Museo civico di Pesaro, Pesaro 1979, no.146), is unmistakably painted by the Urbino painter Nicola di Gabriele who, as a workshop master, is unlikely to have worked outside his home town. no.345: The presence of a blue cross, though visible in the illustration of this plate’s underside, is not
Federico Barocci. Allure and Devotion in Late Renaissance Painting. By Stuart Lingo. 292 pp. incl. 72 col. + 118 b. & w. ills. (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2008), £45. ISBN 978–0–300–12125–4.
1 J.V.G. Mallet: ‘Nicola da Urbino and Francesco Xanto Avelli’, Faenza 42, 4–6 (2007), pp.199–250. 2 M. Spallanzani: ‘Porcellana medicea e Porcellana romana’, Faenza 88, 1–6 (2002), pp.122–32.
Reviewed by DAVID SCRASE
to this splendid book Stuart Lingo explains that it traces its origins to two surprises. One was that he perceived retrospective elements in Barocci’s work, particularly in some of his drawings, which he found unexpected and which seemed insufficiently interpreted; the other was a textual, and more precisely theoretical, surprise. In Lingo’s words: ‘it became evident that Giovanni Baglione’s lapidary assessment of Barocci’s achievement in the Vite spoke in terms quite different from those generally privileged in the art historical discourses that had interpreted the painter’s work to the twentieth century. Indeed, Baglione’s distinctive terms had been of marginal interest to most modern scholarship’. Lingo realised that Barocci’s pictures demanded new readings and that contemporary criticism of his works needed proper explanation, in particular the interpretation of the key words divoto and vaghezza. The first half of the book concentrates on the interpretation of Barocci’s paintings in the light of the pronouncements concerning images promulgated at the twenty-fifth session of the Council of Trent in 1563 and in particular on sixteenth-century thinking about the divoto in art: what is an appropriate style for devout painting? By going back to contemporary texts and examining the
IN THE INTRODUCTION
meaning of the words employed in them, Lingo forces the reader to try to understand how Barocci and his patrons thought and interpreted the ideas behind their words – it is a marvellously intelligent approach to an understanding of Barocci. Lingo examines Barocci’s references to oldfashioned images that had a potent importance for his patrons, be they Franciscans, Capuchins or Oratorians, making constant but subtle reference to the maintenance or recovery of traditions of images which were used for veneration. In particular he notes how Barocci’s drawings reveal his own meditations on works by his predecessors. Such attentive thinking about other works of art ultimately permeates through into his own paintings, although his references are often hidden. Thus Raphael, Michelangelo and Titian remain constant points of reference for him, as do many other less well-known artists, but Barocci assimilates these artists’ work and represents it so subtly that his references become so discreet as to be difficult at first sight to recognise. There is a rich examination of the Madonna del popolo (Uffizi, Florence), one of Barocci’s best-documented altarpieces, in which Lingo investigates Barocci’s exploration of what he calls the ‘vision altarpiece’. He explains the struggles Barocci faced in the formation of his ideas and in presenting them as compositions and how some of these have implications not just for Barocci’s own work but also for an understanding of the artistic and religious cultures of early modern Italy. In a particularly striking chapter Lingo offers readings of Barocci’s Entombment for the Confraternity of the Cross and Sacrament in Senigallia and his late, unfinished Lamentation–Entombment for Milan Cathedral (Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna) that expound his meditations on Entombments by Raphael and Michelangelo. This concludes the first half of the book and gives much food for thought. It shows how before the Carracci, Barocci attempted to recover the insights of the High Renaissance for a different age. The second half of the book, entitled ‘The quest for Vaghezza’, investigates the meanings, connotations and uses of vago, vaghezza and related terms in period art theory and criticism. Lingo examines at length the issues raised by Baglione’s identification of Barocci’s style as particularly vago in relation to that of other painters. This is especially valuable as the Italian words used by Baglione remain elusive. It is Lingo’s particular achievement to clarify the contemporary meaning of these enigmatic words and to show why they were appropriate in describing the extraordinary effects in Barocci’s paintings. Barocci’s particular achievement was to displace the physical, sensuous allure of the body-beautiful aspects of vaghezza and mutate them into something which remained alluring, but which was without erotic intention or effect. This enabled him to depict devout images which inspired their observers with religious zeal through their purely pictorial qualities of colour and facture. They are alluring but also spiritually uplifting. the burlington m a g a z i n e
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Having defined vago and vaghezza in Barocci’s work, Lingo investigates the unique form of vaghezza that Bellori identified as central to Barocci’s painting – music. In his famous account Bellori says that once, when asked by Guidobaldo della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, what he was doing, Barocci pointed to the picture he was working on and replied: ‘I am composing a tune’. Lingo shows how an initial examination of Barocci’s cultivation of a ‘non-bodily vaghezza’ in the field of colour, which was closely related to musical tone and harmony, indicates that a study of Barocci’s development of analogies between sight and sound would lead to a deeper understanding of late sixteenth-century Italian culture. In his final chapter Lingo presents a ‘sight-reading’, based on all the elements he has defined as participating in the meaning of divoto and vaghezza of the Rest on the return from Egypt in the Vatican, which is remarkably convincing. Beautifully produced and lavishly illustrated, Lingo’s book is of singular importance for the understanding of contemporary criticism of Barocci. By careful explanation and definition of meaning, he enables us better to understand how his contemporaries viewed Barocci and his paintings. Application of this careful analysis of Barocci’s work to other artists, contemporary or slightly junior to him, should prove equally fruitful.
Slavery, Sugar, and the Culture of Refinement. Picturing the British West Indies 1700–1840. By Kay Dian Kriz. 284 pp. incl. 43 col. + 74 b. & w. ills. (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2008), £35. ISBN 978–0–300–14062–0. Reviewed by GRACE BROCKINGTON I N 1791 T H E politician Sir William Young travelled to the West Indies to inspect his family’s plantations and to gather information about the state of the sugar industry and the conditions of slaves. As a slave-owner himself he was relatively benevolent, distributing largesse on his own estates and observing working conditions elsewhere on the islands. Yet he strongly opposed William Wilberforce’s campaign to abolish the slave trade, promoting instead a scheme to reduce the traffic from Africa by increasing birth and survival rates among slaves in the West Indies. A patron of the arts as well as a landowner, Young worked to disseminate an image of West Indian slaves as happy, leisured and even refined, contradicting the perception that life on the islands was harsh and barbaric. A family portrait by Johann Zoffany, which depicts a black slave boy mingling easily with the baronet’s children (Family of Sir William Young; c.1770; Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool), eloquently conveys his paternalistic stance and his strategy of using art to create a more idyllic public image of the West Indies.
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48. Market day, Roseau, Dominica, by Agostino Brunias. c.1780. Canvas, 35.6 by 46.4 cm. (Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, New Haven).
Kay Dian Kriz draws on this and a wealth of other material to argue that historians have neglected the diversity of visual images associated with the West Indies when British trade in slaves and sugar was at a height (1700–1840). Now, as then, visual propaganda associated with abolition dominates the debate, at the expense of images that promoted the slave economy. Kriz’s expanded archive includes botanical illustrations, caricatures, landscapes and scenes of daily life. Her acute and scholarly readings of images and texts uncover a shifting and ambivalent relationship between Britain and its colonies, between the social groups co-existing in the West Indies and between the very words and images on which she draws. The images Kriz analyses are ‘rational, curious, frightening, and pleasurable (even funny)’, and the artists, viewers and subjects who negotiated their meaning are equally hard to define. Racial categories were unstable in the eighteenth century, having to accommodate many combinations of colour and origin, as well as cultural factors like dress, language and the battle for emancipation. Kriz draws attention to the numerous ways in which artists and their patrons tried and failed to define the West Indian population. Hans Sloane, personal physician to the governor of Jamaica, published a natural history of the island (1707 and 1725), which catalogued human artefacts and practices as well as flora and fauna. His careful taxonomy jolts against a history of multiple occupation – Indian, African, Spanish, British – and against what Kriz calls ‘an all-pervasive violence emanating from the entire colonial ecosystem’. Among the fine engravings illustrating Sloane’s study is the image of a potsherd said to be an Indian burial urn, but later used by African slaves as a cooking utensil. Such archaeological fragments reinforce the current of menace and disarray underlying Sloane’s rational project. The idea of refinement, whether of sugar, people or capital, was key to the visual representation of the British West Indies. Just as sugar was transformed from crude cane to pure white crystals, so people living in the colonies were defined as rude or refined, depending on their complexion, status and behaviour. The image of a civilised West Indies, developed by artists like Agostino
Brunias (Fig.48), was used to lure settlers from Britain. Yet as Kriz argues, the sophisticated mulâtresses who grace his paintings fall just short of the moral virtue which was meant to characterise refined British women. In other images, particularly caricatures of mixed-race relationships, the white settlers themselves have begun to degenerate into rudeness. British efforts to segregate, control and improve its colonial populations constantly ran aground, and art from the period projects the settler’s anxieties, as well as their aspirations. Kriz makes a compelling case for expanding the geographical scope of British art studies. As she points out, even domestic art production relied on ‘the movement of goods (including images and texts), ideas, people, and capital around the world’. British art in the period, she argues, is best seen operating within an international network which bound the British Isles to the Black Atlantic. Kriz rightly sets herself against ‘those still wishing to erase a colonial past that included the brutal exploitation of hundreds of thousands of human beings’, although she names no names (it would be useful to know who those reactionaries might be). Her erudite, subtle and absorbing study brings home the many ways in which art participated in Britain’s colonial project both at the height of the slave regime, and during the slow process of emancipation.
Beyond the Dreams of Avarice. The Hermann Goering Collection. By Nancy H. Yeide. 518 pp. incl. numerous b. & w. ills. (Laurel Publishing, Dallas, 2009), $250. ISBN 978–0–9774349–1–6. Die Kollektion Hermann Göring. Der Eiserne Sammler. Kunst und Korruption im ‘Dritten Reich’. By Hanns Christian Löhr. 256 pp. incl. 143 b. & w. ills. (Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin, 2009), £45. ISBN 978–3–7861–2601–0. Reviewed by INES SCHLENKER
of art counts as one of the great thefts in history. In just a few years the National Socialist regime managed to carry out a large-scale looting operation that, starting with Jewish property in the Reich, quickly spread to all of occupied Europe. Its repercussions are with us to this day: highprofile restitution cases attract much public attention while, over recent years, provenance research has become a growth industry at museums. And yet unanswered questions abound about the men behind the displacement of cultural property during the Second World War, the looting operations themselves and the whereabouts of dispossessed works of art. The two books here under review shed considerable light on one of the main per petrators of art theft during the Third Reich: Hermann Göring, Adolf Hitler’s deputy,
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Prussian Prime Minister, Reich Aviation Minister, Reich Marshal and head of the Four-Year-Plan organisation. Göring reportedly made no secret of his plans: ‘I intend to plunder and to do it thoroughly’ (Yeide, p.2) – and that is exactly what happened. He amassed a gigantic private collection which was displayed at Carinhall, the hunting lodge thirty kilometres north of Berlin that Göring extended into a palatial complex in the 1930s. After the War, the works of art were to be presented to the nation and shown publicly in additional purpose-built galleries. Göring’s interests in collecting were extensive and included rare animals, toy trains and boats, precious stones, books, furniture, tapestries, arts-and-crafts objects, sculptures and paintings. All in all his collection, which a post-War estimate valued at about 300 million euros, comprised at least 3,100 objects of which more than 1,700 were paintings. These numbers put him on a par with Hitler, his main competitor in the race to collect. The Führer’s accomplices brought together over 4,700 objects, mainly paintings, for the mammoth museum that Hitler envisaged on the banks of the River Danube in the Austrian town of Linz. Like Hitler, Göring went about putting together the collection ruthlessly and regardless of cost, not shying away from bribery and blackmail. His numerous functions and his status in the Nazi hierarchy presented him with endless possibilities and almost limitless funds to satisfy his greed. A network of agents was quickly established who hunted down and acquired works for him. Against the general trend, a small percentage of works entered the collection as gifts. Hitler, for example, gave Göring one of his own watercolours in 1936, and Mussolini presented him with the marble sculpture the Medici Venus on the occasion of his visit to Carinhall in 1937. Other donors were German industrialists and political followers currying favours or thanking Göring for help granted. In the mid-1930s Göring profited from the expulsion from Germany of Jewish collectors whose works he acquired on easy terms via the international art trade. The confiscation of ‘degenerate’ art from German museums in 1937 allowed him to sell expropriated paintings abroad for much-needed foreign currency or to swap them for old masters. A few of the denigrated works he was fond of even ended up in his collection. The Nazi conquest of Europe provided further opportunities, although in Austria and Poland Göring lost out to Hitler, who ferociously collected for Linz, and he could lay his hands on only a few precious pieces. In the Netherlands, in contrast, he was able to make large-scale purchases, especially works in the possession of the art dealer Jacques Goudstikker. The climax was only reached, however, with the German occupation of France in 1940. Here, Göring received substantial numbers of works of art confiscated by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg, a highly effective Nazi art-plundering agency, and the Devisenschutzkommando (foreign currency
protection commando), which, under his control, seized art from Jewish owners. In February 1945, with the end of the Third Reich in sight, Göring prepared for the evacuation of Carinhall, ordering his collection to be packed up. The majority of the works of art were taken by train to railway tunnels in the Alpine region of Berchtesgaden, where they were eventually discovered and salvaged by allied soldiers. Transferred to the newly established Central Collecting Point in Munich, they were inventoried and the process of restitution began. Although an estimated ninety per cent of the recovered collection has by now been restituted, several hundred paintings from the collection are still missing – either sold on or given away in exchange by Göring himself or destroyed or lost during the evacuation. Göring’s collection is a direct expression of his eclectic taste and focuses on early Dutch and Flemish as well as early German paintings. Another favourite was sculptures and paintings of the French Rococo. Unlike Hitler, Göring paid little attention to contemporary National Socialist art as displayed at the ‘Grosse Deutsche Kunstausstellung’ in Munich, where he purchased a comparatively small number of works. Immediately after the War the press labelled the collection a ‘staggering conglomeration of famous masterpieces’ (Yeide, p.17). Yet, while many works are certainly of museum quality, the tendency to overestimate the artistic merit of the collection has continued ever since. With the help of the two recent publications here under review, a more realistic assessment is now possible. Both books are based on a stupendous research effort, using a multitude of archival documents and battling with incomplete or contradictory documents. With their different emphases and intentions they complement each other ideally. Hanns Christian Löhr, who recently published a monograph on Hitler’s planned museum in Linz, has produced a meticulous and comprehensive history of Göring’s collection. The book examines the methods of acquisition, the origins and the whereabouts of the works, Göring’s means of financing his passion and the magnitude of his criminal activities. It is a storehouse of details and at the same time provides the wider context in which Göring’s machinations have to be set. Löhr throws new light on the role German industrialists and their gifts played in the growth of the collection, looks at the means of legally justifying the looting of art and discusses the display of the collection at Carinhall. The pictorial catalogue of the approximately 150 lost works will certainly prove to be a highly useful tool for tracking down missing items. In her massive volume, Nancy Yeide, an internationally recognised expert in provenance research, presents a complete catalogue of the paintings in Göring’s collection. She has gathered a wealth of information on each work, including, where possible, an illustration. Dividing them into four categories, which reflect the current state of knowledge, she differentiates between works that were ‘in
Göring’s collection’, ‘likely in Göring’s collection’, ‘uncertain associations’ and ‘paintings used in trade’. In view of the huge amount of detective work that has gone into compiling such an invaluable reference book, it seems unfair to point out the repeated misspellings of German terms or minor inaccuracies (some illustrations that do not appear here can be found in Löhr’s book). In addition, a more generous design and the placing of images with their corresponding text might have made the book more user-friendly. These reservations, however, cannot detract from the fact that these two volumes are immensely useful. They will whet the appetite of other researchers to fill in gaps and add to the provenances which might also lead to a detailed art-historical evaluation of the collection.
The Buildings of Wales. Gwynedd. By Richard Haslam, Julian Orbach and Adam Voelcker. 789 pp. incl. 120 col. + 90 b. & w. ills. (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2009), £29.99. ISBN 978–0–300–14169–6. Reviewed by LINDSAY EVANS
of the eagerly awaited volume on Gwynedd, the Buildings of Wales series is now complete, thirty years after the appearance of the Powys volume. It is an extremely valuable contribution to a project which was planned along the lines of Buildings of England founded by Nikolaus Pevsner, whose name appeared as advisory editor to that initial volume, although he himself wrote nothing about the buildings of Wales. Nevertheless, his terse and spare method of recording greatly influenced the groundbreaking account of the built heritage of Powys by Richard Haslam, the architectural historian who is also a major contributor to Gwynedd. In the intervening years Pevsner’s epigrammatic entries, although still discernible as a house style, have given way to a far more relaxed, discursive and personal response, without ever resorting to Pevsner’s frequent prejudiced dismissals. Gwynedd consists of Anglesey, Caernarfonshire (spelt with a ‘v’ throughout, for some inexplicable reason) and Merioneth, a large area of varied terrain, resulting in a wide range of settlements from earliest times to the present. It therefore calls for the high quality of research, recording and description which has characterised the previous volumes in the series but, unlike the more recent volumes Glamorgan, Gwent and Pembrokeshire, each devoted to the individual county, Gwynedd’s three counties are compressed into one book (and are here abbreviated to A, C and M). Caernarfonshire merits a separate volume, and the sheer number, diversity and quality of its buildings will come as a considerable surprise, even to those who think they have a good knowledge of the region, renowned mainly for its mountain ranges and its castles.
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49. View from the north-west of Dolbadarn Castle, Llanberis, Caernarfonshire. Early thirteenth century.
