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BULLETIN
D U M U S É E HON G R OI S D E S B E A U X - A RT S
Bulletin Du MusĂŠe hongrois Des Beaux-arts
t h e M u s e u M o f f i n e a rt s i s s u p p o rt e D B y t h e M i n i s t r y o f h u M a n r e s o u r c e s .
Bulletin Du MusĂŠe hongrois Des Beaux-arts
2013 /118 BuDapest
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t r a n s l at i o n
p é t e r a g ó c s (51–73)
. ilDikó csepregi
(129–147)
a D r i a n h a rt (21–50, 109–127, 163–166, 173–184, 187–197) z o ltá n k á r pát i (101–107, 167–172)
. é va l i p t a y
(157–162)
ta M á s M e k i s (7–20) language correction
JuDit Borus
. eszter karDos . John king . anna köves
responsiBle puBlisher
lászló Baán
general Director
M u s e u M of f i n e a rt s , B u D a p e s t issn 0133-5545
.
2013
contents
ta M á s Mekis 9
the egyptian collection of ferenc kiss of kissáros
péter gaBoDa 21
t h e r o y a l l i o n s p e a r i n g M o t i f o n a w e D J at p l a q u e o f s h o s h e n q i i i : a stuDy of coMple xly structureD le vels of Meaning
a n D r á s k á r pát i 51
a k r at e r w i t h p h r y n i s i n B u D a p e s t
hans rupprecht goet te – árpáD Miklós nagy 75
zuM schlachtsarkophag iM MuseuM Der BilDenDen künste, BuDapest – nachantike üBerarBeitungen antiker sarkophage
z o ltá n k á r pát i 101
an unDescriBeD version of lanDscape with a horseMan
anD his grooM after titian
anDrea czére 109
eighteenth-century italian Dr awings i n t h e M u s e u M o f f i n e a r t s , B u D a p e s t. n e a p o l i t a n r a r i t i e s
Miria M szőcs 129
f r oM h a n s r e ic h l e to g u g l i e lM o De l l a p orta
francesco petrucci 149
u n n u o v o D i p i n t o D e l c ava l i e r t r o p pa n e l M u s e o De l l e Be l l e a rt i Di B u Da pe s t
157
s hort not ic e s
é va l i p tay 157
two faces froM coffins
szilvia BoDnár 163
a DisputeD Dr awing By hans Bock sBer ger the elDer in BuDapest
z o ltá n k á r pát i 167
a f i g u r e s t u D y B y i l c ava l i e r e g i u s e p p e c e s a r i D ’ a r p i n o
zsuzsanna DoBos 173
giuseppe verMiglio’s penitent MagDalene
o r s o l ya r a D vá n y i 179
a life De voteD to art – gáBor tére y’s legac y in his l a st will anD testa Ment
185
e xhiBitions
187
n e w p u B l i c at i o n s
v i l M o s tát r a i 187
z o lt á n k á r p át i a n D e s z t e r s e r e s .
r a ph a e l . Dr aw i ng s i n B u Da pe s t
191
ne w acquisitions
kinga BóDi 191
still interferences on paper
the egyptian collection of f e re nc k i s s of kissár os
ta M á s Mekis
the career of ferenc kiss1
Ferenc Kiss (fig. 1) was born in Vienna on 8 December 1791 to Gabriel Kiss and Baroness Johanna van der Ketten.2 His father and his uncle,3 Joseph Kiss, were two of the most renowned engineers of their age, responsible for planning and constructing the magnificent Francis Canal (now Veliki Kanal, Serbia), which reduced the distance between the Danube and Tisa rivers by creating a navigable section exceeding 100 km in length.4 Kiss was only nine years old when he, his brother and his sisters lost their parents and became wards of his uncle, who educated the children as carefully as his own son. Kiss studied law, was employed as a public prosecutor in Pest by 1814, and became assessor at the directorate of the Francis Canal in Zombor (Bács County, Serbia) in 1820.5
1 . half-length portrait of ferenc kiss, 1855 BuDapest, hungarian national MuseuM
In 1828, after the termination of the lease on his property in Bács, he retired and settled in Buda with his wife, Baroness Luisa von Hornig Hornburg. At that time he was enjoying a great career as an appeals court judge in several counties of Hungary, but seemingly because of ill health he decided to retire and begin a new way of life. 6 In his curriculum vitae, submitted to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1840, he described that year as an important turning point: “I live in Buda with neither duties nor cares, therefore I have been passionately engaged for 12 years in revealing the truth, though it be concealed by centuries and millennia.”7 From that point, his life’s work as a passionate collector began to take shape. He travelled a lot: Austria, Bavaria and Saxony, Turkey and Italy were just some of his destinations,8 where he established
7
friendships with scientists, historians and archaeologists. Unfortunately that we know only a few names among his extensive acquaintances. He conducted correspondence with Joseph von Arneth, guardian of the Cabinet of Antiquities and Medals at the Imperial Museum in Vienna,9 and with Ignaz von Olfers, director of the Royal Museum in Berlin, but we also know that he visited Rome (Sapienzia University) and Naples (Real Museo Borbonico), where he gave lectures on antiquities.10 His relationships with other Hungarian collectors are also known from his letters and from his writings; Miklós Jankovich,11 József Weszerle,12 Sámuel Literáti Nemes13 and Mihály Viczay14 were among those he actively consulted on the subject of medals and other antiquities. In a