Edith Coulson James, Francesco Francia and ‘The Burlington Magazine’, 1911–17 Despite recent interest in female scholars working on the Italian Renaissance in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Edith Coulson James and her struggle for the proper recognition of the Bolognese artist Francesco Francia have largely been overlooked. Having identified a lost self-portrait by the artist, she sought to publish her findings in ‘The Burlington Magazine’, but the editor, Roger Fry, rejected her attribution and ignored her arguments, which have still not been adequately acknowledged. by maria alambritis
I
n the autumn of 1927 the pages of The Burlington Magazine and The Times were witness to a heated debate concerning the most appropriate method of proving the authenticity of a painting. This debate involved three eminent specialists: Roger Fry (1866–1934), the co-founder and former editor of the Burlington and curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Arthur Pillans Laurie (1861–1949), Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh; and the then editor of the Burlington, Robert Rattray Tatlock (1889–1954). Laurie accused Fry in the Burlington of ‘abandon[ing] his position as an art critic’ by venturing into the ‘region of expert chemical enquiry’ when Fry had suggested that one could detect a forgery by observing anomalous effects of craquelure on the surface of a painting with the naked eye alone.1 Laurie insisted that only observation with a microscope could determine such claims, whereas in a letter in The Times Tatlock remonstrated that although such analyses were ‘sufficient to settle the date of the picture [. . .] we are compelled to continue to base our conclusions on the general impression formed by those skilled and experienced in judging old paintings’.2 There was a fourth opinion added to those of this trio of prestigious male art world professionals. In a short note published in The Times the week following Tatlock’s letter, a Miss Edith E. Coulson James (1860–1936) of Tunbridge Wells suggested that ‘there is yet another kind of evidence that should be considered in trying to determine the age and authorship The research for this article was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and undertaken as part of my Collaborative Doctoral Project PhD ‘Modern mistresses on the old masters: women and the writing of art history, 1860–1915’ with Birkbeck, University of London, and the National Gallery, London. I am thankful to John Barnard and Rosetta Plummer for generously sharing with me their knowledge and personal papers relating to Edith Coulson James and their family history, John Law who provided me with helpful discussion and materials, Maria Grazia Bollini and Patrizia Busi at the Biblioteca
1. Detail from a photograph of Edith E. Coulson James (far left) with her brother’s family. c.1927. Silver gelatin print, 10 by 7.5 cm. (Courtesy John Barnard).
Archiginnasio, Bologna, and Maddalena Taglioli at the Centro Archivistico, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa. I am very grateful to Caroline Elam for her invaluable feedback and encouragement towards publishing this part of my thesis research. 1 A.P. Laurie, A.L. Nicholson and H. Blaker: ‘The identification of forged pictures’, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 50 (1927), pp.342–44, at p.343; and R. Fry: ‘The authenticity of the Renders Collection’, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 50 (1927), pp.261–67, at p.261. 2 R. Tatlock: ‘Letter: Tests for old masters’, The Times (16th September 1927), p.12.
the burlington magazine | 164 | january 2022
ALAMBRITIS_CoulsonJames.indd 41
41
14/12/2021 23:49
Edith Coulson James, Francesco Francia and ‘The Burlington Magazine’
of pictures [. . .] the historical evidence’.3 However, as she observed dryly, such evidence was ‘too often overlooked by the great critics who expect the world to accept the conclusions of their experienced “general impressions”’.4 In the broader field of scholarship on nineteenth-century British art writing and Italian Renaissance historiography, women have remained conspicuously absent or only fleetingly noted. However, recent years have witnessed a flourishing of research dedicated to the recuperation and analysis of art-historical writing by women, bringing to light the names and contributions of a whole coterie of women publishing on the subject in the long-nineteenth century.5 Coulson James, however, remains a largely unexamined figure among this group (Fig.1). Her dissent from ‘the great critics’ and their ‘impressions’ was one of her last statements in defence of her own work, for the recognition of which she had fought over the preceding two decades. During the course of those years, she had developed her expertise in the artistic and cultural history of Bologna and, especially, in the art of the late quattrocento Bolognese painter, goldsmith and medallist Francesco Francia (c.1447–1517). Through her intimate acquaintance with the city, its works of art and its archives, she set out to correct the framing of Francia as a secondary artist, known only for altarpieces. Only recently have two scholars of Francia, Emilio Negro and Nicosetta Roio, acknowledged the ‘important discoveries of Edith Coulson James, unexplainably ignored in a historiography misogynistic to the point of obtuseness’.6 The ‘connoisseur-scholar’ was a crucial figure in both Britain and the United States during the early twentieth century, a period when the art museum was transformed from a ‘space dominated by gentlemanly amateurs to one in which academically trained art historians increasingly assumed positions of authority’.7 However, ‘gentlemanly’ was one key attribute retained through this transition, as the connoisseur-scholar was generally perceived as unquestionably male.8 He became something of a celebrity, whose attributions wielded decisive authority as to the status and authenticity of the artists and paintings about whom he wrote. The growing trend towards the end of the nineteenth century for art critics to possess academic titles and the increasing importance of institutional
42
ALAMBRITIS_CoulsonJames.indd 42
affiliation further diminished the means by which women could claim equal professional status in the field.9 As the eldest of four with three younger brothers, the death of her father, the solicitor George Coulson James (1828–1875), when she was aged fifteen, left Coulson James as the sole carer of her widowed mother, Susannah Elizabeth Rosher (c.1830–1902), a member of the Rosher family of Kent, proprietors of the Rosherville pleasure garden in Gravesend and an estate in Monmouthshire. The death of her mother in 1902 freed her from caring responsibilities and she began her research as an art historian in earnest.10 Although it is difficult to ascertain exactly how and why she developed her interest in Italy, it was with her mother that she first encountered Bologna, during trips in which they visited the spas in Porretta, just outside the city.11 From 1903 Coulson James spent extended periods of time in Bologna conducting research for what would appear in 1909 as the most extensive historical study of the city then published in English, Bologna: Its History, Antiquities and Art.12 In this book she introduced the idea that would occupy her subsequent articles in The Burlington Magazine and, later, the Connoisseur: that Francia was an artist who merited attention in his own right and that his importance had yet to be fully acknowledged by art historians. In the second half of the nineteenth century Francia’s reputation in England rested in large part on the popularity of the Buonvisi Altarpiece (1510–12), which he painted for the church of S. Frediano, Lucca, and which had been purchased by the National Gallery, London, in 1841. By the end of the century its lunette depicting the Pietà had become the most copied work in the gallery’s collection (Fig.2).13 Despite spending the majority of his working life in Bologna, Francia was viewed by nineteenth-century critics principally as a Ferrarese artist. The noted scholars Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle (1819–97) and John Arthur Crowe (1825–96) discussed Bolognese art in relation to its ‘Ferrarese origin’ and in his North Italian Painters of the Renaissance (1907) the connoisseur and art dealer Bernard 2. Pietà (lunette from the Buonvisi Altarpiece), by Francesco Francia. 1510–12. Oil on wood, 94 by 184.5 cm. (National Gallery, London).