The defensive ingenuity of Master James of St George’s great fortresses built for Edward I at Conwy and Caernarfon (C), Harlech (M) and Beaumaris (A) was analysed a quarter of a century ago in The King’s Works in Wales and in several subsequent publications by other military and architectural historians. But the entries in Gwynedd offer many valuable insights into the whole aspect of the English campaign and the resulting attempt at Welsh resistance, seen at such castles as the remote Castell-y-Bere (M), Criccieth, Dolwyddelan and Dolbadarn (C; Fig.49), the latter having been the inspiration of outstanding works by both Richard Wilson and J.M.W. Turner. In fact, it is a mark of the interest of Gwynedd – as well as the other regional volumes of Wales – that buildings are not merely looked at and described, but are seen and perceived in a wider context, particularly historical. In a country which has preserved its language as a vibrant means of communication in all media, the individuality and distinctiveness of such a culture is more than of intellectual interest. There is more to Thomas Hopper’s ‘Norman’ Penrhyn Castle (National Trust) outside Bangor (C) than meets the eye, although it would be difficult to identify the remains of Samuel Wyatt’s villa for Richard Pennant (1739–1808) within the vastness of Dawkins Hay Pennant’s creation, which took more than twenty years to complete. Underneath both was the house of Gwilym ap Gruffudd, which, according to a fifteenth-century poet, had a tower like the Eagle Tower of Edward I’s Caernarfon Castle. It was a descendant of the Gruffudd family who was responsible for building one of the best small Tudor manor houses to have survived major change, Cochwillan, Talybont, outside Bangor (C), built by one of Henry Tudor’s supporters, William ap Gruffudd. Its splendid timber roof and ornate fenestration was surpassed by Gloddaeth, now St David’s College (C), which retains the canopied dais of its magnificent hall. On the opposite hill stands Bodysgallen, dating from 1620, and now a hotel. Both houses belonged to the Mostyn family, whose vast property included the area which the family was to develop into the elegant seaside resort of Llandudno, described here with scholarly relish, as is the other resort which owes its existence to private enterprise, Clough Williams Ellis’s Portmeirion (M), whose multicoloured
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buildings would not look out of place in Rex Whistler’s mural at James Wyatt’s Plas Newydd (A). This is a rebuilding of a medieval house, the property of the Griffith family of Penrhyn, for the Earl of Uxbridge, father of the 1st Marquess of Anglesey, commemorated in the military museum. It was the region’s close dynastic structure which resulted in such houses as Plas Mawr, Conwy (C), with its Elizabethan swagger, built by Robert Wynn, a member of the illustrious Wynns of Gwydir, Llanrwst (C), which had its private chapel, Holy Trinity, Gwydir Uchaf. Another estate to have its own place of worship is Rug (M), whose Victorian exterior belies an exquisitely painted interior. Both properties are in the guardianship of Cadw (literally ‘to keep’), the equivalent of English Heritage. A keen competitor for intricacy of craftsmanship is the early sixteenth-century screen of Llanegryn (M). Such ornateness is in sharp contrast to the simplicity of churches like Llanfaglan, near Caernarfon, and Llangelynin (M). On a far greater scale are churches such as St Beuno, Clynnog Fawr (C), Sts Mary and Nicholas, Beaumaris (A), and Llanbeblig, Caernarfon, and, as an almost unique example of the Arts and Crafts movement, St Mark, Brithdir (M). In his mammoth enterprise of linking London to Holyhead, with its crossing to Ireland, Thomas Telford not only made Gwynedd accessible to an outside world, he provided the region with one of its great visual delights: the suspension bridge (1818–26) over the Menai Strait, having already used a similar but smaller device to cross the river at Conwy. Robert Stephenson was to provide a railway bridge both at Conwy and across the Strait, but in sheer scale, nothing beats Benjamin Piercy’s timber viaduct (1867) which takes the Cambrian Coast railway across the Mawddach estuary at Barmouth. From Prehistoric settlements and Roman remains through the internecine strife of the medieval period to the present time, encompassing agricultural improvement, the exploitation of copper and slate, the provision of schools and colleges and the installation of power stations, the contributors have deployed their expert knowledge with graceful skill and their impressive research is crowned with wonderful photography.
Chagall: Love and Exile. By Jackie Wullschlager. 582 pp. incl. 40 col. + 522 b. & w. ills. (Allen Lane, London, 2008), £30. ISBN 978–0–713–99652–4. Reviewed by CHRISTINA LODDER
of Marc Chagall is celebrated as a fusion of Russian, French and Jewish culture, yet his name immediately conjures up profoundly poetic and indeed fantastic images of Vitebsk, the predominantly Jewish city in the Russian Empire’s Pale of Settlement, where he was born and where he spent his
TODAY THE ART
most formative years. Life in Vitebsk remained a vital inspiration for his art long after he left his hometown and Russia far behind. In 1923, in Berlin as a recent émigré from the Soviet Union and still only thirty-six years old, he published his autobiography My Life. The motives that led him to do this were various: commercial, personal and artistic. Chagall clearly wanted to sell and publicise his art, and to increase his potential audience by explaining the inspiration behind his paintings. Yet this was also a profound act of mystification; with My Life, Chagall created a myth about himself. And it is a myth that has endured. Artist, man and myth are so enmeshed that even now, it is difficult to consider Chagall’s art, let alone his life, free from the myths he created in his autobiography. Indeed, it is difficult not to be seduced by My Life: the images are so vivid, the stories so convincing. It is, therefore, a brave person indeed who takes on the mantle of Chagall’s biographer, and the enormous task of disentangling fact from the myths the artist created about himself. All praise, therefore, to Jackie Wullschlager who has been indefatigable in pursuing the enigma of Chagall. It is difficult not to idealise him, but she manages to avoid any such pitfalls, producing a more rounded picture of him than has yet been encountered in Chagall scholarship. His good and bad points are given equal weight. While she succumbs at times to partiality, she does not flinch from debunking the myths, describing his ruthless egotism and explaining how he sacrificed his family (p.5) to his career and art. This is particularly evident in Wullschlager’s discussion of the women who shared Chagall’s life and of his children, especially Ida, who became his business manager for several years. He met his first wife, Bella Rosenfeld, when he was a young man in Vitebsk. She came from a middle-class Jewish family, whose father ran a jewellery store, but the family also traded in art supplies, which enabled Chagall to obtain canvas and paints when such materials were in extremely short supply during the Civil War (1918–21). Using previously inaccessible material (letters in the Chagall archives in Paris) she portrays the relationship between the artist and his young wife and shows how the burden of coping with the family finances eventually wore the beauty out. She died when they were living in America during the Second World War. Chagall then took up with a young English woman, Virginia, who was not Jewish, far more independent and with different emotional expectations. This relationship eventually collapsed under the weight of Chagall’s demands, leaving ‘the wily Vava’ (Valentina Brodsky, Chagall’s final wife; p.5) to cater to Chagall’s needs until he died. Wullschlager writes well, and her evocations of the various places where Chagall lived, his emotions at different times during the long period of exile, the people he met and the dominant themes in his art are extremely vivid. This is a fine read, which has a good pace and yet is neither glib nor excessively adulatory. The text is illuminating about the art market and Chagall’s contacts
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with collectors and dealers, eloquently conveying the precariousness of the early years. This is a biography, however, and art history plays a secondary role. There are fine aesthetic insights, but no extended discussion of Yiddish themes, Chagall’s use of icon painting, his creative relationship with various members of the Russian and European avant-garde or his involvement with the aesthetic issues of the period. Likewise, there is no detailed examination of the evolution of his political ideas, although he later said that the two most important events in his life were ‘meeting with Blaise Cendrars and the Russian Revolution’ (p.154). There are some intelligent visual analyses and there are also illustrations, but unfortunately the two elements are rarely integrated, so that discussion of a painting often occurs nowhere near the illustration of the work, and it is sometimes difficult to find out if there even is an illustration of the work; the illustrations are not numbered and there is no cross-referencing. This is frustrating to say the least. I also wonder whether the author actually visited Vitebsk (today in Belarus). She evokes it vividly, but says that only fifteen buildings were left standing after the Second World War (p.397). In fact, considerably more than this survived. Chagall’s house is still there, now a Chagall museum, in a street that retains several nineteenth-century houses. Likewise, Jehuda (often russified to Yurii) Pen’s original studio where Chagall received his first art lessons remains, as does the building where Chagall set up the People’s Art School in 1919, and where Kazimir Malevich organised Unovis (Champions of the New Art) early the following year. The relationship between Malevich and Chagall, working and living in the same building, was clearly fraught – their egos were far too large and their artistic approaches far too diverse to ever co-exist in such a small space – so by summer 1920, Chagall had moved to Moscow. Wullschlager, although elsewhere acknowledging that Chagall could be dictatorial, portrays him as the victim. She characterises Malevich as ‘pugnacious’ and implies that he was overpaid for his works, had no particular talent, ‘regarded art as primarily a political and intellectual tool’, that his painting was ‘a sermon of nothingness and destruction’ and that he was given to ‘destructive, utopian rants’ and nihilism (pp.239–40). Like Chagall himself, however, she condemns El Lissitzky (who had betrayed Chagall by embracing Suprematism) as ‘treacherous’ and a ‘troublemaker’, concluding: ‘If Malevich had played Lenin to Chagall’s Kerensky, Lissitzky gloried in the role of Stalinist annihilator of them both’ (p.250). Such partisan judgments are unworthy of the author, and cannot be sustained when submitting to the harsh light of detailed historical scrutiny. The reader should also note that Lissitzky did not study in Paris (p.238), and Władysław Strzemi´nski (russified to Vladislav Strzheminsky) was not a student at Unovis (p.242). Fortunately, there are few such lapses, and overall this is a fascinating book, an enjoyable read and an illuminating, as well as occasionally provocative, study of Chagall’s life.
Sol LeWitt: 100 Views. Edited by Susan Cross and Denise Markonish. 272 pp. incl. 93 col. + 88 b. & w. ills. (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2009), $45. ISBN 978–0–300–15282–1. Reviewed by ANNA LOVATT
his first wall drawing in October 1968, as part of a benefit exhibition for the Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam. Curated by Lucy Lippard, the exhibition focused on abstract works by fourteen artists more or less closely associated with minimal art, ‘in the conviction that a cohesive group of important works makes the most forceful statement for peace’ (p.99). Eschewing the histrionics of contemporary protest art, LeWitt’s drawing evinced instead a politics of restraint: a quiet yet stubbornly insistent gesture of solidarity and critique. Graphite lines were ruled directly onto the wall, producing a drawing expansive in size yet negligible in mass, at once site specific and ephemeral. The dealer Paula Cooper was so troubled by LeWitt’s request that the drawing be painted over following the exhibition that she eventually enlisted the artist to obliterate his own work. The reticent recalcitrance of LeWitt’s early drawings and the political context of their making are easy to forget when faced with the prodigious expansion of his work over subsequent decades. Aside from the structures, the photographs, the books and the writings, the wall drawings proliferated and mutated rapidly. By the 1990s, LeWitt was producing vibrant, monumental murals consisting of ‘blobs’, ‘splats’, ‘whirls and twirls’ seemingly divorced from the systematic rigour of the early wall drawings. Many of these are longterm installations, commissioned to decorate the interiors of prestigious institutions like Christie’s in New York or the Wadsworth Atheneum in LeWitt’s home town of Hartford CT. Towards the end of his life, the artist collaborated with the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art on a final, celebratory flourish: a twenty-five-year retrospective of the wall drawings installed on an acre of purpose-built walls, in a specially renovated mill building on MASS MOCA’s campus. Sol LeWitt: 100 Views is the accompanying publication for that exhibition, which opened in November 2008. With a catalogue raisonné of the wall drawings forthcoming this year (Yale University Art Gallery and Yale University Press), the curators, Susan Cross and Denise Markonish, felt that a conventional catalogue would be an unnecessary addition to the extensive literature available on the artist. Instead, they asked one hundred artists, composers, curators, collectors and critics – many of whom knew LeWitt personally – to provide a shifting set of textual perspectives that approximates the permutational logic of his work and the 105 drawings on view in the current retrospective. Although asked to provide something other than a personal tribute to the artist, many of the contributors inevitably veer
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towards the anecdotal and sentimental. ‘I can picture his annoyance over all this gushing’, writes the collector Mickey Cartin (p.26), indicating the tension between LeWitt’s taciturn persona and the warm feelings expressed by those who knew him. The elimination of subjectivity was of course central to LeWitt’s work, something that jars with the more personal entries in this posthumous publication. Other contributions are more informative, such as James Rondeau’s fascinating contextualisation of the 1968 exhibition mentioned above, or Cross’s reorientation of the wall drawings in relation to the later performancebased works of Carolee Schneeman and Matthew Barney. LeWitt’s exchanges with other artists – including William Anastasi, Louise Lawler and Tom Marioni – are also mutually illuminating. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the multifarious viewpoints on offer here fluctuate in relevance depending on the reader’s own orientation: artists, scholars and acquaintances of LeWitt will all find something different of value in this book. From an art-historical perspective, Sol LeWitt: 100 Views is most useful for its comprehensive documentation of forty years of wall drawings and the fresh light cast by a handful of its contributors on LeWitt’s well-known practice.
Publications Received Images of Children in Byzantium. By Cecily Hennessy. 296 pp. incl. 16 col. + 57 b. & w. ills. (Ashgate Publishing Group, Farnham, Surrey, and Burlington VT, 2008), £60. ISBN 978–0–7546–5631–9. ‘Who could find it easy, after a visit to Ravenna and its solemn mosaics, to think of noisy children in Byzantium?’ E.H. Gombrich’s quip is the spur to Cecily Hennessy’s pioneering, extensively documented work, which aims to demonstrate that ‘children and childhood are widespread subjects in Byzantine imagery’, childhood was recognised as a distinct stage of life, children were important in Byzantine society and were cherished for their childlike qualities. Although she adduces many images of children, and even more of adolescent boys, produced throughout the Byzantine Empire from the fourth to the fifteenth century, Hennessy’s book inadvertently also reinforces the stereotype to which Gombrich refers. For the less these images rely on the traditional repertory of GrecoRoman decorative and narrative art, with its playful erotes and expressive toddlers, and the more they allude to distinctively Byzantine institutions and values – specifically the nexus of Imperium and Church – the less childlike they appear. Hennessy must be right to insist that, as in other pre-modern societies, the population of Byzantium would have been weighed towards the young. But this does not signify, as she suggests in an over literal-minded reading of the relationship of art to society, that the content and style of images catered to the tastes of children and adolescents. Writing of the scenes of children playing in the fourth-century floor mosaics of the villa at Piazza Armerina, Sicily (figs.2.1–2.4), she takes no account of the widespread use of this motif in Roman decorative imagery and too readily dismisses a parodic interpretation, ignoring the Stoic tradition of equating adult preoccupations with childish games. The rural and sporting scenes of playful children and adolescent slaves in the mosaic floor of the Great Palace at Constantinople, a masterpiece of Byzantine sixthcentury secular art (figs.2.5–2.7), are a deliberate revival of Hellenistic decorative fashions. And the touching little Benjamin in tears at Joseph’s departure in the the burlington m a g a z i n e
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sixth-century Vienna Genesis (pl.3), is equally a product of classicising modes of visual narration. By the seventh century, however, the children flanking St Bakchos in the mosaics of St Demetrios, Thessaloniki, probably a donor’s offspring, while small and childlike, stand gravely still in ceremonial dress (pl.6). Theirs is not the stylised solemnity of the divine Christ Child or the girl Mary of Hennessy’s chapter six, but nor are they depicted as childish. The same is true of the many ephebe-like saints, frequently juxtaposed with aged ones, of church and monastic imagery reproduced in chapter four. Even more striking are the figures being blessed by Christ in the Romanos Ivory (fig.5.4). If, as is now generally conceded, the tablet celebrates the marriage in 945 of the junior emperor Romanos II with Bertha, renamed Eudokia, it shows a six-year-old boy and a four-year-old girl as young adults in imperial robes. Similar strategies are followed in the manuscript illuminations, mosaics, wall paintings and enamels portraying the sons and daughters of ruling dynasties throughout the empire between the ninth and the fifteenth centuries. Non-specialist readers will find much of interest here about characteristically Byzantine matters, such as the election of children as ‘co-’, or ‘junior emperors’, or the imagery of a youthful Christ Emmanuel coupled with the mature Christ Pantokrator or the white-haired Ancient of Days. But while we cannot doubt that there were noisy children in Byzantium, cherished by their parents and valued by society, Hennessy shows that the most Byzantine of Byzantine art aimed to inspire even its child spectators to put away childish things. ERIKA LANGMUIR
Pitture ridicole. Scene di genere e tradizione popolare. By Francesco Porzio. 213 pp. incl. 106 b. & w. ills. (Skira, Milan, 2008), €25. ISBN 978–88–6130–368–3. Seven essays by Francesco Porzio on the theme of genre painting in Italian art from Arcimboldo to Gaspare Traversi are collected in this stimulating book. Five of them were originally published between 1989 and 2003, mainly in exhibition catalogues. To these are added a substantial essay on Traversi, written for this volume, and the concluding piece, a short article on hierarchies of art and the status of subject and object in early modernism. In a brief but strongly argued preface, Porzio points to the subversive nature of genre painting, which has its roots in theatre, carnival and street culture and emphasises the need for further research on the topic. There is a helpful index of names but no bibliography. CATHERINE WHISTLER
Raphael to Renoir. Drawings from the Collection of Jean Bonna. By Nathalie Strasser et al. 272 pp. incl. 140 col. + 50 b. & w. ills. (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2009), £40. ISBN 978–0–300–14207–5. This lavish catalogue accompanied an exhibition of 120 old-master and nineteenth-century drawings from the collection assembled over the past twenty-odd years by the Swiss collector and bibliophile Jean Bonna, recently held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and subsequently at the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh (closed 6th September 2009). While over a hundred French drawings from the collection, as well as a small selection of Italian drawings, were exhibited at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 2006, the present catalogue illustrates the full range of Bonna’s interests. While French and Italian drawings dominate, the catalogue includes a small but choice group of Northern and Netherlandish drawings, as well as sheets by Goya, Liotard, Fuseli, Burne-Jones and Whistler. Bonna shows a discernible preference for finished figure drawings or landscapes over rapid sketches or studies. Among the Italian drawings are a rare study of a kneeling figure by Carpaccio (cat. no.2), two drawings – a landscape and a Virgin and Child – by Fra Bartolommeo (nos.4 and 5), a study in red chalk by Raphael for one of the Sistine Chapel tapestries (no.6) and a splendid Holy Family in pen and ink by
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Parmigianino (no.15), one of five drawings by the artist in the Bonna collection, to which has recently been added a sixth, a red-chalk study for the Madonna of the long neck, purchased at auction in Paris in March (not included in the present catalogue). Also notable are two drawings by Jacopo Ligozzi, one a striking botanical study on vellum (no.23), a portrait of a young girl by Jacopo Vignali, a fascinating allegorical subject by Salvator Rosa (no.32), two views by Canaletto (nos.35 and 36) and a Punchinello drawing by Domenico Tiepolo (no.40). The catalogue also reproduces a number of exceptional drawings by lesser-known Italian artists, notably sheets by Michelangelo Anselmi (no.12), Raffaellino del Colle (a study of the head of a young woman in red chalk that must rank among the finest of this artist’s very rare drawings; no.11) and Giovanni Battista Trotti, known as Il Malosso (no.25). The section of the catalogue devoted to Netherlandish drawings illustrates fine sheets by Goltzius, Bloemaert and Jordaens (no.48), as well as a charming study of a wild boar piglet by Hans Hoffmann (no.43) and a small Rembrandt landscape, only recently rediscovered (no.49). Highlights among the French drawings (several of which were also shown in Paris in 2006) are fine examples by Callot (no.56; a drawing formerly at Chatsworth), Watteau, Lemoyne, Gravelot, Ingres, Prud’hon, Gauguin and Seurat. This portion of the catalogue also reveals the collector’s interest in assembling representative groups of drawings by certain artists, with several sheets by Claude, Boucher, Greuze, Gericault (five of the nine drawings by the artist in the Bonna collection), Delacroix, Degas and Redon. The thorough catalogue entries are the work of a team of scholars, led by Bonna’s curator, Nathalie Strasser, and several curators at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In an interesting interview with the collector, which forms the preface to the catalogue, M. Bonna notes that ‘I think when you are a collector, it’s a “disease” that is very difficult to cure, and I was born a collector’. This impressive publication is a fine testament to Bonna’s passion for drawings and to the remarkable – and still growing – collection he has assembled over the past two decades. STEPHEN ONGPIN
Women Impressionists. Edited by Ingrid Pfeiffer and Max Hollein. 319 pp. incl. 339 col. ills. (Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern, 2008), £30. ISBN 978–3–7757–2079–3. Produced in conjunction with the Frankfurt Schirn Kunsthalle exhibition held in 2008, this well-illustrated catalogue contains a series of nine essays addressing the questions of gender and social position facing four principle women associated with the Impressionist group. The combination and range of images and analysis, including an essay by Griselda Pollock on Mary Cassatt, provides a comprehensive survey of the influences and interests of the artists who include, besides Cassatt, Marie Bracquemond, Eva Gonzales and Berthe Morisot. Jean-Paul Bouillon’s particularly useful essay traces the life and career of Marie Bracquemond and her intimate relationship both with the Impressionists and the Parisian art scene at large. The exhibition and catalogue seek to affirm the importance of a group which, within the context of nineteenth-century art, remains still somewhat overlooked. The catalogue concludes with a brief history of each artist accompanied by black-and-white photographs. JOANNA LEE
Fabergé’s Eggs. The Extraordinary Story of the Masterpieces that Outlived an Empire. By Toby Faber. 336 pp. incl. 18 col. + 27 b. & w. ills. (Macmillan, London, 2008), £17.99. ISBN 978–1–4050–53888–4. Between 1885 and 1916 Carl Gustavovitch Fabergé made fifty of his now famous decorated eggs as Easter gifts for the Empress Alexandra, wife of his Romanov patron Nicholas II. This is the first publication to document the mysteries and complete histories of these pieces and their international movements following the fall of the Russian Empire, up until their repatriation to post-Communist Russia in 2004.