letter of 1837 he wrote: “After I resigned from that [his government office] and encouraged my innate passion with some trips to Italy, I engaged with success in archaeology and in the science of collecting old medals for 13 years.”15 Though we do not know all the paths he took in pursuit of antiquities to collect, his itineraries reveal for us that Trieste was an important port of call on his journeys. Where Egyptian antiquities were concerned, this city had, since the 1820s, become the most important European landing point for merchants from Alexandria. Between 1838 and 1859 Kiss published two monographs and more than twenty articles.16 He was an honoured researcher of the epoch, and therefore he was elected a corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.17 In 1843, for reasons still unknown,18 Kiss decided to sell the collection of antiquities and coins19 that he kept in his comfortable home in Buda (on the corner of Attila Street and Mikó Street). On 11 December 1843 he signed a contract of sale with the National Museum of Hungary.20 Thereafter, his writings reveal that he became increasingly devoted to numismatics. He offered several pieces from his second great coin collection to the Numismatic Cabinet of the University of Pest, where he also became assistant teacher in the Department of Archaeology and Numismatics in 1849.21 When he died in 1859, he bequeathed 483 antique medals to his son Jenő Kiss, a collection that was eventually sold in Austria.22 the antiquit y collection anD the aegyptiaca
As Géza Entz remarked in his work, the ambient beginning of the nineteenth century was favourable for the collecting of art and objects of interest among aristocrats and members of the lesser nobility as well as educated and affluent citizens—“though the number of private collections increased, their importance diminished due to the newly established public collections. The evidential cultural value of private collections was merged with the incessantly growing collection of the National Museum, which became the leader of artistic taste for society as a whole, and its symbol of artistic interests.” 23 The words of
8
Géza Entz clearly illustrate the atmosphere of the epoch in which Kiss lived, and they properly characterize Kiss’s artistic taste, as well as the content and history of his collections. Previously, the background of Kiss’s passion for collecting antiquities was outlined, along with his travels to the north of Italy and to Saxony and Bavaria, and how these played a part in establishing his Egyptian collection. Unfortunately the archival resources are laconic, and we mostly know about his antiquity dealers, but it is hoped that the publication of his itineraries will provide a more complete view of his markets. It is certain that he purchased his Aegyptiaca, consisting of 22 objects, between 1819 and 1843, the year when he sold his antiquities to the National Museum.24 Despite the lack of concrete information on the provenance of his collection, in the contract signed on 11 December 1843, he declared that “after several years of trouble with huge expenses, with due care and work … I obtained my collection of coins and other antique rarities concerning Greek, Roman, Hungarian and parts of the territories belonging to the Holy Crown from different parts of Europe.”25 On 1 July 1843, as Miklós Jankovich had done in 1825,26 he offered his collection for purchase to the National Museum,27 requesting the support of Palatine Joseph.28 Two specialists, József Weszerle and a certain Mionetto of Italian origin, were asked to appraise the collection, which was valued at 12,500 conventional forints.29 On 29 November 1843, in Pozsony (Bratislava, Slovakia), Archduke Joseph, palatine of Hungary, agreed to purchase the whole collection for 12,000 conventional forints. Two detailed, and a synoptic list of the objects offered for sale have survived. The most detailed is the one kept at the Hungarian National Museum (in ten volumes, in thematic order). Catalogue no. III, containing the list of antiquities, can be found in the Archaeological Archive of the Museum, while the rest of the volumes are in the Cabinet of Medals with their respective content. The ten-volume catalogue serves the dual function of an inventory of the objects as well as a contract-list for the sale of the whole collection. Our second source consists of what are referred to as Kiss’s “home catalogues”, which are also kept in the Cabinet of Medals in the Hungarian National Museum.30 The synoptic list with the title “Extractus summarius collectionum nummorum, et antiquitatum Francisci Kiss” was prepared for Palatine Joseph when Kiss offered his collection for purchase.31 With regard to Kiss’s collection, only 22 of the 431 antiquities (listed in catalogue III) were Egyptian. If we only consider the number of objects in the collection, it is not an extraordinary ensemble, but some items are nevertheless of great importance. His method of collecting can be deduced from the variety of his collections.