the burlington magazine | 164 | january 2022
14/12/2021 23:55
Edith Coulson James, Francesco Francia and ‘The Burlington Magazine’
Berenson (1865–1959) made only passing comment on Francia as ‘a painter of small importance’.14 Coulson James believed that Bologna, which had produced ‘the art of Francia, and the art of Italy’s latest great school of painting’, merited fresh reconsideration, particularly due to its strength as a self-contained centre of artistic production.15 Since the late eighteenth century, the conception of the Bolognese school in the wider art-historical consensus had remained largely unchanged.16 In fact, the very existence of such a school was seen to begin only in the late sixteenth century under the Baroque painters Annibale Carracci, Guido Reni and Guercino, whose work attracted the attention of important collectors throughout Europe from the late seventeenth century onwards. These artists were especially admired among late eighteenthcentury British aristocratic collectors, as is demonstrated by the strong representation of these artists in the founding collection and early bequests to the National Gallery from the mid-1820s.17 The gallery’s first Director, Charles Eastlake (1793–1865), had endeavoured to expand the representation of Bolognese artists at the gallery and acquire examples by earlier artists of that school, securing, among other works, the Madonna of Humility by Lippo di Dalmasio (c.1353– 1410) in 1866. In her 1909 book Coulson James discussed Lippo as an artist deserving of greater recognition and acknowledged the National Gallery’s painting as an important example of this artist’s limited representation in public collections.18 However, despite Eastlake’s efforts, for much of the nineteenth century the Bolognese school was still principally represented in the National Gallery by the Baroque artists who were to be dismissed by those promoting the taste for the Italian Primitives. As Caroline Palmer has observed, the pioneering art writer Maria Callcott (1785–1842) was one of the first to describe Bolognese art of the seventeenth century ‘as vulgar, mannered and decadent’.19 Even in the latter decades of the nineteenth century the idea of Bologna having its own tradition of early art was dismissed. Writing in 1887, the collector and National Gallery Trustee Austen Henry Layard (1817–94) rejected the existence of an early Bolognese school entirely. He described the first half of the fourteenth century in Bologna as having produced ‘a few painters’ who ‘were for the most part mere workmen of little ability’, asserting ‘it was not until the Carracci appeared that Bologna can claim to have had a school of its own’.20 The growth of interest in the art of the Emilia-Romagna region was heralded by the Burlington Fine Arts Club (1866–1952). Founded by a small group of art critics, collectors and politicians, it formed a unique institution among the gentlemen’s clubs and exhibition venues of late nineteenth-century London, being entirely privately funded and with its displays drawing principally on loans from the collections of its members.21 It was particularly known for its ‘special exhibitions’, each dedicated to a
specific theme and designed and managed by a specialist committee, with external curators brought in to advise and contribute to the catalogue.22 In 1894 ‘Pictures of the School of Ferrara-Bologna’ was the chosen theme for the first of a series of specialist shows dedicated to individual regional schools of Italian art.23 Given that scholars had only recently turned their attention to these schools of art, Ferrara-Bologna was a remarkable choice.24 In contrast to Bologna, the school of Ferrara had experienced a sudden upturn of fortune in the mid-century. This was in large part due to the
3 E.E. Coulson James: ‘Points from Letters: Tests for old masters’, The Times (24th September 1927), p.6. 4 Ibid. 5 See, most recently, M. Clarke and F. Ventrella, eds: ‘Women’s expertise and the culture of connoisseurship’, Visual Resources 33 (2017); and M. Alambritis, S. Avery-Quash and H. Fraser, eds: ‘Old masters, modern women’, 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century 28 (2019), available at https://19.bbk.ac.uk/issue/116/ info/, accessed 6th December 2021. 6 ‘le importante scoperte di Edith Coulson James, inspiegabilmente ignorate da una storiografia tanto misogina, quanto ottusa’, E. Negro and N. Roio: Francesco Francia e la sua scuola, Modena 1998, p.64. 7 See H. Norton-Westbrook: ‘Between
English Studies in Italy 24 (2011), pp.579–88, at p.585. 12 E. Coulson James: Bologna: Its History, Antiquities and Art, London 1909. 13 As observed by Nicholas Penny in N. Penny and G. Mancini, eds: National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth Century Italian Paintings – 3: Bologna and Ferrara, London 2016, p.152. 14 J.A. Crowe and G.B. Cavalcaselle: History of Painting in North Italy, London 1871, I, p.566; and B. Berenson: North Italian Painters of the Renaissance, London 1907, pp.69–70. 15 Coulson James, op. cit. (note 12), p.xvii. 16 Penny and Mancini, op. cit. (note 13), p.24. 17 R. Cooper: ‘British attitudes towards the Italian primitives, 1815–1865, with special reference to the mid-nineteenth-
the ‘Collection Museum’ and the university: the rise of the connoisseurscholar and the evolution of art museum curatorial practice, 1900– 1940’, unpublished PhD thesis (University of Manchester, 2013), p.16. 8 This assumption is also implied in Norton-Westbrook’s thesis, where all the examples of the ‘connoisseurscholar’ she discusses are male. 9 See M. Clarke: Critical Voices: Women and Art Criticism in Britain, 1880–1905, Ashgate 2005, pp.5–26. 10 Anon.: ‘Death of Miss Edith Coulson James: a lady of intense loyalties’, Kent and Sussex Courier (5th June 1936), p.13; and Anon.: ‘Miss E. E. C. James, Italian archaeology and art’, The Times (3rd June 1936), p.16. 11 J.E. Law: ‘Interpreting the Italian Renaissance in Victorian and Edwardian Britain: some women writers’, Textus:
3. St John the Baptist, by Francesco Francia. (From THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 20 (1911), p.10, pl.1); photograph Edith E. Coulson James).