The book also charts the social and domestic events in the lives of the royal family, which were often incorporated into the designs of the pieces. The eggs represent the cultural heritage of this thirty-year period. Of the original number, eight of Fabergé’s eggs are lost. A full inventory of the pieces is included at the end of the book. The publication also includes two sections of images illustrating depictions of the Fabergé workshops, details of individual eggs and portraits of the family for which they were made. A.H. Dan Flavin: Icons. Edited by Corinna Thierolf and Johannes Vogt. 80 pp. incl. 50 col. + 17 b. & w. ills. (Thames & Hudson, London, 2009), £39.95. ISBN 978–0–500–093511. Before his ‘breakthrough’ work The diagonal of May 25 1963 – a fluorescent tube attached directly to the gallery wall – Dan Flavin produced eight monochromatic wallmounted boxes affixed with bulbs, works that rested awkwardly between painting, sculpture and assemblage. He called these hybrid objects Icons, a title rendered ambivalent through his public renunciation of his own Catholic upbringing. Acknowledging the role of religious painting in his artistic formation, Flavin nevertheless distinguished his work sharply from that tradition. With their shop-bought bulbs jutting gauchely from sawn-off corners, his Icons are secular hymns to the wonder of electricity, offering a kind of illumination divorced from painterly technique and spiritual transcendence. Subsequently eclipsed by Flavin’s later installations, the Icons were introduced to a wider audience via a major retrospective that toured seven venues in Europe and the United States between 2004 and 2007. That exhibition was preceded by a catalogue raisonné and accompanied by an exhibition catalogue (M. Govan and T. Bell, eds.: Dan Flavin: The Complete Lights 1961–1996, New Haven and London 2004; and idem, eds.: Dan Flavin: A Retrospective, Washington (National Gallery of Art) 2004); its penultimate venue, Munich’s Pinakothek der Moderne, has now produced an additional publication focused solely on the Icons. Perhaps inevitably, given the extensive literature already available on Flavin, the essay by the Pinakothek curators, Corinna Thierolf and Johannes Vogt, offers few original insights into his well-known practice. But the book is valuable for its lavish illustrations, which show the Icons from front and back, revealing their internal wiring and meticulous handwritten labels. The intricate armatures of the Icons indicate the structural considerations implicit in their making, yet are concealed behind their smooth, monochromatic surfaces. Earlier authors have attributed the wiring of the Icons to Flavin’s first wife, Sonja, but this collaboration goes unmentioned in the essay, implicitly reinstating the minimalist master as the works’ sole author. Thierolf and Vogt also gloss over Flavin’s aggressive blue-collar rhetoric and the occasionally barbed nature of his habitual dedications. For example, with Icon VIII: (the dead nigger’s icon) (to Blind Lemon Jefferson) they write: ‘the relationship between the work’s picture and title are striking. On the one hand the musician’s first name, Lemon, is mirrored in the colour. On the other, on account of the work one is put in an almost musical mood’ – an account that conspicuously circumvents the violent parenthesis at the heart of Flavin’s title. While Anna Chave once identified minimal art with a ‘rhetoric of power’, Dan Flavin: Icons locates these early works within a transhistorical tradition of icon painting, traced from a twelfth-century Novgorod Mandylion to Andy Warhol’s Gold Marilyn, 1962 (A. Chave: ‘Minimalism and The Rhetoric of Power’, Arts Magazine 64, January 1990, pp.44–63). Flavin was certainly aware of this tradition, but his ironic deployment of the word ‘icon’ limits its usefulness in contextualising his art. Other writers have placed Flavin’s work more productively within the New York art world of the 1960s, but those interested in the Icons will appreciate their comprehensive photographic documentation in this handsome hardback book. ANNA LOVATT
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Arshile Gorky Philadelphia, London and Los Angeles by JAMES LAWRENCE
of Arshile Gorky in accounts of twentieth-century art has been disputed for six decades. Early advocates for Abstract Expressionism, keen to underplay the new style’s debt to the past, discounted Gorky’s relationship with international Surrealism. Other commentators exaggerated the role of Surrealist techniques in his painstaking compositions. The question of national identity led to additional complications. In 1971 Gorky’s nephew Karlen Mooradian published a number of letters, supposedly written by his uncle but now generally accepted as fabrications, in an effort to promote an ‘Armenian’ Gorky over a ‘Surrealist’ one. As evidence and argument bolstered one side or another, the question of whether Gorky should be considered a Surrealist or a prototypical Abstract Expressionist reached an impasse. Recent research provides a welcome opportunity to breach that impasse. A trio of biographies published between 1998 and 2003 filled in many of the gaps that punctuated accounts of Gorky’s complicated and occasionally fictitious history. The author of one biography, Matthew Spender, has recently compiled a volume of letters from, to and about Gorky, along with contemporaneous reviews and interviews that show his reputation growing from emerging artist to pivotal master.1 This level of attention, combined with a more sceptical approach to the categories and boundaries of advanced mid-century art, has created promising conditions for re-evaluation. The exhibition Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective, recently at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and now at Tate Modern, London (to 3rd May), could scarcely arrive at a better moment.2 This is the first major survey of Gorky’s career since the 1981 retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, and the largest to visit Britain. In Philadelphia, more than 180 paintings and works on paper, along with a handful of sculptures, filled the galleries almost to the point of surfeit. Individually, Gorky’s pieces can be difficult to assimilate; in concert, they overwhelm. The intensity of the works largely stems from the sense that they embody a great deal of learning, planning and exertion. Close scrutiny of paintings by admired predecessors and contemporaries led Gorky to emulate and occasionally to surpass their achievements. There is an autodidactic sincerity and
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porosity in this approach, a dose of humility blended with some virtuoso swagger. As a refugee from the Armenian genocide, he was scarcely closer to the masters of European painting than he was to the inter-War America where he made his home. He could treat the European tradition as a treasure trove rather than as a millstone. His adherence to the artistic past was more technical than cultural. A still life such as Pears, peaches, and pitcher (c.1928; cat. no.7), with its evident debt to Cézanne, shows the lateral coherence of Gorky’s compositions and the assured technique that developed with remarkable speed. Even now, it is difficult to tell whether the elided digits and incipient biomorph in the Picasso-inspired Woman with a palette (no.10; Fig.50) are canny formal distortions or guileless misreadings. A related study (no.9) suggests the former. Clarity and deliberation remained the basis for Gorky’s paintings for the rest of his life. Preparatory drawings hanging alongside finished works reveal the pains that Gorky took to build compositions from motifs that needed more structure than their automatist and gestural traits offered alone. Careful emulation of works by others gave way to keen-eyed assembly of parts within an evolving whole. A number of paintings from 1930 and 1931 – the high point of Gorky’s fascination with Cubism – involve a sweeping lateral arrangement of figures that he embraced during the 1920s and never abandoned. This spatial arrangement reflects great sensitivity to details of structure in the paintings he admired. His practice rested on components, increments and deliberation. The results possess the cryptic legibility that Surrealism valued, but that legibility stems from Gorky’s attention to the
50. Woman with a palette, by Arshile Gorky. 1927. Canvas, 135.9 by 95.3 cm. (Philadelphia Museum of Art; exh. Tate Modern, London).
51. The betrothal, by Arshile Gorky. 1947. Canvas, 128.6 by 99.7 cm. (Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven; exh. Tate Modern, London).
entire span of the support – a quality that would bolster his posthumous reputation in New York, even as it suggested gestural spontaneity that his scrupulous planning contradicts. Reconciling these viewpoints requires greater understanding of the process through which Gorky converted an accomplished past into his unfolding present. The relationship between past and present was especially poignant in two important groups of works from the 1930s. A 1912 photograph of the young Gorky, then Vosdanig Adoian, and his mother, Shushanig der Marderosian, who died of starvation in 1919, was one of the few tangible connections between Gorky and his childhood. Gorky made two paintings and several drawings from this photograph between 1926 and 1942 (nos.26–33). The paintings balance tight execution and loose passages of undefined brushwork, resulting in complete yet unfinished depictions appropriate to an image that was also a dearly held memory. Gorky’s mother also plays a role in two paintings titled Nighttime, enigma, and nostalgia (c.1933–34; nos.54–55), which, along with more than eighty related drawings (nos.42–53), drew their inspiration from The fatal temple (1914) by Giorgio de Chirico. De Chirico’s painting contains a portrait of his mother and a selfportrait in outline accompanied by a depiction of a dissected brain. The mother–son theme and poetic, compartmentalised structure of de Chirico’s painting provided Gorky with a starting point well suited to his personal history and sense of pictorial organisation. The resulting paintings, with biomorphic forms that owe a debt to, among others, André Masson, are far removed from their inspiration. This marks the point where Gorky’s proficiency was sufficient for his emulation of discrete styles to blend and initiate a true idiom – the moment, in short, when the burlington m a g a z i n e
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consider his work, and his responses to his predecessors and contemporaries, within a broader spectrum and longer run of artistic development. This exhibition is not the last word. It might, however, mark the end of one chapter and the beginning of another.
52. Organisation, by Arshile Gorky. c.1933–36. Canvas, 127 by 152 cm. (National Gallery of Art, Washington; exh. Tate Modern, London).
he reached artistic maturity. In this respect, his involvement in the Public Works of Art Project and the Federal Art Project are particularly noteworthy. Although most of his murals are lost, including eight of the ten from the cycle Aviation: evolution of forms under aerodynamic limitations (1935–37) for a building at Newark Airport in New Jersey, the extant murals and unrealised designs (nos.76–85) suggest that Gorky could find many different points of equipoise between the abstract structure of his rapidly developing style and the clarity required in social art. This period typically prompts discussions of political and artistic ferment, such as Jody Patterson’s catalogue essay on Gorky’s politics and murals of the 1930s.3 Harry Cooper’s close study of Organisation (no.66; Fig.52), however, shows the potential benefits of analysing the creative decisions encoded in the works. The emphasis of the exhibition falls primarily on the connections between Gorky and Surrealism. This is the topic of a detailed and persuasive catalogue essay by the show’s organiser, Michael Taylor, and the dominant theme in the installation in Philadelphia. The largest room contained some splendid drawings that Gorky made at his in-laws’ house in Virginia soon after his marriage to Agnes Magruder (nos.107–12), along with imposing canvases such as The liver is the cock’s comb (1944; no.114) and One year the milkweed (1944; no.120). The directness of the natural world – its simple beauty as well as its simple violence – preoccupied Gorky during the early 1940s. It bound together his Armenian childhood and his new-found rural domesticity. Nature animated his paintings and gave them a material logic, so that the streaks and washes of colour echo the dynamics of the natural world and introduce a sense of time. These paintings were hung on a grey field that meandered along the gallery walls, a device inspired by Frederick Kiesler’s design for the Surrealist exhibition Bloodflames at the Hugo Gallery, New York, in 1947. Bloodflames,
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however, was a group show in a small commercial space, and the objects were placed in unorthodox positions and orientations. A museum retrospective today struggles to convey the enveloping strangeness of midcentury Surrealist exhibitions. It was a worthy effort that did not work. A more serious lapse of judgment occurred at the end of the show. The final room contained six of Gorky’s last works, including the painting that was on his easel when he died (no.186). These poignant displays of intense colour, visceral handling and ultimate lack of definition add up to a kind of formal despair. The effect was shattered by the too-visible table covered in discarded audio guides which stood just outside. This lapse of decorum reinforced a sense that the exhibition cantered through Gorky’s last years with undue haste. A room devoted to The plough and the song (1944–47; nos.144–49) successfully conveyed the lyricism and nostalgia of that series, which elides sketches of the Virginia landscape with memories of Armenian agriculture. Three wooden models that Gorky made of Armenian ploughs (1944–47; nos.141–43) added to the sense of what he had lost. But the Charred beloved paintings (1946; nos.166–68), made after a fire destroyed his studio in Connecticut, the drawings he made in Virginia while recovering from surgery for rectal cancer and the series The betrothal (nos.170–74; Fig.51), all suffered from overcrowded display. Despite these flaws, the exhibition succeeds admirably in presenting the emotional range and formal complexity of Gorky’s abbreviated career. If questions remain about his position and influence, perhaps those questions no longer suffice. There is no doubt that Gorky was involved in Surrealism, just as there is no doubt that his practices are seminal examples of the methods that constituted advanced American painting during and after the Second World War. The narrow historiography of modern art may no longer be adequate to Gorky’s achievements. It is time, perhaps, to
1 M. Spender, ed.: Goats on the Roof. A Life in Letters and Documents. 512 pp. incl. 32 b. & w. ills. (Ridinghouse, London, 2009), £24. ISBN 978–1–905464–25–8. This invaluable compilation includes transcriptions in Armenian of letters that Gorky wrote to his sister, Vartoosh, along with a prefatory discussion by their transcriber, Father Krikor Maksoudian. These letters firmly indicate that the letters published by Karlen Mooradian are inconsistent with the style of those known to be in Gorky’s hand. 2 After its run at Tate Modern, the show will travel to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (6th June to 20th September). 3 Catalogue: Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective. Edited by Michael R. Taylor, with essays by Harry Cooper, Jody Patterson, Robert Storr, Michael R. Taylor and Kim Servart Theriault, and a chronology by Melissa Kerr. 400 pp. incl. 277 col. + 66 b. & w. ills. (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2009), £45 (HB). ISBN 978–0–30015–441–2.