9
2
10
.
w o o D e n f u n e r a r y s t e l a , B u D a p e s t, M u s e u M o f f i n e a r t s
Katalin B. Sey and István Gedai identify the logic of Kiss’s collecting process on the basis of his coin collection: “characteristic of his collection—especially among the Roman coins—is that he devoted great care to collecting at least one coin from each Emperor. It is probably due to this general collecting method that the Cabinet of Medals has a coin from Regalianus.”32 The Egyptian collection is also characterized by the same “general collecting method”: its small bronzes, the wooden stela (fig. 2), the ushabti statues (fig. 3), the Ptah-Sokar-Osiris statues (figs. 4 and 7), the small amulets, the female mummy, and the “sarcophagus”,33 which he bought later, were all individualistic pieces of his collection. Regarding his collection of ushabtis, which are very common items, he appears to have collected them based on colour, size, and form. Appreciating the ensemble from the point of view of Egyptology, it proved suitable for creating a further, extended collection. At any rate, Kiss may have been inspired by his experiences at antiques markets, and after selling off his antiquities, he pursued a different kind of collecting profile, dedicating himself to numismatics. He certainly regarded Egyptian antiquities as curiosities, which was a commonly held view during his era with regard to anything Egyptian. This conclusion
3
.
u s h a B t i s t at u e o f p e t a M e n o p e B u D a p e s t, M u s e u M o f f i n e a r t s
may also be drawn by reading the contract he signed with the National Museum, which highlighted, from among the 431 objects, just his Egyptian rarities: “Egyptian mummy in a good state of preservation and a finely preserved stela with ten lines of hieroglyphic symbols.” The unity of Kiss’s collection, which joined the National Museum in 1844, was broken in 1878. The event behind this relates to the history of the Collection of Applied Arts, for it was in 1878 that
11
the exposition of Applied Arts exhibited in the entrance hall of the National Museum (from 1873 to 1877) was moved to the Art Gallery on Sugár Avenue (today 69 Andrássy Avenue). Ferenc Pulszky, director of the National Museum, as a noble gesture, gave 2,550 objects of applied arts to the Collection of Applied Arts. We shall cite the words of Jenő Radisics about the donation: “The National Museum, following the advice of Ferenc Pulszky, its director, conceded objects of applied arts which might have filled gaps in the collections of the new museum. The fact that these monuments would perhaps have stood in isolation in the new museum detracts nought from the merits of this policy. It was a pleasure for the National Museum, as a parent institution, to give a great part of its treasures to assist in establishing the basis of the new Museum.”34 Later, the Collection of Applied Arts became an independent, state-run institution, with the Art Gallery already housing the Museum of Applied Arts.35 Of the Egyptian antiquities collected by Kiss, nine36 were transferred to the Museum of Applied Arts.37 In general we can say that stone, wooden and bronze artefacts were transferred, together with the wooden stela,38 referred to in the inventory book of the Museum of Applied Arts as “Ancient Egyptian, wooden funerary painting”.39 Unfortunately, there are no references regarding the fate of the objects that remained in the National 4
.
p t a h - s o k a r - o s i r i s s t at u e o f k h a - a a B u D a p e s t, M u s e u M o f f i n e a r t s
12
Museum. We know from the Illustrated Guide to the Collections (1873) by Flóris Rómer that the Egyptian antiquities were on display in showcases 7 and 8 in Room II. It is also apparent from Rómer’s Guide that awareness of the contribution of 22 Egyptian objects that Kiss made to the Collection of Antiquities in the Museum had unfortunately sunk into oblivion.40 In 1934, when a state order decreed that Egyptian antiquities should be transferred to the Museum of Fine Arts, only a few of the objects on the list of items being transferred by the National Museum can be assumed to have once belonged to the Kiss collection.41
6
5
.