century fashion’, unpublished PhD thesis (University of Plymouth, 1976), p.96. 18 Coulson James, op. cit. (note 12), pp.334–36. 19 C. Palmer: ‘Maria Callcott on Poussin, painting, and the Primitives’, 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century 28 (2019), http://doi.org/10.16995/ntn.833. 20 A. Layard: Handbook of Painting: The Italian Schools, London 1887, II, p.363. 21 S.J. Pierson: Private Collecting, Exhibitions, and the Shaping of Art History in London: The Burlington Fine Arts Club, London 2017, p.x. 22 Ibid., pp.10–13. 23 Ibid., p.27. 24 As observed in F. Haskell: The Ephemeral Museum: Old Master Paintings and the Rise of the Art Exhibition, New Haven and London 2000, pp.94–97.
the burlington magazine | 164 | january 2022
ALAMBRITIS_CoulsonJames.indd 43
43
15/12/2021 14:06
Edith Coulson James, Francesco Francia and ‘The Burlington Magazine’
collector Giovanni Battista Costabili Containi (1756–1841), a native of the city, who at the turn of the nineteenth century had formed a collection of Ferrarese art, which soon garnered the interest of connoisseurs and museum directors.25 The gradual dispersal of the Costabili collection, with figures such as Layard and Eastlake acting as principal buyers, created a flurry of interest in such artists as Cosimo Tura (before 1431–95) and Francesco del Cossa (c.1435/36–c.1477/78), both leading painters at the court of the Dukes of Este at Ferrara. The ‘Historical Preface’ of the Burlington Fine Arts Club catalogue for the 1894 exhibition was written by the guest curator, Adolfo Venturi (1856–1941), the founder of the Italian journal L’Arte and later professor of medieval and modern art at the University of Rome. Venturi focused solely on the rise of the Ferrarese school, ‘high above that of the rest of Emilia’.26 The introduction, by the committee member Robert Benson (1850–1929), again lauded the merits of the Ferrarese school and its farreaching influence across the region. Benson named the school’s principal proponents as Tura, Cossa, Ercole de’ Roberti (c.1456–96) and Lorenzo Costa (1460–1535). He included Francia among this group because of the presence of Ferrarese artists like Cossa and Costa in Bologna.27 In contrast to this exhibition, Coulson James wished to demonstrate that Francia was in fact ‘the greatest artist of the Bolognese school, and wholly belonging to it’.28 Her theories were not received positively when published in 1909. A reviewer of her book in the Athenaeum disparaged her for ‘underrat[ing] the influence of Costa and Cossa upon Francia, [and] insisting upon a direct tradition of native art at Bologna starting from Lippo Dalmasio’.29 Coulson James realised that to be taken seriously, she would have to focus on specific, demonstrable findings, and publish them where they could be seen by specialists in the field – in The Burlington Magazine, founded in 1903. Spending extended periods of time in the archives at Bologna, Coulson James soon became well connected among the scholarly community there and it was with this camp that she aligned herself. Nineteenth-century Bologna witnessed the flourishing of specialised historiographic scholarship, characterised by intense study of the city’s past through its wealth of archival material.30 There are copies of Coulson James’s publications with handwritten dedications in the private library of Albano Sorbelli (1875–1944), the director of the Biblioteca Archiginnasio, which now forms part of the city’s important municipal library. In 1927, when Sorbelli published a four-volume edited collection Bologna negli scrittori stranieri, Coulson James was included among the dedicatees.31 Her letters to other Bolognese museum officials and scholars contain frequent expressions of gratitude and recollections of kind help and support during her time spent researching there. The contacts among her unpublished extant correspondence in the Biblioteca Archiginnasio include Giovanni Capellini (1833–1922), a noted geologist at the University of Bologna; Edouardo Brizio (1846–1907), director of Bologna’s Museo Civico; and Giuseppe Tanari (1852–1933), the then mayor of Bologna.32 The first notice of the results of her research were published in the Burlington in 1911, where Coulson James rediscovered an ‘exquisitely painted’, but overlooked half-length portrait of St John the Baptist located in the Palazzo Comunale of San Giovanni in Persiceto, a small town close to Bologna, by Francia (Fig.3).33 This, she had personally photographed 25 J. Anderson: ‘The rediscovery of Ferrarese Renaissance painting in the Risorgimento’, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 135 (1993), pp.539–49, at pp.544–48. 26 Exh. cat. Exhibition of Pictures, Drawings and Photographs of Works of the School of Ferrara-Bologna, 1440–1540, London (Burlington Fine Arts Club) 1894, p.vii.