Points of View London by COLIN FORD
1970s, exhibitions of historic photographs in any British national museum or gallery were almost unheard of. These institutions had been slow to acknowledge the history and importance of photography, invented 170 years ago. The National Portrait Gallery established its Department of Film and Photography in 1972, the year in which the Arts Council appointed its first Photography Officer and a year after Sue Davies founded the independent Photog raphers’ Gallery in London. Today, nearly four decades later, London Underground station platforms sport gigantic blow-ups of an 1880s photograph (Peter Henry Emerson’s Coming home from the marshes). Walk down the Euston Road frontage of the British Library, and Emerson is joined by equally huge versions of photographs by Alvin Langdon Coburn, William Henry Fox Talbot and Napoleon Sarony. These posters advertise Points of View, an exhibition of more than 250 nineteenthcentury photographs from the holdings of the British Library and Museum. On learning that the Library owns more than three hundred thousand photographs, one’s first reaction is to speculate how it acquired so many examples. The answer is that many date from the time before it was technically possible to print photographs rather than engravings or etchings, so books were often illustrated by actual photographs glued to their pages, or ‘tipped in’. These provide a significant proportion of the exhibits in
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Points of View: Capturing the 19th Century in Photographs (to 7th March). As for the British Museum, source of many of the photographs now in the British Library, it does not seem to have collected photographs with any particular sense of purpose. But in the 1850s it employed its first official photographer, surely the first such in the world. He was no less a master than Roger Fenton, pioneering photographer of the Crimean War and of royalty, and hugely influential in the foundation of the Photographic (later the Royal Photographic) Society. In his introduction to the excellent exhibition catalogue,1 the curator, John Falconer, stresses that ‘this selection, while presented in a broadly chronological arrangement which traces some of the major historical and technical landmarks in the nineteenth century, makes no claim to providing a history of photography during the period’. In some ways, Falconer is too modest. I doubt if I have ever seen an exhibition which lays out more clearly and comprehensively the history of early photography, and the development of its differing technologies. If you want to know exactly what an albumen print, an ambrotype and a calotype (to name just three of the many different types of early photographs) actually look like, all can be seen here. Only the daguerreotype, in terms of its importance in photographic history, is under-represented, largely because this one-off ‘mirror with a memory’ (as Oliver Wendell Holmes dubbed it) is unsuitable for use in books. There are, however, two fine examples by Antoine Claudet: a striking hand-coloured stereoscope of Mrs Clara Nicholson (c.1855), exhibited in its original viewing case, and – ironically – a portrait of Fox Talbot, inventor of the negative and positive calotype process. There is also Charles Chevalier’s View of the Seine at Paris (May 1843), shown alongside Fox Talbot’s View of the boulevards at Paris, a calotype of almost the same date. Here is an
53. Printing Kodak negatives by sunlight, building 2, Harrow. Unknown photographer. 1891. Toned silver gelatine print, 18.9 by 24 cm. (British Library, London).
54. Portrait of Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, by Alice Mary Kerr. c.1865. Albumen print, 19.7 by 14.3 cm. (British Library, London).
excellent demonstration of the difference between the two media. In the daguerreotype, a magnifying glass would enable you to read the sharply defined posters, but the direct positive process means they are back to front; the calotype – actually rather sharper than many – is the right way round, is more easily viewable, feels more like a picture than a documentary record and, crucially, can be reprinted from the negative over and over again. The finest exponents of the process were the Scots D.O. Hill and Robert Adamson, whose book One Hundred Calotype Sketches provides some fine exhibits. There are, of course, a few other omissions. For this reviewer, the absence of Julia Margaret Cameron, ‘one of the finest portraitists of the nineteenth century – in any
medium’ (Hilton Kramer) was notable. Cameron’s absence is certainly compensated for by Lady Alice Mary Kerr’s extraordinary portrait of Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, taken about 1865 (Fig.54). With her dramatically lit closeup of that intriguing Victorian’s handsome compelling face, this aristocratic amateur (daughter of the 7th Marquess of Lothian) almost out-Camerons Julia. Here was an artist I had never heard of, and this masterpiece from the first thirty years of photography is a genuine revelation. There are further revelations in all the exhibition’s eight subdivisions (the birth of photography, travel, documenting art, portraiture, scientific photography, Victorian inventions, social documentary and fin de siècle); and an important theme to emerge throughout is the gradual transformation of photography from an expensive hobby for people with time and money on their hands to a widespread and popular practice. The final section on the fin de siècle, which occasionally steps forwards into the twentieth century, demonstrates how this democratisation, and industrialisation, grew after George Eastman’s 1888 introduction of his first Kodak camera, marketed with the slogan: ‘You press the button, we do the rest’. Here, last year’s acquisition by the British Library of Kodak Ltd.’s archive of papers and business-related photographs (the important Kodak Museum collection is in the National Media Museum, Bradford) comes into its own (Fig.53). The Kodak Ltd. acquisition shows that the British Library, with John Falconer as its first-ever curator of photographs, continues to build on its nineteenth-century holdings. In 2006 it acquired a treasure trove of photographs, correspondence and manuscripts relating to William Henry Fox Talbot (until then, the only really large Talbot collection was in the National Media Museum). Incidentally, this last-named Museum makes an important contribution to Points of View, lending historic cameras and equipment to give the exhibition a third dimension, and to help visitors understand the technologies with which early photographs were made. Perhaps this sounds rather didactic and more suited to a book than an exhibition. There are many words on the wall, opportunities to handle reproductions of photographs and equipment, and other learning devices. The pictures themselves sometimes seem to be shown as educational illustrations rather than as works of art (the never-ending argument about whether photographs can be works of art is a constant presence). But the lessons are skilfully taught and the accompanying catalogue will remain as an enduring manual for those looking for an introduction to the history of nineteenthcentury photography. 1 Catalogue: Points of View: Capturing the 19th Century in Photographs. By John Falconer and Louise Hide. 176 pp. incl. 100 col. + b. & w. ills. (British Library, London, 2009), £25.95 (HB). ISBN 978–0–71235–0815; £15.95 (PB). ISBN 978–0–71235–0822.
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Reynolds Plymouth by KATE RETFORD
the exhibition Sir Joshua Reynolds: The Acquisition of Genius at Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery (closed 20th February) was well chosen. As Sam Smiles points out in his introduction to the substantial catalogue,1 Reynolds’s idea of genius was very far from any notions of inherent talent or divine spark. For him, it was something to be nurtured, to be developed through a process of diligent industry and training. This exhibition traced the fruits of his own assiduous labour, which took him from a perhaps unlikely start as the son of a Devon schoolmaster to the glories of being ‘Sir Joshua’, President of the Royal Academy of Arts and foremost society portraitist in late eighteenth-century London. At the entrance to the show was Reynolds’s self-portrait of c.1747–49 (cat. no.32: Fig.55). In this Rembrandtesque image, we see the artist in his mid-twenties, shading his eyes as he gazes out of the canvas, not quite meeting the viewer’s gaze but looking somewhere over one’s right shoulder. The muted hues that dominate the painting are offset by the blue silk waistcoat; the softness of the general painterly effect is accentuated by the contrastingly hard, diagonal line of the painter’s maulstick. This is the only known self-portrait to show Reynolds with the tools of his trade. The exhibition took us from this striking image to the 1773 Self-portrait in doctoral robes (no.33), in which brushes and palette are typically omitted in favour of an emphasis on one of the many honours and titles that were to be heaped upon the artist. The exhibition explored Reynolds’s early years and his training under Thomas Hudson, leading portraitist of the day. The precocious young man was insistent that, if he could not be apprenticed to a painter of note, he would sooner not bother; ‘he would rather be an apothecary than an ordinary painter; but if he could be bound to an eminent master, he should choose the latter’.2 The show then moved onto Reynolds’s West Country patrons and the importance of local wealthy landowning families such as the Edgcumbes in his early years and through the rest of his career. This section of the exhibition was nicely handled, with the various groups of family portraits clustered together in enclosed, intimate spaces to good effect. The paintings from Saltram, west of Plymouth, provided some of the highlights of the show, including the double-portrait of John and Therese Parker (1779; no.20; Fig.56). Reynolds himself may have been most gratified with the head of the boy, but it is the pert face, large eyes and tightly clasped hands of his sister which most fully exemplify the style of child portraiture for which the artist was renowned, both in his own lifetime and the subsequent century. What became particularly apparent THE SUBTITLE TO
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in this section was how Reynolds was so much more than a portraitist to such families. He was a supreme social networker (and climber), not only producing a number of portraits for the Parkers, but also becoming a close family friend. He seems to have acquired paintings for them in Rome; he toured artists’ studios with them in London; he advised on the display of their art collection at Saltram; and he even, on one occasion, lent Sir Thomas Parker money. The prompt for this exhibition was the Plymouth Museum’s acquisition in 2007 of a number of portraits by Reynolds of members of the Eliot family. Of particular interest is the conversation piece The Eliot family, dated to c.1746 but likely to be somewhat earlier (no.7). This was a singular foray into a sub-genre of portraiture highly popular at the time, and one conducted here with a notable lack of success. Drawing heavily on Anthony van Dyck’s The Pembroke family of c.1635 at Wilton, it fails to translate the style and composition into the small group-portrait idiom. The poorly rendered faces and drapery, the mistakes in scale and the mishandled setting indicate, perhaps, why Reynolds went on to become so successful with the broad facture and drama of the grand manner. When he returned to the model of Van Dyck’s seminal family-group many years later in The Marlborough family of 1777–78, he was not only a much more accomplished artist, but he also revisited the prototype on a grander scale which echoed the original. From the West Country, the exhibition took the visitor through Reynolds’s Grand Tour to Italy between 1749 and 1752, where, according to one manuscript on display, he spent a memorable day in the Sistine Chapel, ‘walking up and down with great self importance’. The story continued with Reynolds’s established career in London and the era that featured in the Tate’s exhibition Joshua Reynolds: The Creation of Celebrity in 2005.3 In these sections the coherence of the Plymouth show faltered a little, although the theme of Reynolds’s
‘hard-headed understanding of the business side of portraiture’ continued with his portrait of (no.31) and two mezzotints by James McArdell (nos.29 and 30). Reynolds not only dominated the Royal Academy exhibitions with his portraits of celebrities, he was also highly alert to the potential of the rapidly expanding print market. McArdell was the first engraver to work for Reynolds, and the artist’s astute, reputed assessment of his mezzotints indicates the importance of such prints for both his national and international reputation: ‘by this man I shall be immortalized’.4 An abrupt break occurred between the latter section, dealing with Reynolds’s inexorable rise, and the next focused on his activities as a collector of prints and drawings. This gallery included an impressive selection from the three thousand or so sheets which were sold at auction following the artist’s death, and amply demonstrated the sheer range of his collection in schools and styles. Guido Reni’s Head of St Crispin (c.1620–21; no.61) retains an original ‘Reynolds’ mount with its simple frame, and the mechanisms of collecting were here very much under scrutiny. The catalogue notes the way in which these works passed between portraitists and frequently from master to student. The provenance of Van Dyck’s A sheet of studies for a male figure (no.64) begins with the collection of Jonathan Richardson, moves onto that of his protégé, Thomas Hudson, and thence to Reynolds himself. Although, to some extent, this move into collecting created a sense of there being two shows, the theme of ‘the acquisition of genius’ persisted. James Northcote’s description of Reynolds, at home in the evenings, ‘looking over, and studying from, the prints of the Old Masters’ enhances the sense of constant study, the persistent search for inspiration and, of course, the hunt for sources for the artist’s infamous ‘borrowings’ – the direct transposition of selected poses and compositions into his own work.5 As Reynolds opined: ‘Invention, strictly speaking, is little more than a new combination of those images which have been
55. Self-portrait shading the eyes, by Joshua Reynolds. c.1747–49. Canvas, 63 by 40 cm. (National Portrait Gallery, London; exh. Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery).
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Madeleine Vionnet Paris by LYNNE COOKE
56. John and Therese Parker, by Joshua Reynolds. c.1779. Canvas, 142.2 by 111.8 cm. (National Trust, Morley Collection, Saltram; exh. Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery).
previously gathered and deposited in the memory’.6 The final section dealt with ‘Legacy’, ranging from a bust of Reynolds, commissioned for Plymouth public library in the 1860s, through a mid-nineteenth-century earthenware tile adorned with Reynolds’s Strawberry girl (no.86), to George Richmond’s 1840 Selfportrait (no.89), revealing a clear debt to the image with which the exhibition opened. This was perhaps the logical ending to a show commemorating a ‘local boy made good’, but it was an unfortunately fragmented and patchy one. What the exhibition sometimes lacked in coherence, however, was more than made up for in scale and ambition. It contributed considerably to both our understanding of Reynolds’s West Country roots and his activities as a collector of graphic works. And the decision to conclude the show with an evocation of Reynolds’s long shadow was, in part, justified as an extension of the story that led from the aspirational young artist of the first exhibit to the crimson-robed President of the Royal Academy. As the artist himself confessed in an engagingly candid moment: ‘Distinction is what we all seek after [. . .] and I go with the great stream of life’.7 1
Catalogue: Sir Joshua Reynolds: The Acquisition of Genius. Edited by Sam Smiles. 208 pp. incl. 122 col. + b. & w. ills. (Sansom & Company Ltd., with University of Plymouth and Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery, 2009), £24.99 (PB). ISBN 978–1–9065–934–07. 2 Ibid., p.17. 3 M. Postle, ed.: exh. cat. Joshua Reynolds: The Creation of Celebrity, London (Tate Britain) 2005; reviewed by David Mannings in this Magazine, 147 (2005), pp.428–29. 4 See Smiles, op. cit. (note 1), p.94. 5 Ibid., p.106. 6 J. Reynolds: Discourses on Art, ed. R.R. Wark, New Haven and London 1997, p.27. 7 Smiles, op. cit. (note 1), p.97.
SEVERAL DECADES AFTER her retirement in 1939, Madeleine Vionnet drew a distinction between a ‘true couturier’ and ‘those working today’: a couturier was involved with ‘dressing a body with fabric’, she claimed, whereas the latter, whom she dismissed as ‘painters’ and ‘decorators’, were dedicated to ‘constructing an outfit’. Pragmatism had long been a hallmark of her aesthetic: the belief that ‘a couturier dresses human beings not dreams’ was another of her foundational tenets. Vionnet’s distinction still holds, as may be seen in a comparison of the work of, say, Issey Miyake or Isabel Toledo, with the extravaganzas that typify current impresarios of the spectacular, Christian Lacroix and John Galliano. One of the few supremely intelligent couturiers, Vionnet honed her philosophy over a period of two decades between the two World Wars. Although in that era her vision reigned alongside that of Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli, ‘what I did wasn’t fashion’, she later claimed with considerable credibility, ‘it was designed to last a life time’, something made amply clear by the recent exhibition Madeleine Vionnet, puriste de la mode at Les Arts Décoratifs – Mode et textile, Paris (closed 31st January).1 Vionnet’s enduring influence stems above all from her technical innovations, which involved forms of cutting and draping that allowed the fabric to fall in line with the moving body and thereby freed the female figure from the constrictions of not only corsets and stays, but also linings and other infrastructural supports. Favouring crepes of different weights which were at once fluid and elastic, she devised the most elegant of dresses from astonishingly simple patterns based on geometric shapes folded, twisted, torqued and pleated so that the cloth wrapped securely around the upper body then fell to the floor in graceful folds. Much else in Vionnet’s practice was also pioneering, not least her social vision. The services she provided her staff of some twelve hundred seamstresses and specialist artisans who worked in what she termed her ‘factory’, went far beyond the legal requirements. On site medical and dental care (not just for the employees but for their parents and their children as well) were on offer together with maternity leave, a cafeteria serving healthy food, and extra-curricular options, ranging from classes in French to mathematics and other disciplines, for those who wanted to improve their education. And a purpose-built atelier offered model working conditions: plenty of natural light and clean air along with hygienic surroundings. Vionnet’s concern with the well-being of her staff extended into the realm of the creator as she became a pioneer in establishing rights for the couturier, leading efforts to
install legislation that would recognise the designers’ works as their intellectual and artistic property. Thus, in addition to prosecuting breaches of copyright, she devised an ingenious label on which both her signature and her fingerprint were inscribed in order to ensure her garments’ authenticity. Vionnet’s foresight in protecting her legacy was part of a vaulting ambition she once characterised in terms of the desire to make Rolls Royces rather than Fords. (Her arch-rival, Chanel, prided herself on her ability to create Fords, by which she meant designs that achieved an unchallenged ubiquity and popularity at all social levels; to the highly narcissistic Chanel, imitation and plagiarism were confirmation of her originality.) Vionnet’s conviction that a successful Maison depended equally on a well-run business, on creativity and on exquisitely refined technical expertise contributed to her legendary status. When faced in 1939 with the loss of her lease and the uncertainty of approaching war, she recognised that she had already done all she wanted as a designer and retired. In 1952 in a highly unusual but prescient gesture, she donated over one hundred of her original fashions plus her archive to the French State, a bequest that now forms part of the unrivalled holdings of her work in the collection of the Musée de la Mode et du Textile and was the source for this exceptional retrospective. Based on its detailed inventory, the labels for every exhibit in this show took the form of a small LED screen on which looped verbal documentation, together with a professional illustrator’s sketches of the design from front and back, and a registration photograph of the garment on a model who is posed in front of mirrors that reveal it from a trio of
57. Robe du soir, by Madeleine Vionnet. Winter 1935. Silk. (Musée de la Mode et du Textile, Paris).
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58. Drawing of a dress, by Thayaht. From La Gazette du Bon Ton 2 (1923). For the dress, see Fig.59.
vantage points: front, back and side. In addition, images from Vogue and Harpers Bazaar by Horst P. Horst, George Hoynihan Huene and other well-known fashion photographers were included on the screens when available. The result was an unusually full and enormously helpful level of documentation for every piece on display. In her desire to meld tradition and contemporaneity into an enduring sartorial statement, Vionnet identified closely with the aesthetic of Purism, as set forth in the 1918 manifesto of Le Corbusier and Ozenfant. Key to their shared vision of a modern classicism was the elimination of decoration and anecdote in the search for an authentic but resolutely simplified idiom. Unlike Chanel, Vionnet never sought inspiration in the vernacular, whether uniforms or men’s clothing. She defined the daywear of the modern woman by means of archetypal dresses (in contrast to her competitor’s cardigan suits), and for after hours preferred long lithe gowns as opposed to Chanel’s signature creation, the little black dress. Focusing primarily on dresses – above all, evening gowns – this show of ravishingly beautiful designs was presented with rare sensitivity and subtlety. The adroit yet disarmingly simple installation by Andrée Putnam transformed galleries which often feel cramped into gracious spaces that wonderfully complemented the exhibits. Through recourse to a range of backdrops, from walls painted black to fully mirrored surfaces, and luminous white screens, Putnam artfully deployed reflection to expand these rigid spaces while imparting a precise cool geometric order to the whole mise-en-scène. While deftly framing and silhouetting dark-hued garments against pale grounds, she set off dresses in delicate shades of
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cream, sand, ivory and biscuit tones against black backdrops. The exhibition opened with a free-standing vitrine that contained the 80 cm. high mannequin Vionnet used throughout her career as the starting-point for every design. Draping muslin directly onto this miniaturised form she envisaged each work initially in terms of the play of svelte fabric over a three-dimensional body. Using a mannequin considerably smaller than life-size distanced her from the living figure in ways that working directly on the model would have made difficult: eschewing sketching meant that her point of departure was always the way fabric flowed in three dimensions. The remaining works on view on this floor of the museum were grouped under headings designed to draw attention to their formal qualities; Bias and Structure; Geometric Forms; Fringes; Transparencies; Brilliance; and Roses as Decoration. Upstairs, the lens narrowed to evening gowns from the 1930s arranged chronologically. Here were found some of the most exquisite of her timeless designs, including one dress with a soft cowl neckline, the fluid fabric skimming the mannequin, revealing the beauty of a lithe body’s natural forms: ornamentation took the form of a scattering of silver stars at the mid-riff. Most memorable, however, were those dresses made by gathering and twisting the fabric, which had been pre-cut into basic geometric shapes, so that it encloses the upper body firmly then cascades to the floor (Fig.57). Less sumptuous, the summer dresses, by contrast, include some of Vionnet’s most radical and fresh creations (Figs.58 and
59), made from squares of fabric overlaid so that they increase exponentially in size: another, equally unforgettable, was structured by a series of incisions which limned roses in full bloom; while yet another was created from parallel rows of tucks that formed a rectangular pattern. Whether in clear bold colours, or flesh tones, or blacks and near blacks, Vionnet’s frocks have a directness, legibility, clarity and elegance that seems to epitomise the radical modernism of the first half of the last century. While indubitably the products of a luxury industry, the exceptional resources on which they depend are never over-emphasised, just as her radical paring to the most minimal of elements never becomes crude or reductivist. If the mid-1930s evening gowns encapsulate the elegant sophistication of a decade destined to end traumatically, the disarmingly modest day dresses speak to an enduring set of values that still echoes among today’s more grounded designers. 1 Catalogue: Madeleine Vionnet, puriste de la mode. Edited by Pamela Golbin, with contributions by Pamela Golbin, Benjamin Loyaute, Andre Beucler, Madeleine Chapsal and Jéromine Savignon. 304 pp. incl. 306 col. + b. & w. ills. (Rizzoli, New York, 2009), €70. ISBN 978–0–8476–3278–1 (English edition); (Editions les Arts Décoratifs, Paris, 2009), €55. ISBN 978–2–916914–13–8 (French edition).