f r o g a M u l e t, B u D a p e s t, h u ng a r i a n n at ion a l M u s e uM
. part of the egyptian collection of the ethnographic MuseuM in the inDustrial gallery (1912–1924), with two funerary statues froM the kiss collection on the right B u D a p e s t, h u n g a r i a n e t h n o g r a p h i c M u s e u M
13
7
. upper
pa rt of a p ta h - s ok a r - o s i r i s s tat u e
B u D a p e s t, M u s e u M of f i n e a rt s
8 . f u n e r a r y s t at u e B u D a p e s t, M u s e u M o f f i n e a r t s
14
In 1963, after a review of the collections of the National Museum, József Korek found only a bronze frog-amulet42 (fig. 5) from Kiss’s Egyptian collection in the Department of Archaeology, noting that the rest of the Egyptian antiquities, “though they do not have a transfer number, were conferred to the Museum of Fine Arts, as all Egyptian objects that appeared in the inventory books of the National Museum were conferred during the clarification of collecting profiles.” 43 Korek was correct: there is no indication in the transfer list that any object might originally have come from the Kiss collection. One may then justifiably ask where the objects could be. On the one hand, we might suppose that some pieces were lost during the war, and in some cases this may be valid, but it is more probable that common objects from the Kiss collection—such as ushabtis, bronze Osiris and Apis bull statues, and small amulets—which were already quite numerable in the collection of the National Museum, were simply absorbed into the Museum’s stock. Furthermore, as we saw from Rómer’s Guide, identification of the objects from the Kiss collection was no longer possible. On the other hand, there is still a chance that the store rooms of the Museums may hold a box or two containing unidentified Egyptian antiquities, leaving hope that the missing Kiss objects will come to light once again. As for the Egyptian antiquities in the Museum of Applied Arts, after twenty years of being on display there,44 they were moved in 1898 to the Ethnographic Department of the National Museum of Hungary (fig. 6).45 Then, of the roughly 3,000 objects transferred by the Museum of Applied Arts,46 71 were Egyptian antiquities, with some of those doubtlessly originating from the Kiss collection (figs. 747 and 848). 49 Act VIII of 1934 “On the National Museum of Hungary” may be regarded as establishing the unified Egyptian collection housed in the Museum of Fine Arts. Among other things, this law ordered that all Egyptian antiquities in the Hungarian National Museum,50 the Hungarian Ethnographic Museum,51 and the Museum of Applied Arts should be transferred to the Museum of Fine Arts.52 Naturally, it took several years for these antiquities from different collections across the whole country to be transferred in full to the Museum of Fine Arts. The majority of the objects were received by the Department of Antiquities by 1934, from which in 1957 the independent Egyptian Department retired, which today holds the objects.53 The aim of this article has been to show the history of a private collection of Egyptian antiquities established in the first half of the nineteenth century in Hungary, with the principle objective being to trace the way of transferring antiquities between different departments and institutes in Hungary over the last two hundred years. After lengthy examination of several archives and the magazine of the Egyptian Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, some of the objects in the Kiss collection can be identified once again. It is hoped that a future article will describe the whole content of the ensemble. Tamás Mekis is an independent scholar.
15
author’s note
I would like to thank Éva Liptay for helping me with my research at the Museum of Fine Arts; Péter Gaboda for his precious recommendations of indispensable literature; Melinda Torbágyi, Lajos Pallos, Béla Debreczeni-Droppán and Zsolt Mráv (Hungarian National Museum) for their help with my research at the Museum; Edina Földessy and János Gyarmati (Hungarian Ethnographic Museum) and Magda Lichner (Museum of Applied Arts) for granting me access to conduct research in their respective collections. notes 1
For a detailed study on his life see T. Mekis, “Egy régiséggé vált régiségbúvár ‘leporolása’: Kissárosi Kiss Ferenc (1791–1859)”, in R. Ujszászi ed., A IX. Numizmatika és Társtudományok Konferencia, Szeged, forthcoming.
2
Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Archive, (hereafter: HAS, Arch.), RAL K 1231:66.
3
For the life of the two brothers see I. Sárközy, J. Kiss, and G. Kiss, in A Magyar Mérnök- és Építész-egylet Heti Értesítője XIX (1900), Part 1: 287–90; Part 2: 296–98; Part 3: 299–301. N. Petrović, “Duna-Tisza csatorna építése a XVIII. században. A terv kialakítása és a koncesszió kiadása a csatornatársaság részére”, in Vízügyi Közlemények 7 (1968), 4–6, passim; F. Fodor, “Magyar vízmérnökök a Tisza-völgyben a kiegyezés koráig végzett felmérései, vízi munkálatai és azok eredményei”, Műszaki Tudománytörténeti Kiadványok 8 (1957), 67–69; Zs. P. Károlyi and L. Fejér, “Kiss József”, in F. Nagy ed., Magyar Tudóslexikon A-tól Zs-ig, Gyoma 1997, 462–63.
4
N. Petrović, “Navigation and the economy in the Central Danube Basin in the age of mercantilism”, in D. Milić ed., Vajdasági Tudományos és Művészeti Akadémia Történelmi Intézet. Különkiadások, Beograd and Novi Sad 1982, passim.
5
Hungarian National Archives (hereafter: HNA), N24, Museum, file 486 (1837), 1315.1837.