44
ALAMBRITIS_CoulsonJames.indd 44
27 Ibid., p.xxiiii. 28 Coulson James, op. cit. (note 12), p.343. 29 Anon.: ‘Review of Edith Coulson James, Bologna: its History, Antiquities, and Art (1909)’, Athenaeum (28th May 1910), pp.632–33. 30 See S. Rubin Blanshei: A Companion to Medieval and Renaissance Bologna, Leiden and Boston 2018, p.8.
4. Portrait of Francesco Francia, after the painter’s self-portrait, by Carlo Faucci after Francesco Francia. 1763. Etching and engraving, 44.1 by 26.5 cm. (British Museum, London). Opposite 5. Portrait of a man with a ring, attributed by Edith E. Coulson James to Francesco Francia. c.1472–77. Oil on panel, 38.5 by 27.5 cm. (Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid).
and published for the first time and the painting was subsequently accepted as autograph by both Berenson and Venturi without, however, crediting Coulson James.34 Although her discovery may not have been groundbreaking, the omission of her responsibility for bringing it to light is an example of the erasure of women’s work, particularly of one whose lack of official affiliation rendered her an easy target for dismissal. Coulson James’s subsequent research concentrated on her attempt to identify and authenticate a self-portrait by Francia (Fig.5). Published as a series of articles in the Burlington, the Connoisseur and L’Archiginnasio, and culminating in a pamphlet, Gli auto-ritratti di Francesco Francia, published in 1922, she hoped that in identifying the artist’s portrait and ‘making it known will help to win for him the general recognition that [she believed] the greatness of his work merits’, as she wrote in an article on the portrait 31 A. Sorbelli: Bologna negli scrittori stranieri, IV, Bologna 1927. These volumes detail the impressions of foreign visitors to Bologna up until the eighteenth century and therefore do not include those of Coulson James. 32 Biblioteca Archiginnasio, Bologna, Fondo speciale Eduardo Brizio, cartone 5, fasc.1, pp.98–101, Fondo speciale Giuseppe Tanari, cartone 50, 112,
Fondo speciale Giovanni Capellini, cartone 37, fasc.14, BCABo. 33 E. Coulson James: ‘S. John the Baptist by Francesco Francia’, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 20 (1911), pp.6–11. 34 A. Venturi: Storia dell’Arte Italiana, Milano 1914, VII, Part 3, p.929; and B. Berenson: Italian Pictures of the Renaissance, Oxford 1932, p.209.
the burlington magazine | 164 | january 2022
15/12/2021 14:09
Edith Coulson James, Francesco Francia and ‘The Burlington Magazine’
the burlington magazine | 164 | january 2022
ALAMBRITIS_CoulsonJames.indd 45
45
15/12/2021 00:09
Edith Coulson James, Francesco Francia and ‘The Burlington Magazine’
6. St Sebastian, by Lorenzo Costa. 1480–85. Tempera on panel, 171.7 by 58.4 cm. (Gëmaldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden).
published in the Burlington in 1917.35 Francia was not represented in the Uffizi’s famed collection of artists’ self-portraits and no self-portrait of his was displayed at any of the other major European galleries. Coulson James was aware that the authentication of such a work was of great importance in bringing attention to Francia as an individual master in his own right. While searching Bologna’s archives, Coulson James found a note in an unpublished manuscript, ‘Memorie per la vita e delle opere artistiche del Francia’, written by Gaetano Giordani (1800–73), the former Keeper of Bologna’s Pinacoteca, which alerted her to the existence of a self-portrait by Francia in the collection of the local noble Boschi family. It also recorded that the portrait had been engraved in the eighteenth century by Carlo Faucci (1729–84). Giordani’s notes led Coulson James to an earlier source, Marcello Oretti (1714–87), a famed authority on the art of Bologna, who provided two references to the portrait, which he also attributed to Francia, described as a ‘half figure of a man holding a ring’.36 Obtaining an introduction to the Marchesa Boschi, Coulson James discovered that the portrait in question had remained in the family home until 1858, when on the death of the Marchese Valerio Boschi, the collection was sold en bloc to the Roman dealer Vito Enei.37 Otto Mündler (1811–70) in his capacity as the National Gallery’s travelling agent during the 1850s had seen the painting in person prior to its sale to Enei, describing it as the ‘capital work of the collection [. . .] Possibly of [Francia’s] early stile [sic] [. . .] painted about 1480. But without the tradition (constant and scarcely doubtful?), one would scarcely think of Franco Fra[ncia]’.38 This passage identifies the main point of contention about this painting that was to hinder the successful reception of Coulson James’s attribution: the discrepancy between the ‘constant and scarcely doubtful’ tradition recorded diligently in Bolognese archival documents and the appearance of the painting, which did not fit the contemporary conception of what a Francia should look like. As encapsulated by the influential art historian Julia Cartwright (1851–1924) in her short monograph on Francia and Mantegna published in 1881, Francia’s wide appeal to contemporary audiences was due to the ‘purity and gentleness’ of his art, which ‘belonged to the old world of the earlier religious painters’.39 It was the ‘hard style’ evident in the portrait that, wrote Coulson James, ‘disturbed so many critics to see in a work attributed to Francia’.40 Although Coulson James did not see the painting on this occasion, her visit to the Casa Boschi provided her with a copy of the Faucci engraving, given to her by the Marchesa. This print incorporated an inscription identifying the image as a self-portrait of Francia in the renowned Boschi collection: ‘Francisci de Raibolinis Franciae dicti Effigies descripta ex tabula, quae extat in Pinacotheca Egregii, ac Nobilis Bononiae Viri Valerii Boschi, Franciae ipsus manu, ubi se ita representavit’. In her 1917 Burlington article, Coulson James noted the rarity of this print, which 35 E. Coulson James: ‘A portrait from the Boschi Collection, Bologna’, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 30 (1917), pp.73–78, at p.78. 36 Ibid., pp.73–74. 37 Prior to this sale, Enei had unsuccessfully attempted in 1856 to purchase the entire Costabili collection himself, see Penny and Mancini, op. cit. (note 13), p.398. 38 C. Togneri Dowd and J. Anderson, eds: ‘The travel diaries of Otto Mündler 1855–1858’, Walpole Society 51 (1985), pp.116–17. 39 J. Cartwright: Mantegna and Francia, London 1881, pp.106–07.