Serge Charchoune Geneva by MERLIN JAMES
59. Photograph of a model wearing a dress by Madeleine Vionnet. Summer 1922. (Musée de la Mode et du Textile, Paris).
A CHIC PRIVATE GALLERY in the arches of Geneva’s Old Town is perhaps a surprising venue for a retrospective of paintings by Serge Charchoune (1888–1975). Almost eightyworks strong, and some four months long (to 15th April), the exhibition at Galerie Artvera’s is a museum-scale project. Too few museums, however, would have staged it, favouring, as they do, more famous and fashionable names. The Pushkin Museum and Russian State Museum held a survey show of the Russian-born artist in 2006, but that was again very much a private dealer/collector initiative. Indeed it is a rather similar exhibition that now visits Geneva, with many of the same works. The emphasis is on two or three phases in Charchoune’s career. There are many purist still lifes from the 1920s, when he was close to Ozenfant (one of whose works is included as a comparative piece). There are also many compositions of the 1940s, recalling the artist’s Académie de la Palette training in their Cubist refractions of compotes, carafes, pipes and violins. Finally there are some of the big compositions of the late 1940s and 1950s in which such Cubist tropes are taken to a level of frieze-like ornamentalism. The Purist period features magnificently sonorous, leathery and, in places, encrusted
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60. Composition élastique, by Serge Charchoune. 1929. Canvas, 17 by 58.5 cm. (Galerie Artvera’s, Geneva).
surfaces. Silhouettes of vessels in browns, blacks, bottle greens and mustard yellows build to powerful effect, or pinks and peppermint greens stain and soak into heavily palette-knifed white. In the 1940s it is a more liquid and limpid language of dappled brushstrokes that lends distinction to the generic modernist motifs. And towards the 1950s an almost goofy psychedelia can transform potentially bland tableaux. But none of these aspects of Charchoune’s art is among his most thrilling (although they may be the most popular with the growing market for a ‘rediscovered Russian Cubist’). A small sequence of paintings in the show, dating from 1928 to 1930, gives a glimpse of Charchoune’s more peculiar inventiveness. He periodically used swooping, spiralling lines, sometimes contrasted with more rigid forms, to create compositions that he called ‘élastiques’ or (in elongated formats) ‘feuilles de temperature’. Just three examples are here, but they are superb (Fig.60). They have a wonderful directness and intensity of facture, and a density and seriousness belying their simplicity and brio. Adjacent to these are again just three terrific late 1920s works in Charchoune’s architectural mode, mixing associations of plan, section and elevation, sometimes conflating outer and interior space (Fig.62). These are works that anticipate various painters associated with a recent painting ‘revival’, from Raoul De Keyser to René Daniëls and Thomas Scheibitz. Under-represented here, too, is Charchoune’s wonderfully varied output of 1915 to 1918 – amazing symmetrical filigrees; elaborate diagrammatic abstractions close to carpet or tile designs; rigorous geometric compositions; cryptic emblems delineated in energised, trembling outlines, often employing rotation or mirroring; and symbolic semi-landscapes incorporating hearts, arrows, buildings and suns. In Barcelona around that time he was consorting with Dadaists and a range of other progressive artists. By 1920–21 he was exploring quasidivisionist fields of directional brushmarks, generating ambiguous imagery (eyes, bows, trees, water). Little of all this could be guessed from the current show, although the
two small 1917 paintings included are wonderful. More radical examples from the time are illustrated in the catalogue,1 including a work published last year in this Magazine2 and now evidently in the collection of Pierre Guénégan, author of the on-going catalogue raisonné. Through the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s Charchoune teased out, and wove back together, further pictorial strands. He periodically made haunting, atmospheric landscapes around Paris and elsewhere. Sometimes their imagery was oddly fractured, or else moulded into balloon-like outlines. He also created what are virtually ‘action paintings’ using whipping brushmarks, finger marks, dripping and pouring. He conjured up ambiguous looming masses, suggesting globes and mounds, hearts and hearths. He experimented with more grids and fields of brightly coloured dashes, or pools of pure autumnal
texture; he made sketchy evocations of chairs and park benches from nervous calligraphic dots and dashes; he inserted abstract forms into figuration, and representational images into abstractions. He delved into shadowy, symbolist realms of rosy crosses, tombs and cruciform figures. Periodically he flipped over into realism as in his self-portraits, or a painting of Churchill from a newspaper photograph (whereabouts unknown), or images of a Spanish statue of the Madonna. Again, none of this would be inferred from the parade of sober and consistent abstract and semi-abstract compositions that make up the second half of the current show. But there are some beautiful surfaces here, where strong colour has been muted by successive veilings, or where it has been stoked up to radiance with accumulations of high-key accents. Charchoune is a unique colourist, often pairing the most unlikely hues, oranges
61. Symphonie fantastique, by Serge Charchoune. 1949. Canvas, 97 by 130 cm. (Galerie Artvera’s, Geneva). the burlington m a g a z i n e
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Giovanni Giacometti Bern and Chur by JÖRG ZUTTER THE
62. L’Arbre, by Serge Charchoune. 1928. Canvas, 65 by 50 cm. (Galerie Artvera’s, Geneva).
with pinks, deep yellows with pale blues. The painter William Copley once observed that a certain lack of sophistication in Charchoune’s character protected him from the trap of tastefulness. Classy modern-master frames, projector spotlighting and in some cases rich varnishing may all add bling; but the sheer oddness of certain images is irrepressible. In Griserie de l’archet (ex-catalogue), sleeting white strokes blur some kind of ‘figure’ that cannot be figured out. The strange plate-like or blade-like forms of Symphonie fantastique (Fig.61), with their queasy cold greens, ochres and violets, suggest some cosmic (or chthonic) conjunction. The exhibition effectively ends at the late 1950s, with just two later works, from 1960 and 1968. In this decade Charchoune created many radically monochrome paintings, their forms and rhythms registering primarily, or only, in the surface texture of the paint. The monochromes in this exhibition are mostly less extreme, the products of gradually overlaying coloured designs with white, building up small tiles of paint to a mosaic-like surface. There is nothing in the show from the 1970s when, among other things, Charchoune journeyed to the Galapagos Islands to paint the landscape and wildlife. Works on paper, meanwhile, from throughout his life, form an important corpus, not seen here and rarely ever shown in any quantity. One looks forward to future exhibitions, selected to reveal further aspects of this seemingly inexhaustible artist. 1
Catalogue: Serge Charchoune (1888–1975). Essays by Chantal Bartolini and Mikhail ’Iurevich German. 176 pp. incl. 137 col. + 14 b. & w. + sepia ills. (Galerie Artvera’s, Geneva, 2009), €50 (HB). No ISBN. 2 Here titled Composition ornamental (1916); see the review by the present writer of two volumes of the Charchoune catalogue raisonné, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 151 (2009), pp.40–41, Fig.40.
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after more than ten years devoted to the Swiss landscape painter Giovanni Giacometti (1868–1933), already seen at the Kunstmuseum, Bern (where this reviewer saw it), and opening on 27th March at the Bündner Kunstmuseum, Chur (to 24th May), brings together a stunning selection of almost one hundred paintings highlighting the important interaction of light and colour in his oeuvre. The show’s eight clearly structured sections focus on a different theme within the artist’s profound fascination with the Alpine world. Here, Giacometti discovered his range of multiple colours, lyrically atmospheric impressions and exciting panoramic vistas that were to preoccupy him for over forty years. His work is easily comprehended in this altogether well-balanced exhibition and its accompanying catalogue, which includes excerpts from the artist’s extensive correspondence.1 Among the few Swiss painters whose work was internationally exhibited and known during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Giovanni Giacometti belongs in the company of Ferdinand Hodler, Félix Vallotton and Cuno Amiet. Born in Stampa, the Italian-speaking Val Bregaglia of Switzerland’s easternmost and entirely mountainous canton of Grisons, Giacometti, like many of his artist-compatriots, was eager to learn more about international avant-garde movements and to escape the narrow boundaries of home and the linguistic and geographical barriers that left relatively few opportunities for higher liberal art education (in Switzerland, there were no art academies as such, merely schools of arts and crafts). At the age of eighteen he left his native country to study abroad. As for many Swiss artists of that time, Giacometti felt the attraction of a number of artistic centres in neighbouring European cities: Paris, Milan and Munich – where he chose to study.
The exhibition’s early examples date from 1890 onwards and document Giacometti’s endeavour to translate and reinterpret his Alpine surroundings and their particular play of light and colour in an attempt to find his own contemporary artistic language. Disappointed with the over idealistic art education in Munich, in late 1888 Giacometti moved to Paris where he shared his studio with his friend Cuno Amiet (several paintings by whom are also present in the show). He remained in Paris for two-and-a-half years and was especially impressed by the avant-garde movements of Symbolism, the Nabis and Post-Impressionism. In spring 1891 financial problems caused him to return to Stampa, from where he set forth in 1893 on a study trip to Italy that included extended periods in Rome and Naples. His curiosity was awakened to the possibilities of the southern light and the country’s late nineteenth-century realist painting tradition. The artist’s evolution shows, on the one hand, his delicate balancing act between Symbolism and Divisionism and, on the other, his preoccupation with Realism and NeoImpressionism. The early works in the show make clear Giacometti’s position around 1900 in the context of this multicultural breeding ground (Fig.63). His constant endeavour is to find the right pictorial shape and artistic form for his Alpine landscapes. Initially he vacillates between large horizontal panoramic views and the tall vertical cut-outs and close-ups of specific mountain views – as if perceived by a chamois hunter or an Alpinist through binoculars – and often from a spectacularly low focal point, such as the foot of a valley. As a result, the hills or mountains strongly project over and dominate the entire canvas. Giacometti’s admiration for the work of Giovanni Segantini – a recent resident of Maloja whom he met in 1894 and with whom he became friends – becomes evident. This is also made clear by the fact that Giacometti, using his Divisionist technique, completed Le due madre of 1899/1900 (cat. no.13), his friend’s last unfinished panoramic painting. Although for Giacometti the spectrum of formal, stylistic and colourist variations is
63. Self-portrait in front of a winter landscape, by Giovanni Giacometti. 1899. Canvas, 40 by 60 cm. (Musée d’art et d’histoire, Geneva; exh. Bündner Kunstmuseum, Chur).
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here, emphasise his leading role in the evolution of Swiss Alpine painting, underlining this key position with respect to other artists treating the same subject, such as Caspar Wolf, Alexandre Calame, Hodler and Kirchner. 1 Catalogue: Giovanni Giacometti – Farbe im Licht. By Therese Bhattacharya Stettler, Beat Stutzer and Matthias Frehner et al. 216 pp. incl. 131 col. + 19 b. & w. ills. (Kunstmuseum Bern, Bündner Kunstmuseum, Chur, with Scheidegger und Spiess, Zürich, 2009), CHF 79; CHF 49 (exhibition price). ISBN 978–3–85881–288–9.
Neapolitan Baroque Naples by XAVIER F. SALOMON 64. Primavera (Piz Duan), by Giovanni Giacometti. 1905. Canvas, 71 by 65.5 cm. (Bündner Kunstmuseum, Chur).
unlimited, these are never casual. They are always meticulously deduced from his own observation point in the middle of the mountainous terrain, distinctly related to the seasonal light and weather conditions and, furthermore, the clear result of his preoccupation with the international avant-garde (for example with Van Gogh whom he admired and copied; no.33). Until 1910 the artist prioritised simultaneously a Pointillist, Divisionist or decorative surface, as shown by the outstanding Primavera (Piz Duan) of 1905 (no.13; Fig.64), an ingenious example of his post-Nabis style, or his sublime snowscape Winter in Maloja (Nebbia) from 1910 (no.38). This work belongs to a group of highly original winter landscapes in which Giacometti reveals the countless colours found in snow, ice and bare nature. They are in striking contrast to the varied spring, summer and autumn views also depicted in extraordinary colour combinations. While the artist’s figure paintings are more staged or orchestrated than his landscapes, these clearly depict another and by no means insignificant aspect of his creative world. Moreover, they shed new light on the fascinating inspirational universe of the artist, his talented family, his friends and collectors. He frequently portrays his wife, Annetta, and their four ever-present children, among them, the curly haired Alberto who was later to completely eclipse his father’s reputation. The well-structured exhibition, slightly compromised by an over-generous selection, undoubtedly confirms Giacometti’s unique position as a pioneering portraitist of the Alps in European landscape painting from 1900 until 1930. There are a number of high-quality and rarely viewed paintings from Swiss private and public collections, but absent are some of the very few works held in museum collections abroad (for example the View of Capolago of 1907 in the Musée d’Orsay). Within a national context Giacometti’s landscapes, as selected
LIKE THE BATTLE paintings of Aniello Falcone and Andrea De Lione, Neapolitan art history often feels like a confused and confusing – yet beautiful – mess. In the early 1980s, three ground-breaking exhibitions first explored in great detail Neapolitan seventeenth- and eighteenth-century art. The catalogues of these exhibitions – Civiltà del Settecento a Napoli (1979–80), Painting in Naples from Caravaggio to Giordano (1982) and Civiltà del Seicento a Napoli (1984) – remain today the starting point for every scholar who intends to tackle the topic.1 All three exhibitions were in large part conceived by Raffaello Causa, then the Soprintendente in Naples. Thirty years after the first exhibition, and twenty-five years after Causa’s death, his formidable successor, Nicola Spinosa, has staged a grand finale to his own term as Soprintendente with the exhibition Ritorno al Barocco. Da Caravaggio a Vanvitelli (to 11th April). Orchestrated across six venues in Naples, the exhibition explores the progress of Neapolitan art-historical studies over the past thirty years. During his twenty-five years as Soprintendente, Spinosa has single-handedly been responsible for the extraordinary transformation of Capodimonte into what must be today the most beautifully and coherently arranged museum in Italy. This period has also seen the publication of innumerable studies and monographic exhibitions on Neapolitan art. In the catalogue, Keith Christiansen, Alvar GonzálezPalacios and Pierre Rosenberg pay homage, with their essays, to Spinosa’s activities and to the Soprintendenza’s work between 1984 and 2009.2 The scope of the exhibition is vast: more than six hundred objects are displayed, most of which are unpublished or little known. Of the 260 paintings catalogued, 215 – the great majority – are from private collections. The array of paintings, furniture, silver, ceramics, polychrome sculptures, musical instruments, drawings and porcelain is astounding. The selection, especially in terms of paintings, is often not as rigorous as one would wish, and a number of works are frankly of rather low quality and not particularly attractive.