6
There is at present no certain information of his illness, but in a letter he sent to Miklós Jankovich, dated 17 November 1837, he complained of poor health, affirming that he was unable to visit Jankovich because of a rheumatic disease. National Széchényi Library, Archives (hereafter: NSZL, Arch.), Public records, Ferenc Kiss to Miklós Jankovich, Buda, 17 November 1837.
7
HAS, Arch., RAL K 1231:66.
8
NSZL, Arch., Oct. Germ. 378/I. Taschenbuch. Einer im Laufe der Monathe Maii, Junii, und Julii 1819. Von Wien über Linz, Salzburg, durch das baierische Gebieth, Insbruck: Potzen, Brixen, Trient, Roveredo, Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Venedig, über das Meer nach Triest, u[nd] von dort über Laybach, Agram, Fünfkirchen, oder Esseg zurück nach Zombor unternommenen Land, u[nd] Seereise. The “Taschenbuch”, besides the bills collected during his journeys, also contains his passport, issued in 1819; NSZL, Arch., Oct. Germ. 378/I. Reise von Ofen über Veszprim Warasdin Pettau Cilli Adelsberg nach Triest.—Und zurück über Udine durch den Pass der Ponteba, Klagenfurt, Mahrburg Fünfkirchen nach Zombor. This volume is illustrated with schematic drawings by Kiss as well as illustrations cut out from the Illustrierte Zeitung, to which he was a subscriber. This volume also contains his notes on the journey of 1827.
16
9
HNA, Arch., N24, Museum, file 492 (1844), 841.844 = 2324.1841, supplement no. 4 = HNA, Arch., N24, Museum, file 486 (1837), 1315.1837, suppl. 8, Recommendation of Joseph Arneth for Ferenc Kiss to the National Museum, Vienna, 9 November 1837.
10
F. Kiss, “Ó-Budán talált Hipponát ábrázoló érctábláról”, Akadémiai Értesítő 7 (1847), 235.
11
NSZL, Arch., Public records, Ferenc Kiss to Miklós Jankovich, Buda, 20 July 1836; 17 September 1837; Pest, 9 September 1839; Buda, 2 May 1841; H. Belitska-Scholtz, Jankovich Miklós, a gyűjtő és mecénás (1772–1846) (Művészettörténeti Füzetek 17), Budapest 1985, 87; Letter of Recommendation by Miklós Jankovich for Ferenc Kiss to obtain the position of curator of the Department of Coins and Antiquites at the National Museum, HNA, N24, Museum, file 486, 1315.1837, suppl. no. 9.
12
HNA, N24, Museum, file 492(1844), 841.1844 = 2324.1841, 344 – 352; Ö. Gohl, “Weszerle József”, Numizmatikai Közlöny VI/2 (1907), 41–42.
13
Á. Kelecsényi, “Egy magyar régiségkereskedő a 19. században. Literáti Nemes Sámuel (1794–1842)”, in Az OSZK évkönyve 1972, Budapest 1975, 322–23.
14
HNA, N24, Museum, file 492 (1844), 841.844 = 2324.1841 = HNA, N24, Museum, file 486, 1315.1837; M. Pető, “Wiczay és más magyarországi éremgyűjtemények a XVIII. század végén és a XIX. század elején Dominico Sestinimunkáiban”, Numizmatikai közlöny 98–99 (2000), 39–42; 42; P. Gaboda, “Aegyptiaca”, in E. Szentesi and J. Gy. Szilágyi eds., Antiquitas Hungarica. Tanulmányok a Fejérváry-Pulszky gyűjtemény történetéről, Budapest 2005, 113–17.
15
“Quo resignato ex innata, et aliquot in Italiam susceptis itineribus nutrita passione studio Archaeologiae, et colligendorum veterum nummorum inde a tredecim annis eo cum succesu incubui.” (HNA, N24, Museum, file 492 (1844), 841.1844 = 2324.1841, 344–52.)
16
Mekis, forthcoming.
17
F. Schedel and L. Gorove, A ‘Magyar Tudós Társaság’ évkönyvei V (1838–1840), Buda 1842, 32.
18
For the possible reasons see Mekis, forthcoming.
19
He built up a coin collection of 6,618 pieces and one of 431 antiquities, worth 12,500 conventional forints.
20
HNA, N35 Ladula A, No. 58, 98; the copy of the contract sent to the Archduke Joseph, Palatine of Hungary: HNA, N24, file 491, (1843), 1928.843, 515–19.