46
ALAMBRITIS_CoulsonJames.indd 46
Cartwright notes that at the end of the previous century ‘a half-length figure of Francia holding a diamond ring, by his own hand’ was known to be in the Boschi collection, and she had seen for herself the painting exhibited at Burlington House, but maintained that it had ‘too little in common with Francia’s style [. . .] although a print of it, bearing the date 1763 and the name of the goldsmith painter is said to exist’ (p.99). 40 E. Coulson James: Gli autoritratti di Francesco Raibolini, detto il Francia, Bologna 1922, p.8. 41 British Museum, London, inv.
the burlington magazine | 164 | january 2022
15/12/2021 00:13
Edith Coulson James, Francesco Francia and ‘The Burlington Magazine’
even the British Museum did not possess, a fact she remedied in 1922 when she donated her copy to that institution (Fig.4).41 Having begun her search for the portrait in April 1913, by June 1915 Coulson James had drafted her preliminary findings. Then, in the Burlington’s issue for that month Coulson James found her next lead, in an article on the noted portrait painter Baldassare d’Este (1432– after 1506) by Herbert Cook (1868–1939) that included an illustration of the painting for which she was searching. Cook cautiously identified it as a portrait of Baldassare and attributed it to Cosimo Tura; he also recorded that it had belonged to William Neville Abdy (1844–1910) and had been sold in 1911.42 Coulson James amended her article in response to Cook’s and submitted it for publication. In July 1915 a short ‘Notice’ appeared in the Magazine: ‘Miss E.E. Coulson James reports to us that after several years’ search she has succeeded in tracing the portrait which Francia painted of himself, and we shall publish her evidence of this interesting discovery, with illustrations, as soon as possible, probably in our August number’.43 Yet Coulson James would have to wait almost two years to see her article in print. As finally published, in the February 1917 issue,44 the article describes how she had recognised the portrait in Cook’s article because it matched the Faucci engraving, and she presented the reasons for her attribution of it to Francia. She explained that in 1881, when the painting belonged to Abdy, it had been exhibited at Burlington House as a self-portrait by Francia.45 However, when the painting was sold by Christie’s in 1911, she wrote, ‘the attribution was changed on very high authority’ to Cosimo Tura.46 Finally, Cook had made the alternative assertion that the portrait was by Baldassare. Coulson James disagreed with both recent attributions, insisting that her ‘long experience of the trust-worthiness of the records of Bologna’ led her to follow the ‘Bolognese tradition’, even if it meant ‘to differ from so eminent a critic’ as the one who attributed it to Tura.47 Acknowledging that the Faucci engraving was not sufficient proof that the portrait was indeed that of Francia, she pointed out that it was ‘evidence that the owner of the picture in 1763 believed it to be the portrait’ of the artist, and her article presented both the engraving and an enlarged image of its inscription, which identified the image as such.48 Although Coulson James had yet to see the portrait in person, she offered an examination of its formal features from the photograph, a practice that she was especially comfortable with, being an active photographer herself. Whereas earlier writers relied on first-hand observations to authenticate their opinions, the flourishing of photography at the end of the century marked major changes for the practice of art history, and the ability to read a photograph soon became viewed as a connoisseurial skill in its own right.49 Particularly for women in the field, developing such ‘hybrid methodological innovations’ combining the use of photography and archival research also ‘represent[ed] a response to the need to navigate a male profession as a woman’.50 As Coulson James noted, ‘form and design are evidences’ visible in a photograph and she observed that details such as the ‘rocks, the water, the tiny figures’ of no.1992, 0913.1. 42 H. Cook: ‘Further light on Baldassare d’Este’, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 27 (1915), pp.98–104. This followed idem: ‘Baldassare d’Este’, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 19 (1911), pp.228–33. 43 Anon.: ‘Note’, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 27 (1915), p.172. 44 Coulson James, op. cit. (note 35). 45 Ibid., p.74. 46 Ibid.; Sale, Christie’s, London, The Collection of Pictures by Old Masters of the late Sir William Neville Abdy, Bart, 5th May 1911, lot 128: Portrait of a gentleman, by Cosimo