Compared to the outstanding objects displayed in the exhibitions of the 1980s, the current selection is inferior, but provides a unique opportunity for art historians to study at first hand a large quantity of virtually unseen works, often only known through poor photographic reproductions. The general public, on the other hand, will find the exhibition more difficult to come to terms with, as any form of interpretation is minimal, and a pre-existing knowledge of the thorny art-historical issues presented is required. The image of Naples as a city, with its idyllic geographical position in contrast to its bleak social circumstances, is the focus of the section of the exhibition at the Certosa di S. Martino. Portraits of the city, from Didier Barra’s bird’s-eye views to Gaspar Van Wittel’s stylish depictions, are housed in the apartments of the monks of S. Martino. The Certosa itself is a quintessential compendium of Neapolitan art and one of the most strikingly beautiful religious complexes in the world. A few rooms include a small group of sculptures, mainly polychrome religious statues and terracotta bozzetti. The architectural fabric of the city itself is the subject explored at the Palazzo Reale. The eightyfive architectural drawings, prints and maps are, unfortunately, displayed in a confusing manner. They range from projects for religious institutions (altars, chapels, domes and church façades), to fountains, guglie and secular buildings, including royal projects like the palace at Portici or the Teatro S. Carlo. A drawing for an unidentified chapel designed by Cosimo Fanzago (Fig.65) perfectly demonstrates the importance of ensembles such as chapels, where paintings were intended to be seen within the context provided by architectural elements, sculptures and rich decorations in coloured marbles. Between
65. Design for a chapel, by Cosimo Fanzago. Midseventeenth century. Ink, pastel and watercolour on paper, 42.2 by 30.5 cm. (Museo di S. Martino, Naples; exh. Palazzo Reale, Naples). the burlington m a g a z i n e
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Domenico Fontana and Ferdinando Sanfelice, Neapolitan architecture was always characterised by its delight in fantastic forms and opulent textures. In the Palazzo Reale, under the ceilings frescoed by Belisario Corenzio and Battistello Caracciolo, a series of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Neapolitan paintings are also on view. In the Cappella Palatina an appropriately large and sensational presepio is displayed next to paintings representing Nativity scenes, to celebrate the well-known Christmas traditions of the city. The most important and substantial section of the exhibition is the one at the Museo di Capodimonte. Taking as a starting point Caravaggio’s Flagellation of Christ, the exhibition takes over most of the second floor of the palace, weaving its way chronologically to the mid-eighteenth century. It is particularly indicative that all of the more than two hundred paintings on view are given precise attributions, and none of them is labelled, as should often be the case, under categories such as ‘workshop of’, ‘follower of’ or ‘imitator of’. Certain groups of paintings are more problematic than others. The early career of Jusepe de Ribera, for example, recently re-assessed by Gianni Papi and Spinosa, still needs further investigation. The quality of nine of the paintings given to Ribera in the exhibition (nos.1.18–1.26) is particularly inconsistent. A thorough study of Ribera’s workshop and of his many followers is still desperately needed, especially to understand better the next generation of Neapolitan artists, most of whom seem to have grown up in the shadow of the Spanish artist. Another particularly difficult topic, still far from being resolved, centres on the so-called Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds, identified inconclusively with Bartolomeo Passante (or Bassante) or Juan Do. It seems to this reviewer that under the Master’s name are grouped two, if not three, different artists. The paintings of this still-anonymous Master, whose name derives from the extraordinary Annunciation to the shepherds now in Birmingham, are easily recognisable for their invariably high quality, the viscous paint, muted colours and effective chiaroscuro. In this group we must place the Capodimonte Annunciation to the shepherds (inv.3199) and Return of the prodigal son (inv.S84590), the painting of the same subject in Bristol, and the splendid Study of a painter (Fig.66). Another Return of the prodigal son at Capodimonte (inv.Q.286), the Return of the prodigal son at Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, and the Head of a philosopher with a skull (private collection; no.1.29) are very close to the Master and usually given to him. However, they are distinctively painted in a very different way from the Master’s works. The compositions are more awkward and less ambitious; the anatomy of the figures is not as accomplished, with impossibly dark areas in which parts of the bodies disappear. The painterly technique is much more fluid, and the hair and beards of this artist’s figures are rendered with meticulous attention and single feathery brushstrokes, very different from the
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66. Study of a painter, by the Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds. c.1635–40. Canvas, 143.5 by 194.5 cm. (Masaveu Collection, Oviedo; exh. Museo di Capodimonte, Naples).
thicker hair in the paintings of the Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds. It is debatable if the Birth of Mary (S. Maria della Pace, Castellamare di Stabia; no.1.35), with its references to the work of Bernardo Cavallino and Antonio De Bellis, is also by the Master and, if so, how this and the other works fit with another idiosyncratic group of paintings close to (or possibly by) the Master of the Annun ciation to the Shepherds: the Encounter of Jacob and Rachel (private collection, Florence; no.1.27) and the Adoration of the magi (Franco Febbraio Collection, Naples; no.1.32). In these paintings the coarse types of the Master are combined with more delicate, usually female, figures, typically arranged in tight settings where the difference in scale between figures in the foreground and in the background is never fully resolved (unlike in the Master’s own works). Other paintings in the exhibition (nos.1.28, 1.30, 1.31, 1.34 and 1.36) are not by these two (or three) artists. Who the Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds is remains to be established, and we still need to ascertain how long was his career and how substantial his workshop. This issue is also inextricably linked to the still incredibly vague figures of Francesco and Cesare Fracanzano. The paintings attributed to them in the exhibition
(nos.1.45, 1.46, 1.48 and 1.49) are very different from one another and from the known and documented works by the artists. This is a problem that still needs elucidating, especially when it comes to studying the formation of Neapolitan artists like Salvator Rosa. Many of the juxtapositions in the exhibition are particularly informative. For the first time, the Triumph of Galatea (Fig.67) and the painting of the same subject, which recently appeared on the market (private collection; no.1.95), both attributed to Bernardo Cavallino, were displayed next to each other. The comparison proved that while the Washington painting is undoubtedly a masterpiece by Cavallino, the second canvas is not by the same artist. Notwithstanding the problematic condition of the private collection picture, the rendition of details like the surface of the water, the skin of the dolphins, the ivy leaves, the coral, the flesh and muscles of the tritons and the clouds in the sky are altogether different from the Washington canvas. It is tempting to suggest that this new version of the Triumph of Galatea may be by Artemisia Gentileschi. Some of the new attributions of works in the exhibition are entirely convincing: it makes sense to move the Still life with a 67. Triumph of Galatea, by Bernardo Cavallino. c.1650. Canvas, 152 by 205 cm. (National Gallery of Art, Washington; exh. Museo di Capodimonte, Naples).
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68. Head of a warrior and study of a helmet, by Aniello Falcone. c.1640. Red and white chalk on paper, 40.8 by 25.5 cm. (Museo di Capodimonte, Naples).
goat’s head (Museo di Capodimonte, Naples; no.1.222) from the œuvre of Giovan Battista or Giuseppe Recco to Ribera’s. Similarly, it is persuasive that the still life in Aniello Falcone’s Concert (Museo del Prado, Madrid; no.1.77) was painted by Luca Forte, as argued by Andrés Úbeda de los Cobos in the catalogue. The most attractive section of the entire exhibition is the one dedicated to drawings – seventy from Neapolitan public collections, and another group of more than seventy from Italian and international public and private collections (displayed in two separate spaces at Capodimonte).3 This is a feast for the eyes, with top-quality drawings by most Neapolitan painters. Most of them are as lyrical and beautiful as the Head of a warrior (Fig.68) by Aniello Falcone, a study for the figure of Barach in S. Paolo Maggiore. While a selection of still lifes is included at Capodimonte, an entirely separate section dedicated to the genre is at the Museo Pignatelli. Here the paintings by Luca Forte, Paolo Porpora, Giovan Battista and Giuseppe Recco, and Giovan Battista and Giuseppe Ruoppolo (among others) are displayed in a series of rooms, divided by artist. It is particularly useful to be able to compare attributions when signed and dated still lifes by a particular painter are in a room side by side with other pictures possibly by the same hand. Neapolitan still lifes are recognisable for their decadent aesthetic. In room after room at Villa Pignatelli one is confronted by the splendour of flowers with the texture of damasks and velvets, feathery petals, glistening open sea urchins, tortoises, crabs and lobsters with shimmering carapaces, dusty pizzutello grapes, figs and citrus fruit. The decorative arts are exhibited at the Museo Duca di Martina at the Villa
Floridiana at Vomero. Some of the rooms reconstruct Neapolitan interiors ranging from a dining room to a studiolo and a private chapel, using furnishings and paintings that would have been appropriate in a seventeenth- or eighteenth-century palace or villa. Most of the decorative arts date from the eighteenth century. This is by far the most effective part of the exhibition and the only one where an intelligent dialogue between paintings, sculptures and decorative arts is successfully accomplished. White Capodimonte porcelains are exhibited next to grisailles paintings by Francesco De Mura; a series of precious objects decorated with coral are displayed under paintings by Francesco Solimena: the Triumph of Charles of Bourbon at the Battle of Gaeta (Compton Verney; no.1.154), the Battle of Alexander and Darius (private collection; no.1.157) and Venus assisting the wounded Aeneas (Compton Verney; no.1.150). The blood of St Gennaro, of Aeneas, and of the wounded warriors in the paintings seems to drip from the walls and transforms itself into coral below. The central room, theatrically designed by Michele Iodice, presents a series of Capodimonte figurines, silverware and paintings by Filippo Falciatore, which are spectacularly set against a background of aluminium and lead. The effect of a metal ‘jewel-box’ is accompanied by an illuminating conversation between paintings, porcelain and silver. The last section of the exhibition at Castel Sant’Elmo is the least successful. Here are displayed paintings and sculptures recently restored by the Soprintendenza.4 Unfortunately there is little in the exhibition – or in the catalogue – to inform us of technical analysis (X-rays, infra-red, pigment samples) which may have been carried out during restoration. The objects are often in such bad condition that, even after restoration, they can hardly be appreciated. A selection of photographs of monuments and works of art in Baroque Naples by Luciano Pedicini is also on view at Castel Sant’Elmo. These photographs remind us that to truly understand and appreciate Neapolitan art, the city and the region of Campania should also be explored to admire the many works still in situ. A series of itineraries and a small publication invite the public to visit many of the key sites in Naples and Campania, from celebrated ones, such as the Chapel of St Gennaro in the Duomo, the Pio Monte della Misericordia, the Sansevero Chapel and the Royal Palace at Caserta, to ones which are not as famous but which deserve to be known, like the Monte di Pietà or the spectacular Certosa at Padula.5 The inscription at the feet of the painter in the picture by the Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds (Fig.66) boldly proclaims: ‘Ancora Imparo’. In the same way this exhibition in Naples demonstrates that, notwithstanding the impressive work of art historians in the past thirty years, there is still an awful lot that needs to be studied, researched and learnt about Neapolitan Baroque art.
1 D.M. Pagani and M. Utili, eds.: exh. cat. Civiltà del ’700 a Napoli: 1734–1799, Naples (Museo di Capodimonte) 1979; C. Whitfield and J. Martineau, eds.: exh. cat. Painting in Naples 1606–1705. From Caravaggio to Giordano, London (Royal Academy of Arts) 1982; and N. Spinosa, ed.: exh. cat. Civiltà del Seicento a Napoli, Naples (Museo di Capodimonte) 1984. 2 Catalogue: Ritorno al Barocco. Da Caravaggio a Vanvitelli. Edited by Nicola Spinosa. 2 vols., 439 + 359 pp. incl. 608 col. + 52 b. & w. ills. (Arte’m, Naples, 2009), €80. ISBN 978–88–569–0058–3. 3 Entries for the drawings in Italian, international public and private collections are included in the main catalogue. For those in Neapolitan public collections there is a smaller separate catalogue: Ritorno al Barocco. Da Caravaggio a Vanvitelli. Disegni dalle collezioni pubbliche napoletane. Edited by Mariaserena Mormone. 63 pp. incl. 18 col. + 21 b. & w. ills. (Arte’m, Naples, 2009), €10. ISBN 978–88–569–0093–4. 4 There is a separate smaller catalogue also for this section: Ritorno al Barocco. Da Caravaggio a Vanvitelli. Restauri duemilanove. Edited by Nicola Spinosa. 48 pp. incl. 73 col. + 1 b. & w. ills. (Arte’m, Naples, 2009), €8. ISBN 978–88–569–0094–1. 5 Catalogue: Ritorno al Barocco. Da Caravaggio a Vanvitelli. Itinerari a Napoli e in Campania. Edited by Francesca Amirante and Lorella Starita. 143 pp. incl. 65 col. ills. (Arte’m, Naples, 2009), €12. ISBN 978–88–569–0060–6.
Rupert Bunny Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide by MARK STOCKER
and the accompanying publicity for the exhibition Rupert Bunny: Artist in Paris, seen by this reviewer at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, and opening on 26th March at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (to 4th July; then at the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; 23rd July to 4th October), emphasise Rupert Bunny’s status as one of Australia’s most internationally successful painters before the advent of Sidney Nolan. In 1884, aged nineteen, Bunny left Melbourne for Europe. It was another fifty years before he returned to live there once more, following the death of his French wife, Jeanne, and the slump in the art market occasioned by the Depression. His often-quoted bon mot, ‘Life in Paris is an art. In Australia it is a business . . . And that is the difference’, hardly endeared him to the local artistic establishment.1 Yet Bunny was a shrewder businessman than this statement implies, sending selections of his more accessibly attractive works to Melbourne and Sydney during the 1910s and 1920s. Although these drew varied responses, their exhibition was never the ‘fiasco’ that Robert Hughes once claimed. Indeed, by 1939 Bunny could boast: ‘I can sell all I want to in Sydney’. Little has changed since. Bunny’s French curriculum vitae is not unimpressive. He was the first Australian artist to receive an honourable mention at the official Salon of 1890; he enjoyed a sustained association with the more progressive Salon de BOTH THE TITLE
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la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts; he served on the 1910 Salon d’automne jury that accepted Henri Matisse’s Dance and Music; and thirteen of Bunny’s paintings were purchased by the French State. With a touch of cultural cringe, the captions and audio tour in Sydney asserted Bunny’s significance by proxy, with quotations from his prestigious critical admirer Gustave Geffroy. These implied that if Paul Cézanne was good enough for Geffroy, then Bunny should be good enough for us. The art historian Mary Eagle was surely closer to the mark when she wrote that, while Bunny was ‘reasonably well regarded in Paris, London and Australia, he did not count in any of these centres so far as serious public and private patronage . . . [was] concerned’.2 He was never in the league of Henri Le Sidaner, Henri Martin or Lucien Simon; even across the Channel, Bunny’s near contemporaries and compatriots Bertram Mackennal and George Lambert made relatively greater inroads in the British art world. Inevitably, Bunny’s expatriate status in France did not help his career. A more chauvinistic world – as well as a certain personal integrity – explains why he refused to apply for a position as designer of tapestries for the Manufacture des Gobelins. French citizenship was a prerequisite, and Bunny was unwilling to sacrifice his Australianness. Yet his decorative talent and vision would have made him the perfect candidate. It seems equally unfortunate that Bunny never received a major mural commission. Several tantalising sketches survive for a proposed scheme for Australia House (1914), where Renoir-like shepherds are transformed into ‘Aussie’ shearers. The question of how good was Rupert Bunny is difficult to answer, as he still polarises critical opinions. Deborah Edwards invites us to share and enjoy this non-voyeuristic ‘Feminine Arcady’. I was not entirely persuaded. While avoiding obvious sentimentality, Bunny’s overwhelmingly feminine cast of
70. The rape of Persephone, by Rupert Bunny. c.1913. Canvas, 54.4 by 81.1 cm. (National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; exh. Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney).
characters often has one or more of them looking ingratiatingly out at the viewer, such as the charming little girl in Le bel après-midi, Royan (c.1908; private collection; cat. no.23). The mood is ultimately closer to that of Laura Knight or even Russell Flint than it is to Bunny’s supposed mentor, Puvis de Chavannes. During his lengthy career, Bunny was never formulaic; indeed, to make a living, he felt constantly obliged to reinvent himself. Mackennal, his counterpart in sculpture, reveals a remarkably assured versatility in this respect, moving from Symbolism via Edwardian Baroque to Art Deco classicism. With Bunny, however, the results are more uneven and sometimes awkward. Shrimp fishers at Saint Georges (c.1910; National Gallery of Victoria; no.31), for example, strangely sets pleasureloving, modern life figures against semiabstract colour zones of blue and dirty brown. While he is justly celebrated as a colourist, Bunny’s draughtsmanship is less impressive than that of near contemporaries such as Frank Brangwyn and Augustus John. Compositions, without necessarily being clumsy, are sometimes cramped: there is one figure too many in the much-admired Dolce farniente (c.1897;
69. Endormies, by Rupert Bunny. c.1904. Canvas, 130.6 by 200.5 cm. (National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; exh. Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney).
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private collection, Melbourne; no.11). When Bunny attempts a Sargent-like family group in Mrs Herbert Jones and her daughters, Hilda and Dulce (c.1903; private collection; no.62), the result lacks the psychological tension and subtlety of the Anglo-American. The full-length Madame Melba (1902; National Gallery of Victoria; no.59) aspires to a Gainsboroughlike grandeur, but here the result falls short of Philip Wilson Steer’s fine essays in the genre. We see Bunny’s transformation in the 1910s from the gauzy to the gaudy in The rape of Persephone (c.1913; no.34; Fig.70). The artist and critic George Bell hailed such exhilarating works as ‘a glorious riot of colour from the finest imaginative artist Australia has produced’.3 However, Bunny’s contemporaneous monotypes of the same period – addressed in a catalogue essay by Denise Mimmocchi – are more lyrically effective and far less claustrophobic. The influences of Gauguin and Bakst yield in turn to Picasso’s Neo-classical mode in Housewives (c.1932; private collection; no.54), produced on the eve of Bunny’s return to his homeland. The abiding feeling left by this exhibition is how persistently, prolifically and sometimes even desperately Bunny attempted to keep afloat with progressive trends in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century art and at the same time maintain a distinctive personal style. Art historians are forever kept entertained in their attempts to identify his sources. Sometimes the adaptations are piquant and witty: Endormies (c.1904; no.17; Fig.69) is an audacious – Edwards in the catalogue says ‘spectacular’ – tribute to Courbet’s Women by the banks of the Seine (1856–57). Bunny is at his best in simpler, predominantly tonal compositions, evident in the exquisitely Whistlerian Madame Sada Yacco ‘Kesa’ (c.1900; Philip Bacon Collection; no.58), and the minimalist parched landscape, Grass hills, Tinaldra (1926; no.80), painted on a return visit to Australia. 1 Quoted on p.176 of the catalogue: Rupert Bunny: Artist in Paris. Edited by Deborah Edwards, with contributions from Denise Mimmocchi, David Thomas and Anne Gérard. 224 pp. incl. numerous col. + b. & w. ills. (Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2009), $A50. ISBN 978–1–7417–4047–9. 2 M. Eagle quoted in D. Mimmocchi: ‘“Un succès parisien”: Rupert Bunny’s achievements’, ibid., p.159. 3 Edwards in ibid., p.130.