21
I. Szentpétery ed., A Bölcsészettudományi Kar Története 1635–1935, A Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetem története, vol. IV, Budapest 1935, 488; L. Szögi ed., Az Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem története 1635–2002, Budapest 2003, 185; M. Kanozsay, Kiss Ferenc székfoglaló előadása a Pesti Egyetemen, 1849 (Régészeti dolgozatok 3), Budapest 1961, 80–91; M. Gyöngyössy, Magyar Aranypénzek 1. „…hasznára és okulására szolgáljanak” (Az ELTE Régészettudományi Intézetének éremgyűjteménye I.), Budapest 2005, 5; M. Gyöngyössy and O. Mészáros eds., Az Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem Bölcsészettudományi Kar Régészettudományi Intézetének Éremgyűjteménye, Budapest 2010, 18–21.
17
22
E. von Kiss, Cathalogus, Pest 1864.
23
G. Entz, A Magyar Műgyűjtés történetének vázlata 1850-ig, Miskolc 19962, 96. For the opportunities of collecting Aegyptiaca in Hungary at the beginning of the nineteenth century, see Gaboda 2005, 80–129.
24
A Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum Multja és Jelene. Alapításának századik évfordulója alkalmából, Budapest 1902, 91–92, 99, 171.
25
HNA N35, Ladula A, No 58, 98.; copy of the contract sent to Joseph, Palatine of Hungary: HNA N24, file 491, (1843), 1928.843.
26
Belitska-Scholtz 1985, 52–60.
27
HNA, Regnicolaris Arch., N24, file 491, order of 1832, 492–494. “…Memorandum attamen mihi est contineri in eodem ultra quod varietates numorum, medietatem adminus ni auro, argentoque deprehensam; ultra quod varietates pretiosorum Hungaricorum ac Romanorum, item collectionis aeneae objectorum sive patriam sive nationes in Hungaria olim degentes propius respicientium; diplomata Hungaricas familias concernentia, stelam funerariam summae raritatis et optime conservatam e ligno cum 10 lineis hyerogliphorum, muliebrem mumiam perbene conservatam, lapides votivos, ac libros numismaticos. Haec omnia collectas pro 12,500 fl.e monetae conventionalis venae (?) offert…”
28
HNA, Regnicolaris Arch., N24, file 491, letter no. 1140 and its supplement, a request to Joseph, palatine of Hungary, concerning the purchase of the collection, 300–01.
29
Archaeological Archive of the Hungarian National Museum (hereafter: AAHNM), Catalogue no. III of Ferenc Kiss, 46.
30
This catalogue may have been transferred after 1859, after the death of Kiss, when the Cabinet also purchased some coins: Ö. Gohl, “A Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum éremtára”, in A Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum Multja és Jelene, Budapest 1902, 171. A hitherto obscure reference in the index of the correspondence of the Cabinet of Archaeology and Medal states: “A demand to Leopold Suck (sic) in the matter of transmitting the records of Ferenc Kiss” (Filing Cabinet 254.1873); a later one states: “The department expresses its thanks to Mr. Suckk (sic) for the two manuscripts offered” (Filing Cabinet 255.1873). Unfortunately the letters themselves were damaged during World War II. Leopold Szuk, one of the best-known numismatists of his epoch, was a teacher at the Conservatory of Budapest. For his obituary see A. Friedrich et al. ed., Monatsblatt der Numismatischen Gesellschaft in Wien IV, nos. 162–197 (1897–1899), 61, for his bibliography see M. F. Fejér and L. Huszár, Bibliographia Numismaticae Hungaricae, Budapest 1977, 426.
31
HNA, Regnicolaris Arch., N24, Museum, file 491, supplement of letter no. 1140, 290–98.
32
K. B. Sey and I. Gedai, Éremkincsek, Budapest 1972, 11. Regarding the history of the acquisition of the Regalianus medal, we are informed by Samuel Literáti Nemes: “I could have obtained in Zagoria a finely conserved Regalianus, but as I know from His Honour Sárközy, esteemed Judge of County Komárom, that the respected gentlemen had given to the esteemed Judge of the Court of Appeal (viz. Ferenc Kiss), therefore I did not purchase it, and incidentally its last price was 300 franks.” “Antikváriusi Levelek II”, Századunk 75 (19 September 1839), 597.
18
33
HNA, Regnicolaris Arch., N24, Museum, file 492, letter 855.844. “…sarcophagum recentissime ex Aegypto allatum, tam interne quam externe hieroglyphis refertum, et admodum bene conservatum, nec ullibi certe per Patriam nostram velut reperibilem, comprimis dignam comparatione censeo.” In 1844 Kiss received from Egypt a “sarcophagus” painted on both sides, and it seems likely that the Museum purchased this coffin, and is none other than the one in the Museum of Fine Arts, inv. no. 51.2094/1–2 (see É. Liptay, “Anthropoid coffin of an Amun-priestess”, in K. A. Kóthay and É. Liptay eds., Egyptian Artefacts of the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, Budapest 2013, 80–81 (no. 37); É. Liptay, Coffins and Coffin Fragments of the Third Intermediate Period (Catalogues of the Egyptian Collection 1), Budapest 2011, 23–31.