Tura: ‘Bust to right, standing behind a balustrade, and holding a ring in his left hand; long fair hair; black cap; grey dress with slate-coloured cape; rocks and water in the background. On panel – 13 ½ in by 9 ¼ in Exhibited at Burlington House, 1881, when it was described as “Francesca Francia, Portrait of the Painter”’, p.29. This change of attribution appears to have occurred prior to the sale, as Christie’s specialists were not responsible for this change. Unfortunately, no notes that may have been taken during the cataloguing of this painting for the
the background and ‘strongly characteristic’ cloud formations were ‘universally recognised’ elements of Francia’s work.51 Her article was accompanied by an editorial note from Fry praising, albeit in condescending tones, ‘Miss James’s documentary evidence, collected with much enthusiasm and industry’, but witholding the Burlington’s endorsement on the grounds that among ‘critics of the present day who have examined the picture [. . .] we know of none who attributes the portrait to Francesco Francia’. Fry insisted that Coulson James needed to present ‘stronger intrinsic evidence than she offers’.52 It was here that her allegiance to the historical and documentary-based method of Bolognese scholarship placed her at odds with the primacy placed on the ‘connoisseurial eye’ and the ‘impression’ of an artist on the viewer. Fry’s dismissal of Coulson James’s research jars with the core values of a journal that prided itself as the place for scholarly debate and discussion of art among contributors from across methodological backgrounds. By postponing the publication of her article until 1917, Fry effectively removed Coulson James’s opinion from the active debate. Her contribution was deferred and the impact her article would have made, had it been published immediately after Cook’s, diffused. Coulson James herself was in no doubt that this delay was deliberate, to avoid the Magazine appearing to contradict the recent attribution by the ‘very high authority’ or a potential clash with Cook’s identification of Baldassare as the sitter. In her 1922 pamphlet Gli auto-ritratti di Francesco Francia, published in Italian, further details are given of the frustration she experienced due to this hindrance to the publication of her research.53 Referring back to her postponed Burlington article of February 1917, Coulson James reveals that Fry was aware of the potential conflict between her own opinion and that of the unnamed ‘celebrated critic’ who had examined Abdy’s collection in preparation for its sale. This critic had reattributed some of the works including changing the attribution of the portrait from Francia to Tura, and in private correspondence with Coulson James had refused her request to cite his name as the authority responsible for this change.54 Coulson James also noted that Fry, without seeking her permission or notifying her before publication, had changed the title of her article and the caption she had provided for her own photograph of the Boschi portrait, which he amended to ‘Portrait, subject and painter doubtful’, and modified her argument, which she believed had left holes in its clear sequence.55 Disheartened at this unfounded dismissal of two years of dedicated research, Coulson James sought endorsement for her theories from a scholar more aligned to her own approach, who also had influence among such figures as Cook and Fry – Venturi. In 1916, following the postponement of her article, Coulson James wrote to Venturi detailing her evidence for the Boschi portrait, including her photograph of the Faucci engraving. This letter reveals that the unnamed authority responsible for changing the painting’s attribution at the Abdy sale was Claude Phillips (1846–1924), the first Keeper of the Wallace Collection, London. Fry had delayed the publication of her work when he ‘discovered that the evidence of [Coulson 1911 sale are extant. I am grateful to Lynda McLeod at Christie’s Archive, London, for her help in providing this information. 47 Coulson James, op. cit. (note 35), p.77. 48 Ibid. 49 C. Palmer: ‘“I will tell nothing that I did not see”: British women’s travel writing, art and the science of connoisseurship, 1776–1860’, Forum for Modern Language Studies 51, no.3 (2015), pp.248–68; and A. Hamber: ‘The use of photography by nineteenthcentury art historians’, in H.E. Roberts, ed.: Art History Through the Camera’s
Lens, Amsterdam 1995, pp.89–121. 50 F. Ventrella: ‘Constance Jocelyn Ffoulkes and the modernization of scientific connoisseurship’, Visual Resources 33, nos.1–2 (2017), pp.117–39, at p.132, doi:10.1080/ 01973762.2017.1276735. 51 Coulson James, op. cit. (note 35), p.77. 52 Ibid., p.78. 53 Coulson James op. cit. (note 40), p.6. 54 Ibid. 55 Ibid., pp.6–7. There is no record of Coulson James’s original title and caption.