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Calendar London Ambika P3. At this large new venue located at the University of Westminster, the exhibition From Floor to Sky. British Sculpture and the Studio Experience, brings together a broad range of contemporary British sculpture; 5th March to 4th April. Barbican. The first major survey in Britain of work by the designer Ron Arad is on view here to 16th May. A new commission by Céleste BoursierMougenot can be seen in The Curve to 23rd May. British Library. Points of View: Capturing the 19th Century in Photographs; to 7th March; it is reviewed on p.194 above. British Museum. An exhibition examining printmaking in Mexico in the first half of the twentieth century; to 5th April. The exhibition Kingdom of Ife: sculptures from West Africa runs from 4th March to 6th June. Camden Arts Centre. A solo exhibition of work by Eva Hesse is on view here to 7th March; to be reviewed. Courtauld Gallery. Michelangelo’s Dream explores the making and meaning of the celebrated drawing of this name in the permanent collection through related works by Michelangelo and his contemporaries; to 16th May; to be reviewed. Dulwich Picture Gallery. Paintings, watercolours and drawings by Paul Nash spanning his entire career are on show to 9th May; to be reviewed. Estorick Collection. An exhibition exploring the representation and analysis of movement in the visual arts and science; to 18th April. Fleming Collection. Paintings by the Scottish Colourists from the Collection are here to 1st April. Gagosian Gallery. At Davies St., work by Arshile Gorky is on view to 1st April (see also Tate Modern). At Britannia St. an exhibition following on from last year’s exhibition of Pop art and its legacy, titled Crash, runs to 1st April; to be reviewed. Haunch of Venison. Video, sculpture, installations and photographs by Jitish Kallat, reflecting on the urban environment of Mumbai, are here to 27th March. Works by the Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota are displayed to 27th March. Hauser & Wirth. An exhibition of works by Bharti Kher is on display from 20th March to 15th May. Karsten Schubert. New paintings by Dan Perfect from the ‘Dæmonology’ series are here to 9th April; to be reviewed. Marlborough Fine Art. Works by Thérèse Oulton are on view to 13th March. National Gallery. An exhibition here focuses on the Gallery’s famous painting of the Execution of Lady Jane Grey by Paul Delaroche; to 23rd May. In Room 1 is a concurrent display A Masterpiece Recovered: Delaroche’s Charles I Insulted. A monographic exhibition devoted to Christen Købke runs here from 17th March to 13th June (then in Edinburgh); to be reviewed. National Portrait Gallery. The Indian Portrait 1560–1860 runs from 11th March to 20th June. Queen’s Gallery. An exhibition focusing on Queen Victoria’s and Prince Albert’s shared enthusiasm for art runs from 19th March to 31st October; to be reviewed. Royal Academy. A landmark exhibition of work by Van Gogh, the first in London for over forty years, centres on the artist’s letters, some 35 of which are on display; to 18th April. The exhibition devoted to Paul Sandby, already seen in Nottingham and Edinburgh and reviewed in the November issue, runs here from 13th March to 13th June. Saatchi Gallery. An exhibition of contemporary Indian art runs to 7th May.
Sadie Coles. New drawings by Matthew Barney are on view at 69 South Audley St.; to 6th March; to be reviewed. Serpentine Gallery. A solo exhibition of works by Richard Hamilton focuses on the artist’s political output; 3rd March to 25th April. Sir John Soane’s Museum. A bouquet of botanical delights: the life and art of Mary Delany, seen previously in New Haven, runs here to 1st May. South London Gallery. An installation by Michael Landy in which people can apply to discard failed works of art in a giant bin runs here to 14th March; to be reviewed. Tate Britain. A major exhibition of work by Henry Moore brings together the most comprehensive selection of his work for a generation; to 15th August; to be reviewed. A major survey of paintings by Chris Ofili is on view here to 16th May. Tate Modern. Seen earlier in Leiden, the exhibition Van Doesburg and the International Avant-Garde: Constructing a New World presents works by the Dutch artist in the context of his time; to 16th May; to be reviewed. The exhibition of works by Arshile Gorky, previously in Philadelphia, is here to 3rd May (see also Gagosian Gallery); it is reviewed on p.193 above. Timothy Taylor. An exhibition of paintings by Alex Katz is on view here from 4th March to 9th April. Victoria and Albert Museum. The exhibition devoted to Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill, seen previously in New Haven, runs here from 6th March to 4th July; to be reviewed. An exhibition devoted to quilts includes examples spanning the early 18th century to Grayson Perry and Tracey Emin; 20th March to 4th July. Waddington. Works by Barry Flanagan 1966–2008 are here from 17th March to 17th April. Wallace Collection. To complement the exhibition at the National Gallery, the Wallace has mounted a display of its ten oils and two watercolours by Paul Delaroche, which are shown in the context of works by contemporaries such as Bonington, Delacroix, Wilkie and others; to 23rd May. Whitechapel. An exhibition of photography from 1840 to the present from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh is on view to 11th April. White Cube. At Mason’s Yard, paintings by Franz Ackermann are on view to 1st April; works by Candice Breitz are at Hoxton Square; to 20th March.
Great Britain and Ireland Birmingham, Museum and Art Gallery. Works by Bridget Riley from the collection of the Arts Council are on view (in the Gas Hall) in the exhibition Flashback, running to 23rd May. The collection-based exhibition Turner to Samuel Palmer: British Watercolours 1800–1850 runs to 2nd May. Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum. A collectionbased exhibition explores the work of Sargent, Sickert and Spencer; to 5th April. Also collection-based, Netsuke: Japanese Art in Miniature brings together examples of miniature sculpture originating in 17th-century Japan; to 30th May. Chichester, Pallant House. John Tunnard: Inner Space and Outer Space is the first substantial retrospective to be devoted to the artist for thirty years; 15th March to 6th June; to be reviewed. Compton Verney. The exhibition exploring the work of Bacon in relation to film and photography, previously in Dublin and reviewed in the June issue, runs from 27th March to 20th June. Dublin, Irish Museum of Modern Art. Works by Jorge Pardo and Anne Tallentire are here to 3rd May. Works by the Belgian artist Francis Alÿs from the ongoing series Le Temps du Sommeil, are on display in an exhibition running to 23rd May. The work will travel to Tate Modern, London, for a retrospective of Alÿs’s work opening in the summer.
71. Spatial dimension, by Mark Francis. 2009. Canvas, 214 by 153 cm. (Courtesy Kerlin Gallery, Dublin; exh. Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal). Edinburgh, Dean Gallery. Photographs by Diane Arbus are on display from 13th March to 13th June. Glasgow, Hunterian Art Gallery. Featuring items from the Polish national collection, Amber: Treasures from Poland brings together artefacts which represent both natural history and northern European craftsmanship; to 17th April. Kendal, Abbot Hall Art Gallery. A survey exhibition of works by the Irish artist Mark Francis is on view from 20th March to 3rd July (Fig.71). Leeds, Temple Newsam House. Wonderwall: 300 Years of Wallpaper; to 9th May. Liverpool, Tate. Afro Modern: Journeys through the Black Atlantic traces in depth the impact of different black cultures from around the Atlantic on art from the early twentieth century to the present; to 25th April. Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery. An exhibition of paintings by Aubrey Williams reflects on the meeting of Atlantic and black Atlantic cultures in Europe, the Caribbean, North and South America; to 11th April. Manchester Art Gallery. An exhibition of works by Ron Mueck; to 11th April. Milton Keynes Gallery. The first survey exhibition of work by Marcus Coates in a public gallery in Britain, runs here to 4th April. Nottingham Contemporary. Star City. The future under Communism features work by artists who grew up in Eastern Bloc countries before the fall of Communism; to 17th April (then in Warsaw); to be reviewed. Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery. An exhibition here explores the watercolour in British art from Girtin and Turner to Burra, Piper, Sutherland and Kapoor; to 18th April. Norwich, Sainsbury Centre. Seen earlier in Compton Verney and reviewed in the January issue, The Artist’s Studio is here to 16th May. Oxford, Christ Church Picture Gallery. After Michelangelo brings together 35 drawings from the permanent collection to trace Michelangelo’s genius through his followers and imitators; to 16th May. St Ives, Tate. The first major survey of paintings by Dexter Dalwood; to 3rd May. Sheffield, Graves Gallery. An exhibition of photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe; to 27th March. Windsor, Windsor Castle, Drawings Gallery. An exhibition marking the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII’s accession to the throne includes works by Holbein; to 18th April. York Art Gallery. 100 Years of Gifts: the Centenary of the Contemporary Art Society; to 9th May. the burlington m a g a z i n e
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Europe Amelia, Complesso ex-Collegio Boccarini di Amelia. Piermatteo d’Amelia is celebrated in exhibitions here and at Terni; to 2nd May; to be reviewed. Amsterdam, Hermitage Amsterdam. This revamped Hermitage outpost hosts the exhibition Matisse to Malevich: Pioneers of Modern Art from the Hermitage; 6th March to 17th September. Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum. Seen earlier in Cleveland, Paul Gauguin. The Breakthrough to Modernity examines the artist’s Volpini suite of lithographs; to 6th June. Athens, Herakleidon. The exhibition The Complete Sculptures of Edgar Degas is on view here to 24th April. Baden-Baden, Museum Frieder Burda. Georg Baselitz. 50 Years of Painting runs here to 14th March. Barcelona, Museu d’Art Contemporani. A survey exhibition of works by Rodney Graham is on view here to 18th May (then in Basel and Hamburg). Seen earlier in London, the John Baldessari exhibition is on view here to 25th April. Basel, Fondation Beyeler. An exhibition marking the centenary of the death of Henri Rousseau; to 9th May. Bassano del Grappa, Museo Civico. While the exact birthdate of Jacopo Bassano is uncertain, his home town is celebrating his 500th birthday with an exhibition of his and his family’s work; to 3rd May; to be reviewed. Berlin, Deutsche Guggenheim. An exhibition examining the concept of utopia from the Nazarenes to the Bauhaus; to 11th April. Bilbao, Guggenheim Museum. The exhibition Robert Rauschenberg: Gluts, previously in Venice, is on display here to 3rd October. Bregenz, Kunsthaus. A retrospective of works by Candice Breitz; to 11th April. Brescia, Museo di Santa Giulia. The exhibitions Inca and Beyond Baroque: Signs of Identity in Latin American art document the Pre- and Post-Columbian civilisations in Peru; to 27th June. Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts. An exhibition tracing the evolution of Symbolism is on view here from 26th March to 27th June. Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts. An exhibition drawn from the collections of the Museo del Greco and the Museo de Santa Cruz in Toledo explores the work of El Greco; to 9th May. Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts. The Alchemy of Beauty: Parmigianino – Drawings and Prints; to 15th March. Castelfranco Veneto, Museo Casa Giorgione. On the 500th anniversary of his death, Giorgione is being celebrated with an exhibition of ‘about half his works’, together with works by Bellini, Cima, Sebastiano, Titian et al.; to 11th April; to be reviewed. Cologne, Museum für Angewandte Kunst. Commemorating the 300th anniversary of the inauguration by Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, of the Meissen manufactory, an exhibition here explores the history of porcelain; to 25th April. Conegliano, Palazzo Sarcinelli. A major monographic exhibition commemorates the 500th anniversary of Cima da Conegliano’s death in 1510; to 22nd June; to be reviewed. Duisburg, Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum. A major exhibition devoted to Alberto Giacometti comprises some 120 of the sculptor’s works; to 18th April. Eindhoven, Van Abbemuseum. An ambitious, three-part exhibition examining the work of El Lissitzky; to 5th September. Ferrara, Palazzo dei Diamanti. From Braque to Kandinsky to Chagall: Aimé Maeght and his artists, previously shown in London, runs here to 2nd June. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana. During an exhibition of medical manuscripts both the library and Michelangelo’s vestibule will be open to the public; to 26th June. Florence, Palazzo Pitti, Museo degli Argenti. A selection of the Medici family’s collection of cut gems and cameos is shown together with works of art inspired by them by artists ranging from Ghiberti to Michelangelo; 25th March to 27th June.
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Florence, Palazzo Strozzi. Giorgio de Chirico’s metaphysical paintings are shown with works by Magritte, Balthus, Ernst, Carrà and Morandi; to 18th July; to be reviewed. Florence, Uffizi. The recent refurbishment and arrangement of the Tribuna is the focus of a show running to 30th June. Frankfurt, Schirn Kunsthalle. The exhibition of works by Seurat, recently on view in Zürich, is on display here to 9th May. Gallarate, MAGa. To inaugurate the new seat of this Museum an exhibition of works by Amedeo Modigliani runs here from 19th March to 19th June. Geneva, Musée d’Art et d’Histoire. Art and its markets: Flemish and Dutch painting of the 17th and 18th century, reviewed in the February issue, runs to 29th August. Genoa, Wolfsoniana. An exhibition of Futurist ceramics and graphic work runs here to 11th April. Gothenburg, Eriksburghallen. A drawing of a woman’s head in profile purporting to be by Leonardo is shown incongruously with architectural plans by Michelangelo and a drawing by Raphael for his Transfiguration; 20th March to 15th August. Groningen, Groninger Museum. Highlights from the collection of the Brücke Museum in Berlin are on display in the Ploeg Pavilion; to 11th April.
72. River landscape, by Natalia Goncharova. c.1909–11. Canvas, 99 by 87 cm. (Werner & Gabrielle Merzbacher Collection; exh. Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek). Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum. A small display focusing on Judith Leyster’s Self-portrait from Washington includes additional loans of works by the artist; to 9th May. The Hague, Gemeentemuseum. A large retrospective of works by artists associated with the Blaue Reiter group; to 24th May. A retrospective of works by Georges Vantongerloo, is on display to 16th May. An exhibition exploring the world of haute couture including the latest creations of Dior, Lacroix and Gaultier is on view to 6th June. The Hague, Mauritshuis. Room for Art in 17th-century Antwerp, previously in Antwerp, explores art collecting in 17th-century Antwerp through three paintings by Willem van Haecht depicting the collection of Cornelis van der Geest; 25th March to 27th June. Hamburg, Bucerius Kunst Forum. Deceptively real: the art of trompe l’œil; to 24th May. Hamburg, Kunsthalle. Seen earlier in London, the controversial exhibition Pop Life, tracing the influence of Pop art and the cult of celebrity, is on view here to 9th May. Humlebaek, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. The video installation Homo Sapiens Sapiens by Pipilotti Rist is on view here to 25th April.
Colour in Art is drawn from the collection of Werner and Gabrielle Merzbacher, and contains works by Kandinsky, Nolde, Matisse, Miró, Hockney, Kusama and others; to 13th June (Fig.72). Lausanne, Fondation de l’Hermitage. Some 100 paintings spanning Corot to Beckmann are on loan here from the Städel Museum, Frankfurt; to 24th May. Lisbon, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. The first instalment of a two-part loan exhibition devoted to European still life brings together 71 17th- and 18th-century paintings; to 2nd May. Lisbon, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Centro de Arte Moderna. A survey of works by Jane and Louise Wilson is on view here to 18th April. Lisbon, Museu Colecção Berardo. Seen earlier in Nice, a survey exhibition of work by Robert Longo is here to 25th April. Madrid, Museo del Prado. Dutch Painters in the Prado runs to 15th April. The Art of Power: The Royal Armoury and Court Portraiture, seen previously in Washington and reviewed in the September issue, runs here from 9th March to 23rd May. John Singer Sargent’s The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit is on loan from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, from 16th March to 30th May. Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. A major retrospective of works by Thomas Schütte is on view to 17th May. An exhibition of works by Tacita Dean is on view to 31st May. Madrid, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. Monet y la Abstracción; to 30th May; to be reviewed. Málaga, CAC. An exhibition of paintings by Eric Fischl runs here to 4th April. Works by Gilbert & George are on view to 9th May. Málaga, Museo Picasso. Seen earlier in Barcelona, the exhibition of works by Frantisek Kupka, drawn from the collection of the Centre Pompidou, Paris, runs here to 15th April. Mantua, Palazzo Te. A major exhibition of Renaissance tapestries ordered by the Gonzaga family, some on designs by Mantegna, Raphael and Giulio Romano and woven in Brussels and Paris, runs here and at the Museo Diocesano Francesco Gonzaga from 13th March to 27th June; to be reviewed. Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera. Crivelli and the Brera concentrates on the artist’s great pale of the 1480s; to 28th March. Milan, Triennale di Milano. Roy Lichtenstein: Meditations on art; to 30th May. Mondovì, Chiesa della Missione. To celebrate the 300th anniversary of Andrea Pozzo’s death, the frescos in this church will be visible from close by; to 30th April (see also Trento and Rome); to be reviewed. Montpellier, Musée Fabre. An exhibition devoted to Jean Raoux runs to 14th April; to be reviewed. The international loan exhibition exploring the work of Houdon and his contemporaries, seen previously in Frankfurt, runs here from 16th March to 27th June; to be reviewed. Moscow, The Garage. Two exhibitions open on the 5th March; Futurologia explores the legacy of early 20th-century Russian avant-garde art movements; Russian Utopias examines art made in Russia over the past two decades; both to 23rd May. Munich, Alte Pinakothek. The Art of the Frame: Exploring the Holdings of the Alte Pinakothek; to 18th April. Munich, Haus der Kunst. Seen earlier in London, and reviewed in the January issue, the exhibition of paintings by Ed Ruscha is on view here to 2nd May. Munich, Neue Pinakothek. Johann Georg von Dillis (1759–1841): Painter and Gallery Director; to 22nd March. Naples, Museo d’arte contemporanea Donnaregina (MADRE). Barok: Arte, Scienza, Fede e Tecnologia nell’età contemporanea draws parallels between artists of the seicento and the present day and includes Hirst’s Heaven; to 5th April.