34
J. Radisics, Országos Magyar Iparművészeti Múzeum. Képes Kalauz a gyűjteményekben, Budapest 1885, VII.
35
J. Radisics, Ideiglenes Kalauz az Országos Magyar Iparművészeti Muzeum Gyűjteményeiben, Budapest 1898, 5; J. Pataki, “Iparművészeti Múzeum”, in Múzsák kertje. A Magyar Múzeumok születése, Budapest 2002, 34; H. Horváth ed., Egy magyar polgár Ráth György és munkássága, Budapest 2006, 14; P. Ács et al., Az idő sodrában. Az Iparművészeti Múzeum gyűjteményeinek története. Az Iparművészeti Múzeum gyűjtők és kincsek című kiállításához, Budapest 2006, 23. For further details see: M. Lichner, “The Reception of Electroplates in Hungary I. Electroplates in the collection of the Museum of Applied Arts 1873–1884”, Ars Decorativa 24 (2006), 100, note 16. Approximately 2550 objects were transferred to the collection of the Museum of Applied Arts. (See AAHNM, Az Iparművészeti Múzeumnak átadott tárgyak jegyzéke [1879]).
36
HNM inv. no. a.2.k = Museum of Fine Arts (hereafter: MFA) inv. no. 51.124 (?), HNM inv. no. a.3.k = MFA inv. no. 51.1175, HNM inv. no. a.4.k = MFA inv. no. 51.2309 (?), HNM inv. no. a.5.k = MFA inv. no. 51.2298, HNM inv. no. a.15.k = MFA inv. no. 52.1928, HNM inv. no. a.16.k =MFA inv. no. 51.226, HNM inv. no. a.17.k = MFA inv. no. 51.2090, HNM inv. no. a.18.k = MFA inv. no. 51.2089, HNM inv. no. a.19.k = MFA inv. no. 51.2091.
37
For an explanation see: J. Gy. Szilágyi, “Az Antik osztály”, in G. Pogány Ö. and B. Bacher eds., A Szépművészeti Múzeum 1906–1956, Budapest 1956, 61, with reference to: Gy. Végh, Magyar Iparművészet 21 (1918), 77–78.
38
HNM inv. no. a.15.k = MFA, inv. no. 52.1928.
39
We are informed from the guide of Jenő Radisics that in 1885 the small bronzes were displayed in showcase number eight in the second room (p. 17); while the small stone and wooden sculptures, such as the stela, were exhibited in room seven (p. 70).
40
“For the series of idols made of metals, varnished terracotta or various sorts of stone, skeletons, and plates with pictograms, we can be grateful not only to Archduke Joseph, Count János Waldstein, Count Antal Eszterházy and Baron Prokesch-Osten, but also, in great part, to Ferenc Pulszky, director of the museum.” F. Rómer, Képes Kalauz a Magyar Nemzeti Muzeum érem- és régiségtárában. Budapest 1873, 25–26.
19
41
MFA, Filing Cabinet, attached to document 329/1934, the handwritten list of objects of Aladár Dobrovits. Under lot 37, Dobrovits indicated the old inventory number of the object as well: a.3k; also lot 164: a.16k; and lot 215: a.81k (sic) = a.18k.
42
HNM inv. no. a.7.k.
43
J. Korek, “Jelentés a Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum munkájáról az 1962.évben”, Folia Archaeologica XV (1963), 230.
44
Alfred Wiedemann, professor of the University of Bonn, copied the text of the stela of Kiss, which was certainly on display in the Museum in 1882. Museum of Applied Arts (hereafter: MAA), Archives, Registers, 18 March 1892, no. 55—letter of Professor Wiedemann.
45
Filing Cabinet of the Hungarian Ethnographic Museum (hereafter: HEM), document 78/1898.
46
Jelentés a Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum 1898. évi állapotáról (közzéteszi a Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum Igazgatósága), Budapest 1899, 52–53.
47
The four inventory numbers on the interior part of the statue are indicative: number 17 written in graphite is erroneous, since a similar statue also from the collection of Kiss has this number, correctly it is 18 (a.18.k) originally inventoried in the Hungarian National Museum. Inv. no. 27057 again in graphite is the inventory given in the Hungarian Ethnographic Museum. 560 in red ink is the inventory number received in the Museum of Applied Arts, finally number 51.2089 in white ink at the lower part is the number given in the Museum of Fine Arts.