the burlington magazine | 164 | january 2022
ALAMBRITIS_CoulsonJames.indd 47
47
15/12/2021 00:17
Edith Coulson James, Francesco Francia and ‘The Burlington Magazine’
James’s] article conflicted with the dictum of a high art authority in England’, despite the fact he had published Cook’s alternative attribution.56 Referring to her correspondence with Phillips regarding both her own opinion on the portrait and that of Cook, Coulson James informed Venturi that ‘I am convinced that there is nothing in the design or construction to preclude the possibility that it is the work of Francesco Francia. In fact there are many points that I note as evidence of his hand’.57 She noted with irony how, ‘Sir Claude & others have failed to recognise the Ferrarese influence that came in the School of Bologna with Francesco Cossa, Cosimo Tura & Lorenzo Costa’, the issue that Cook and Venturi had been keen to further in the Burlington Fine Art’s Club exhibition, and which she herself had been reprimanded for failing to acknowledge in her earlier work, where she had framed Francia as Bolognese rather than Ferrarese.58 Venturi was then in the process of reattributing a St Sebastian in the collection of the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden, from Tura to Lorenzo Costa (Fig.6). In a letter to Venturi of 3rd January 1916, which refers to her correspondence with Phillips, Coulson James expressed her interest in aiding Venturi to find evidence upholding his attribution, particularly as it held implications for the endorsement of her own findings on the Boschi portrait (see Appendix). As she wrote: ‘the revising of generally accepted views of Francia’s work is exactly what I am working for’.59 Although she maintained correspondence with Venturi, regularly updating him on the progress of her research, he never publicly supported her work. In her subsequent articles, appearing regularly in the Connoisseur and L’Archiginnasio until 1927, Coulson James continued to publish her ongoing research and findings. This included her discovery of an even earlier engraving of the supposed Francia self-portrait, by the seventeenthcentury Bolognese artist Domenico Santi (1621–94) (Fig.7).60 Noting that Bartsch’s Le Peintre graveur (1803) had mentioned this engraving among Santi’s work, she had consulted Francesco Malaguzzi Valeri (1867–1928), the Director of the Pinacoteca Bologna, who advised her to examine the Gozzadini collection of prints in the Archiginnasio. There she found ‘a very large, thick, vellum-bound scrapbook’ of sixteenth-century engravings, ‘never catalogued’, including that by Santi.61 Coulson James argued that since Santi was a colleague of the Caracci, who traced their lineage back to Francia, here was evidence of a continuous tradition of the portrait being known in Bologna as that of Francesco Francia at least since Santi’s time.62 After being sold by the Boschi family in 1858, and having passed through William Abdy’s collection in London, the portrait was acquired by the Berlin banker and collector Leopold Koppel (1843–1933). While in his collection the attribution was changed to Cossa, once more on Philipps’s authority. It was then acquired by the Von Pannwitz family in Haarlem.63 It was there that Coulson James was able finally to see the longsought for painting in person. This confirmed her belief that the painting was indeed Francia’s self-portrait.64 The portrait is today in the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, having been purchased from the Von Pannwitz collection in 1956, and it retains there its attribution to Cossa. Aside from Negro and Roio’s acknowledgment of Coulson James’s work, it is usually assumed that she attributed the portrait to Francia solely on the grounds that the ring the sitter is holding refers to his work as a goldsmith.65 However, she always acknowledged that the ring was no more than ‘incidental evidence’.66 Reading her work as a whole, it is clear that 56 See Appendix. 57 Ibid. 58 Ibid. 59 Ibid. 60 E. Coulson James: ‘An engraved portrait of Francesco Raibolini – Il Francia’, Connoisseur
48
ALAMBRITIS_CoulsonJames.indd 48
her argument is underscored by detailed investigation, painstaking pursuit of archival documentation and the tracking down of other examples of Francia’s portraiture with which the painting can be compared. Countering the general consensus of the past, Negro and Roio now follow Coulson James and accept the work as a self-portrait by Francia.67 In the recent National Gallery catalogue of the Bologna and Ferrara schools, Francia’s contemporaneous reputation as a portrait painter is acknowledged, as is Coulson James for her series of articles on the artist, although the only portrait cited as securely authentic is that of Federigo Gonzaga in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.68 Coulson James’s attribution may not be widely upheld today, but it is nonetheless concerning to see that the Museo Nacional ThyssenBornemisza’s detailed online catalogue entry for the portrait is incomplete. It provides information related to the painting’s provenance, identifying it as the portrait from the Boschi family that was later sold by Abdy, and acknowledges the existence of both the Faucci and Santi engravings – all findings directly resulting from the Coulson James’s research. Yet her name is not cited anywhere, although the opinions of not only Cook but also Bernard Berenson and Roberto Longhi about the attribution are all referred to.69 The erasure of Coulson James’s research and scholarship, both in her own time and today, provides another clear case of how the institutionalisation of art history in the first half of the twentieth century limited the kinds of voices deemed worthy of a platform. Whereas earlier in the century, engagement with the methods and practice of foreign art scholarship gave women authority, this was no longer enough for such women as Coulson James who were active in the field half a century later. Furthermore, her example prompts the question: which other voices have also been pushed out of the frame, still to be recovered? The establishment of The Burlington Magazine gave Britain at long last its own scholarly art journal. However, engaging in such a publication also necessitated navigating the increasingly restrictive boundaries of disciplinary institutionalisation, something that most women at the time 7. Portrait of Francesco Francia, by Domenico Santi. Mid-to-late 17th century. Engraving. (From the Connoisseur 65 (1923), p.88, pl.1).