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An exhibition devoted to Cindy Sherman runs to 31st May. Naples, Museo di Capodimonte. Here and at the Certosa di S. Martino, the Castel S. Elmo, the Museo Duca di Martina, the Museo Pignatelli and the Palazzo Reale, Return to the Baroque: from Caravaggio to Vanvitelli, reviewed on p.201 above, runs to 11th April. Nîmes, Carré d’Art. Seen earlier in London, the exhibition of paintings by Michael Raedecker runs here to 18th April. Concurrently, an exhibition of textile works by Isa Melsheimer. Nuoro, Man. A loan exhibition from Rovereto MART of 20th-century Italian paintings from the Futurists to Morandi and Sironi is on show here from 5th March to 6th June. Also here are recent works by Emanuele Becheri; 5th March to 11th April. Padua, Civici Musei agli Eremitani. A loan exhibition of paintings from the Fondazione Longhi, Florence, runs to 28th March. Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou. The work of Pierre Soulages is celebrated in an exhibition running to 8th March. Paris, Ecole nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts. Le Baroque en Flandres: Rubens, Van Dyck, Jordaens. Une exposition du Cabinet des dessins Jean Bonna; to 7th May. Paris, Galerie des Gobelins. Trésors des Habsbourgs d’Espagne, chefs-d’œuvre de la tapisserie de la Renaissance; to 7th March. Paris, Grand Palais. Turner and the Masters, reviewed at its London showing in the December issue, runs here to 24th May. Paris, Institut Néerlandais. Previously in New York, Watteau to Degas: French Drawings from the Frits Lugt Collection runs here to 11th April. Paris, Jeu de Paume. Exhibitions of work by Lisette Model, Esther Shalev-Gerz and Mathilde Rosier are on view to 6th June. Paris, Maison de Victor Hugo. An international loan exhibition devoted to 19th-century oriental art runs from 26th March to 4th July. Paris, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. An exhibition of work by Elaine Sturtevant is on display to 25th April. Exhibitions of work by the Dutch artists Charley Toorop and Jan Dibbets are here to 9th May. Paris, Musée du Louvre. An exhibition devoted to Russian religious art spanning the 9th to 18th centuries runs here from 5th March to 24th May. An exhibition of drawings by Toussaint Dubreuil (1561–1602) runs from 25th March to 21st June. Paintings from the private collection of 17th- and 18th-century French and Italian paintings formed since the 1980s by Héléna and Guy Motais de Narbonne are here from 25th March to 21st June. Through 200 works of art Meroë, Empire on the Nile explores this ancient civilisation and its intermingling of African, Egyptian and Greco-Roman influences; 26th March to 6th September. Paris, Musée Eugène Delacroix. Une passion pour Delacroix: la collection Karen B. Cohen; to 5th April. Paris, Musée Jacquemart-André. Du Greco à Dalí. Les grands maîtres espagnols. La collection Pérez Simón; 12th March to 1st August. Paris, Pinacothèque. An exhibition of work by Edvard Munch; to 18th July. Piacenza, Galleria d’arte moderna Ricci Oddi. An exhibition devoted to small-scale paintings by the Macchiaioli and post-Macchiaioli; to 2nd May. Pont-Aven, Musée. An exhibition of paintings by Serge Poliakoff is on view here to 30th May. Ravenna, Museo d’Arte della Città. The 15th-century Pre-Raphaelites – Fra Angelico, Perugino et al. – are shown together with their 19th-century admirers in The Pre-Raphaelites and the Italian Dream; to 6th June (then in Oxford); to be reviewed. Rome, Complesso del Vittoriano. The form of the Renaissance: Donatello, Andrea Bregno, Michelangelo and sculpture in Rome in the 15th century; to 9th May. Rome, Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica (Palazzo Fontana di Trevi). Padre Pozzo’s treatise on per-
spective and his illusionistic frescos in the Gesù and S. Ignazio are the focus of an exhibition running from 5th March to 2nd May (see also Mondovì and Trento); to be reviewed. Rome, Museo del Corso. Previously in Milan, the exhibition devoted to Edward Hopper; to 13th June. Rome, Palazzo Caffarelli. Greek works of art brought to Rome between the 3rd century BC to the 1st century AD are shown here from 5th March to 5th September. Rome, Scuderie Papali al Quirinale. The 400th anniversary of Caravaggio’s death is commemorated in a plethora of exhibitions; the first runs here to 17th June; to be reviewed. Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. An exhibition of works by Carsten Höller is on display here to 25th April. Rotterdam, Witte de With. An exhibition of work by Isa Genzken is on view here to 11th April. Rovereto, Museo d’Arte moderna e contemporanea. Previously in Marseille and later moving to Toronto, the exhibition From the stage to painting explores the links between the two arts in the 18th and 19th centuries from David to Vuillard; to 23rd May; to be reviewed. Rovigo, Museo dei Grandi Fiumi. One hundred paintings from historic houses of the Veneto, dating from the 13th century (Guariento) to the 18th (Tiepolo et al.), are on show here to 13th June. Rovigo, Palazzo Roverella. Easel paintings by the Venetian Mattia Bortoloni (1696–1750) are shown with those by contemporaries such as Tiepolo, Piazzetta, Balestra and others; to 13th June. Seville, Museo de Bellas Artes. Previously in Bilbao, the exhibition devoted to the early work of Murillo is here to 30th May; to be reviewed. Siena, S. Maria della Scala. The Arts in Siena in the Early Renaissance is a major exhibition that runs from 26th March to 11th July; to be reviewed. (See this month’s Editorial, p.143.) Stockholm, Moderna Museet. A retrospective survey of works by Lee Lozano runs here to 25th April. Stockholm, Nationalmuseum. The in-focus show 2 x Caravaggio juxtaposes two versions of St Francis, one from the S. Maria della Concezione, Rome, the other from the Carpineto Romano, and argues that the latter is by Caravaggio himself; to 14th March. Terni, Centro per le Arti Opificio Siri (CAOS). Piermatteo d’Amelia is celebrated in exhibitions here and at Amelia; to 2nd May; to be reviewed. Toulouse, Musée des Augustins. Antonio Verrio (1636–1707), un italien entre Toulouse et Londres; 27th March to 27th June. Trento, MART, Palazzo delle Albere. Eugenio Prati (1842–1907), between Scapigliatura and Symbolism runs to 25th April. Trento, Museo Diocesano Tridentino. Padre Andrea Pozzo’s early work is celebrated in an exhibition running to 5th April (see also Mondovì and Rome). Venice, Museo Correr. 19th-century drawings of Venice, many hitherto unpublished, and including works by Giacomo Guardi and Ippolito Caffi, are on show here to 11th April. Venice, Palazzo Grassi. Mapping the Studio: Artists from the Pinault collection runs to 6th June. Verona, Palazzo della Ragione. 20th-century Italian paintings and sculpture in the collections of Fondazione Cariverona and UniCredit Group are on show here to 3rd June. Vienna, Albertina. An exhibition of watercolours by Jakob and Rudolf von Alt runs to 24th May. Vienna, Belvedere. An exhibition here focuses on Prince Eugene of Savoy ‘as philosopher and art lover’; to 6th June. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum. After having clocked up countless air miles over the last decade, Vermeer’s Art of Painting is enjoying time at home at the Museum in a display with loans that puts it into context; to 25th April. Zaragoza, Museo de Zaragoza. Valencia, The Splendour of the Renaissance in Aragon, previously in Bilbao and Valencia, runs here to 31st May; to be reviewed.
New York Acquavella Galleries. ‘Motorised paintings that spin’ by James Rosenquist are on view here to 19th March. Brooklyn Museum. A unique, site-specific installation by Kiki Smith is on view to 12th September. Frick Collection. A loan exhibition of European paintings from the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, is on view here from 9th March to 30th May. Gagosian. At Madison Avenue, works by Ed Paschke, and by Alberto di Fabio; both from 18th March to 24th April. Jewish Museum. An exhibition examining how Man Ray’s work was shaped by his turn-of-the-century American-Jewish immigrant experience runs here to 14th March. Knoedler & Company. Milton Avery: Industrial Revelations shows paintings and works on paper, many not previously exhibited; to 1st May (Fig.73). Matthew Marks. At 523 W. 24th St., photographs by Robert Adams; at 522 W. 22nd St., 16 sculptures by Ken Price all made in 2009; both to 17th April. Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Belles Heures (c.1405–09) of Jean de Berry is currently unbound, so that it is possible to exhibit all of its illuminated pages as individual leaves in a show running from 2nd March to 13th June. The renovation of the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Dijon provides an opportunity for the loan of the alabaster mourner figures from the tomb of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, and his wife, Margaret of Bavaria, carved by Jean de La Huerta and Antoine Le Moiturier (1443–1456) for the ducal tomb originally in the church of Champmol; 2nd March to 23rd May. An exhibition devoted to Bronzino’s drawings; to 18th April; to be reviewed. Michael Werner. An exhibition of portraits of women, largely nudes, by Félix Vallotton; to 10th April. Morgan Library. The Library’s Hours of Catherine of Cleves, disbound for the occasion so that more than 100 pages can be viewed separately, is on show in an exhibition seen earlier in Nijmegen; to 2nd May. Museum of Modern Art. A display of six late paintings by Monet, made at Giverny, including four from the collection, are on show for the first time since the Museum’s reopening in 2004; to 12th April; it was reviewed in the November issue. A survey exhibition of works by William Kentridge is on view here to 17th May; to be reviewed. Neue Galerie. The first solo exhibition of works by Otto Dix in North America, curated by Olaf Peters, is on display here from 11th March to 30th August (then in Montreal). Pace Wildenstein. At 545 W. 22nd St., new work by Stirling Ruby (to 20th March); at 32 E. 57th St., new paintings by Robert Ryman (to 27th March). Solomon Guggenheim Museum. A newly commissioned work by Anish Kapoor, Memory, is on display to 28th March. Whitney Museum of American Art. The 75th Whitney Biennial, a ‘panoramic survey of the latest American art’ including works by 55 artists, runs here to 30th May; to be reviewed.
73. Working harbor, by Milton Avery. c.1930s. Gouache on light grey paper, 45.7 by 60.9 cm. (Exh. Knoedler & Company, New York). the burlington m a g a z i n e
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Notes on contributors
Baltimore, Museum of Art. Seen earlier in New Jersey, the first exhibition to examine Cézanne’s influence on American artists is here to 23rd May. Boston, ICA. Seen earlier in London, the retrospective of works by Roni Horn is here to 13th June. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts. The monographic show devoted to Luis Meléndez, previously in Washington and Los Angeles, runs here to 9th May. Cincinnati, Taft Museum of Art. Dutch Utopia: American Artists in Holland, 1880–1914 includes works by artists such as William Merritt Chase, John Singer Sargent, John Twachtman and others; to 2nd May. Chicago, Art Institute. Matisse: Radical Invention 1913–1917 examines the years in which the artist worked on the painting Bathers by a river; 20th March to 20th June (then in New York). Chicago, Smart Museum. Seen earlier in Los Angeles and Washington, the exhibition The Darker Side of Light: Arts of Privacy 1850–1900 run here to 13th June. Dallas Museum of Art. Seen earlier in Michigan, an exhibition exploring the response of Impressionist painting to photography, focusing on works made in Normandy from 1850 to 1874, runs here to 23rd May. Fort Worth, Modern Art Museum. Andy Warhol: The Last Decade runs to 16th May. Houston, Menil Collection. An exhibition of works by Maurizio Cattelan is on view to 15th August. Houston, Museum of Fine Arts. Sargent and the Sea runs here to 23rd May (then in London). Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Seen earlier in Paris, Renoir in the 20th Century runs here to 9th May; to be reviewed. The exhibition American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765–1915 is on view here to 23rd May. Los Angeles, Hammer Museum. The first museum exhibition of drawings by Rachel Whiteread offers a comprehensive survey of her work in this medium, complemented by a number of sculptures; to 25th April (then in Dallas and London). Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum. Building the Medieval World: Architecture in Illuminated Manuscripts runs from 2nd March to 16th May. Leonardo da Vinci and the Art of Sculpture: Inspiration and Invention, previously in Atlanta, runs here from 23rd March to 20th June. The Museum has acquired Louis-Léopold Boilly’s Entrance to the Jardin Turc (Fig.74), a view outside one of the most celebrated cafés in Napoleonic Paris. Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. The touring show Venice in the Age of Canaletto runs here to 9th May. Montreal, Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal. Separate exhibitions of work by the contemporary artists Luanne Martineau, Etienne Zack and Marcel Dzama are on view here to 30th April. New Haven, Yale Center for British Art. Varieties of Romantic Experience: Drawings from the Collection of Charles Ryskamp is on view here to 25th April. Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada. Maurice Denis: Journeys examines the artist’s work as a book illustrator; to 30th April. Philadelphia, Museum of Art. Picasso and the AvantGarde in Paris surveys the artist’s work during the period 1905 to 1945; to 25th April; to be reviewed. San Francisco, Museum of Modern Art. Paintings by Luc Tuymans; to 2nd May. Seattle Art Museum. Michelangelo Public and Private: Drawings for the Sistine Chapel and Other Treasures from the Casa Buonarroti is on view here to 11th April. Vancouver Art Gallery. Leonardo da Vinci: The Mechanics of Man is an exhibition of drawings from the Royal Collection; to 2nd May. Washington, Corcoran Gallery of Art. Previously in Syracuse, Turner to Cézanne: Masterpieces from the Davies Collection, National Museum Wales is on view here to 25th April (then in Albuquerque). Washington, National Gallery of Art. The exhibition The Sacred Made Real, reviewed at its London showing in the January issue, is here to 31st May.
Nello Barbieri, formerly of the State Archive in Siena, is an independent researcher and translator. Linda Bauer is Professor Emerita, University of California, Irvine. Flavio Boggi is Senior Lecturer and Head of the History of Art at University College, Cork. Grace Brockington is a Lecturer in the History of Art at the University of Bristol. D.S. Chambers is Reader in Renaissance Studies at the Warburg Institute, University of London. Lynne Cooke is Curator at Large, Dia Art Foundation, New York, and Chief Curator and Deputy Director, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid. Paul Crossley is Professor of History of Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. Lindsay Evans is a freelance lecturer and broadcaster. Gabriele Fattorini teaches in the Department of Architecture and History of Art at the Università degli Studi di Siena and is a co-curator of The Arts in Siena in the Early Renaissance (See Siena in the Calendar above). Colin Ford is founding Head of the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, now the National Media Museum, Bradford. Boris Groys is Professor of Aesthetics, Art History and Media Theory at the Center for Art and Media Technology, Karlsruhe. Machtelt Israëls is a Researcher in History of Art at the University of Amsterdam. Merlin James is a painter. He is represented by Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York. James Lawrence is a critic and historian of modern and contemporary art. Christina Lodder is a Fellow of the University of Edinburgh. Anna Lovatt is a Lecturer in Art History at the University of Nottingham. J.V.G. Mallet was Keeper, Department of Ceramics, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, from 1976 to 1989. Kate Retford is a Lecturer in History of Art at Birkbeck College, University of London. Francis Russell is a Deputy Chairman of Christie’s, London. Xavier F. Salomon is the Arturo and Holly Melosi Chief Curator at Dulwich Picture Gallery, London. Ines Schlenker is an independent art historian. Her book, Marie-Louise von Motesiczky 1906–1996: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings, was published in 2009. David Scrase is Assistant Director, Collections, and Keeper, Paintings, Drawings and Prints at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Jennifer Sliwka is a Researcher in the Department of Paintings at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Gail E. Solberg teaches in the Florence Program of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest, Chicago. Mark Stocker is an Associate Professor in the Department of History and Art History, University of Otago, New Zealand. Dora Thorton is Curator of Renaissance Europe at the British Museum, London. Jörg Zutter is an independent art historian and exhibition organiser based in Geneva.
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74. Entrance to the Jardin Turc, by Louis-Léopold Boilly. Canvas, 73.3 by 91.1 cm. (J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles). The survey of winter landscapes by Hendrick Avercamp, reviewed at its Amsterdam showing in the February issue, runs here from 21st March to 5th July. Washington, Phillips Collection. Seen earlier in New York, and reviewed in the January issue, the exhibition of works by Georgia O’Keeffe is on view here to 9th May (then in Santa Fe). Williamstown, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. The Boldini exhibition, reviewed at its Ferrara showing in the December issue, is to 25th April.
March sales London, Bonhams (New Bond St.). English furniture and works of art (3rd); Post-War and contemporary art and design (10th); Ceramic design from 1860 (17th); 20th-century British art (17th); Marine works of art and paintings (24th); The South African sale (24th); The Crane Collection of 18th-century English porcelain (31st). London, Bonhams (Knightsbridge). British and Continental pictures (2nd); Chinese and other Asian works of art (3rd); Furniture, works of art and sculpture (9th); Modern pictures (23rd); The South African sale (23rd); Frames (31st). London, Christie’s (King St.). Old-master, modern and contemporary prints (31st). London, Christie’s (South Kensington). Victorian and British Impressionist art (17th); Prints and multiples (23rd); 20th-century decorative art and design (24th); Post-War and contemporary art (25th); 20thcentury British art (31st). London, Sotheby’s. Old-master, modern and contemporary prints (30th). New York, Christie’s. American paintings, drawings and sculpture (4th); Impressionist and modern (10th); Post-War and contemporary art (11th); 20th-century decorative art and design (16th); South Asian modern and contemporary art (23rd); Indian and Southeast Asian art (23rd); Japanese and Korean art (24th); Chinese ceramics and works of art including property from the Arthur M. Sackler collections (25th and 26th). New York, Sotheby’s. American paintings, drawings and sculpture (3rd); Contemporary art (9th); 20thcentury design (17th); Chinese works of art (23rd); Indian and Southeast Asian art (24th); Impressionist and modern art (25th).
Forthcoming fairs London, BADA Antiques and Fine Art Fair; 17th to 23rd March. Madrid, Almoneda, Art and Antiques Fair; 10th to 18th April. Maastricht, TEFAF; 12th to 21st March. New York, The Armory Show; 4th to 7th March. New York, Sculpture, Objects and Functional Art (SOFA); 16th to 19th April. Paris, Salon du Dessin; 23rd to 29th March.
Announcements A day seminar will be held under the auspices of the Association of Art Historians on 18th March at Devonshire Hall, University of Leeds, exploring collaboration on exhibitions between academics and gallery curators; for details and tickets for ‘Don’t Ask for the Mona Lisa’, see www.aah.org.uk/museums-andexhibitions. With reference to the Editorial on the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, in the January issue, visitors wishing for admittance to the Print Room should first go to the Museum’s Information Desk (Tuesday to Saturday, 10 am to 5 pm); to see the Michelangelo and Raphael drawings an appointment must be made.