65 (1923), pp.88–90. 61 Ibid., p.89. 62 Ibid. 63 Negro and Roio, op. cit. (note 6), p.127. 64 E. Coulson James: ‘Un’altra pittura creduta perduta, del Francia, ritrovata’,
the burlington magazine | 164 | january 2022
15/12/2021 00:17
Edith Coulson James, Francesco Francia and ‘The Burlington Magazine’
found difficult to achieve, as the case study of Coulson James demonstrates. Overall, whether in Victorian art journals, foreign titles or specialist magazines, the contribution of women to the art press provided a means of articulating their findings at the moment of discovery and in asserting their voices in topical debates of the day. Although this material is often omitted in historiographical accounts, paying attention to it not only develops our understanding of a specific facet of nineteenth-century women’s work in the periodical press more broadly, but also helps populate our existing understanding of taste, attribution and the reception of the old masters in unexpected and illuminating ways. appendix Letter from Edith E. Coulson James to Adolfo Venturi, 3rd January 1916. Pisa, Centro Archivistico, Scuola Normale Superiore, Fondo Adolfo Venturi, AV Cart. XIII, 895. Dear Prof. Venturi I think you will be interested in hearing of a picture I have been tracing. It is the ‘auto-ritratto’ of Francia which hung in the Palazzo Boschi at Bologna until 1858. In the course of my researches at Bologna, I obtained M.S. Evidence of the existence of this picture and of the fact that it had been engraved by Faucci in 1763. I made enquiries & by the kind introduction of friends, obtained an interview with the Marchesa Boschi, wife of the Grandson of the Marchese on whose death the picture collection was sold. They did not know what h[a]d become of the pictures, & the few art authorities in Bologna who knew of the existence of the auto-ritratto believes it to be irreparably lost. I enclose a print from my photography of the engraving. I have succeeded in tracing the original picture in England. It was sold at Christie’s 4 1/2 years ago. But in the sale catalogue it was described as portrait of an unknown gentleman & ascribed to Cosimo Tura. Even as an unknown portrait it realised 1,800 guineas. Herbert Cook, in an article in the June number of the Burlington Magazine, ascribes that picture (& others) to Baldassare d’Este. I have been in correspondence with Sir Claude Phillips on the subject. At the time of the sale he thought the picture was the work of Cosimo Tura, but he now prefers to ascribe it to Francesco Cossa. Both these authorities maintain that the portrait is not in the manner of Francia. I have not yet been able to see the picture itself, but so far as one can judge from a reproduction, I am convinced that there is nothing in the design or construction to preclude the possibility that it is the work of Francesco Francia. In fact there are many points that I note as evidence of his hand. I admit that the engraving of 1763 is not absolute proof that the picture is the auto-ritratto of Francia. It is only proof that the Marchese Valerio Boschi who then possessed the picture, & Faucci who engraved it, believed it to be the auto-ritratto of Francia, as is stated in the inscription engraved with the picture. I have ascertained that the picture was exhibited at the Winter Exhibition at Burlington House in 1881, & was then described in the catalogue as ‘Francesco Francia. Portrait of the painter’. Sir William Abdy was already the owner of it, so clearly he purchased it with that attribution L’Archiginnasio 18 (1923), p.87. 65 S. Hoffmann: Entry on Francesco del Cossa, Portrait of a young man with a ring’, in K. Christiansen and S. Weppelmann, eds: exh. cat. The Renaissance Portrait: From Donatello to Bellini, Berlin (Bode Museum) and
New York (Metropolitan Museum of Art) 2011, pp.273–76, cat. no.112. 66 Coulson James, op. cit. (note 35), p.74. 67 Negro and Roio, op. cit. (note 6), p.127. 68 Metropolitan Museum of Art,
which I hold to be the correct one. It must have been at the time of the sale at Christie’s that the attribution was changed. My friends in Bologna are helping in seeking for evidence of earlier date to complete the proof of authorship. The Marchese Boschi will continue to seek evidence in the family ‘archivio’. At present the engraving of 1763 & the catalogue of the Pinacotheca Boschi of 1777 are the earliest evidences. But there is evidence that the picture was accepted in Bologna as the auto-ritratto of Francia, & that tradition continues there until the present day. And the authorities in Bologna may be expected to have knowledge in this matter. My study of Bolognese sources gives me confidence in the accuracy of Bolognese tradition. Do you know anywhere in Rome (or elsewhere) any portrait which could be a portrait of the same man as is represented in the little print I send you? There should be another portrait of Francia by his own hand, which he sent to his friend Raffaello. There is mention of that in Malvasia. I shall be glad to have your opinion on the evidence I have placed before you, & shall be grateful for any help you can kindly give me in vindicating the credit of the great painter of Bologna. You may be interested to know that I have secured confirmation of the accuracy of your attribution to Lorenzo Costa of the St. Sebastian in the Dresden Gallery, catalogued as a work of Cosimo Tura. I have the authority of the Regius Professor of Hebrew, Oxford, for the fact that the Hebrew inscription in that picture at the base of the column does read ‘Opus Lorenzo Costa’.*70 Sir Claude Phillips referred to your opinion on the authorship of the picture, & said: – ‘If this harsh & essentially Ferrarese work were really by Francia’s contemporary & friendly rival, it would be easier to accept as possible your attribution to Francia himself of the Tura (or Costa) portrait. We should then be compelled to reconsider the origins of these closely related Bolognese masters. Personally I am entirely unable to accept either the one of the other attribution’. I think Sir Claude & others have failed to recognise the Ferrarese influence that came in the School of Bologna with Francesco Cossa, Cosimo Tura & Lorenzo Costa. I sent Sir Claude the confirmation by the Regius Professor, & hoped that the consequences which he foresaw would be immediately accepted by him. But he cannot give up his opinion that the portrait is not the work of Francia. The revising of generally accepted views of Francia’s work is exactly what I am working for. I have information that a portrait of Francesco Francia was recorded among the pictures in the Gallery of the conte d’apache of Turin. It is mentioned by M. Paroletti in 1826. But that picture seems also to have disappeared & cannot at present be traced. That may have been the autoritratto sent to Raffaello. It cannot have been the portrait of the Pinacotheca Boschi. The evidence is quite clear & conclusive that that picture was in the Palazzo Boschi from 1763 to 1858. How long before 1763 it was in the possession of the Boschi family has not yet been proved. With kind regards, & best wishes for the speedy victory of Italy & the Allies in our great fight for right & honour. Yours sincerely Edith E. Coulson James New York, inv. no.14.40.638. See Penny and Mancini, op. cit. (note 13), p.151. 69 M. Borobia: ‘Portrait of a man with a ring’, online catalogue entry, available at www.museothyssen.org/ en/collection/artists/cossa-francesco/
portrait-man-ring, accessed 6th December 2021. 70 ‘*Crowe & Cavalcaselle ascribed this picture to Lorenzo Costa, also reading the Hebrew inscription as you do’ (note added by Coulson James).
the burlington magazine | 164 | january 2022
ALAMBRITIS_CoulsonJames.indd 49
49
15/12/2021 00:18