48
Now only three numbers can be seen on the back of the statue: 554 in red ink is the number given in the Museum of Applied Arts; 27054 in graphite the number written in the Hungarian Ethnographic Museum, finally in black ink 51.2091, the inventory number of the Museum of Fine Arts.
49
E. Földessy, “Afrika-gyűjtemény”, in Z. Fejős ed., A Néprajzi Múzeum gyűjteményei, Budapest 2000, 482. (The idea that the objects [71 of them] transferred at that time all originated from the collection of János Xántus is erroneous.) J. Gyarmati, “A senki földjén. A Néprajzi Múzeum antik és óegyiptomi ‘gyűjteménye’” [In no man's land. The museum of Ethnography's exotic and antique collections at the turn of the 19th–20th century], Néprajzi értesítő 93 (2011), 63–81.
50
MFA, Filing Cabinet, “List of transfer” 329/1934, a total of 362 pieces were transferred by the Archaeological Cabinet of the National Museum.
51
HEM, Filing Cabinet, “List of transfer” 21/1934 = MFA, Filing Cabinet, file 468/1934. A total of 685 pieces and 322 shell pearls.
52
MFA, Filing Cabinet, 468/1934; all together 54 objects.
53
Most recently see: Kóthay–Liptay 2013, 4. Á. M. Nagy, Classica Hungarica. A Szépművészeti Múzeum Antik Gyűjteményének első évszázada (1908–2008), MúzeumCafé könyvek 2, Budapest 2013, 159, n. 469.
20
t h e r o ya l l ion s pe a r i ng M ot i f on a w e D J at p l a q u e o f s h o s h e n q i i i : a s t u D y of c o M p l e x ly s t r u c t u r e D le vels of Meaning part 2
t h e i n t e r r e l at e D s e M a n t i c s o f t h e M a i n i c o n s / c o n s t e l l at i o n s o f t h e t w o s i D e s
péter gaBoDa
“Life and health (wd3.t) through/from the image (sšmw) of the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, today.” (inscription of the Basel plaque Nr. 3071)
Descending into the deep structure: possibility and method thereof In accordance with its declared objective, the previous part of the study (series) defined the special position of the unique plaque in the circle of the royal-name and figural seal amulets of the Third Intermediate Period, and presumed a funerary and royal context regarding the origin of the plaque. The identification of the elements of the visual plane would have been followed by a joint interpretation of the pictorial and textual elements in Part 2 of the study. However, in the meantime I arrived at new recognitions, which have altered the original division and main title of the study. In the first stage of my research I did not get a completely satisfying explanation for the functions of a pictorial and a textual element, namely the emphatically large rectangle below one of the lions, and the wsr-hieroglyph that does not quite fit in with the usual inscription formula and for this reason appears to be of special significance. Since from the very outset I did not exclude the possibility of an immanent “semantic horizon” manifest only in more implicit allusions, the unique combination of the lion and the rectangle finally led me to the conclusion that this refers both explicitly and cryptically to the real content
21
of the lion spearing. Thus, it became essential to start a more “in-depth” exploration of the concept of the depiction than I had originally planned. It was ultimately the presence of these two elements, which I saw as disparate or incompatible with the context of the upper (semantic) level that led me to assume their real meaning in another semantic level. In other words, these two elements attest to a multi-layered semantic structure; moreover, appear to be direct carriers of an underlying “core” sense. Therefore, they shall be seen as visual signals of deeper levels—which provide the ultimate thematic pattern—manifesting on the surface. Similarly to a palimpsest, the lower layer of meaning became transparent in these two elements, and revealing these will facilitate the understanding of the function of the object, especially if the analytical method applied to explore the deep structure is selected with the necessary circumspection. It was clear at the very beginning of the research that the contentual interrelations behind and at the core of the appearance of the icons could not be deciphered simply and directly, since there is not always a direct correlation between an image and its topic. Although the images are informative and have their distinct or “own place”2 in interpretation on their own right, during visualisation this information is often constructed in a condensed, indirect, coded, etc. way. Newer layers of association might have built up around the inner, core-sense/motif, transposing the different dimensions and aspects of reality (of their worldview), possibly condensing it into a single motif, thus making it difficult to explore all semantic levels.3 Moreover, an image often appears more flexible than the (textual) topic it is coordinated/related with, and for which it serves not only as an illustration but as an entity of equal value, at times allowing a certain degree of space for the artist’s creative imagination and personal preferences.4 As it is well known, all various types of image-bearing objects might have performed individual functions.5 It was crucially important to find out if this plaque—which presumably formed part of a funeral equipment and was strung on a chain on the chest of the deceased—might have been assigned such a special role in what could be called a “funeral equipment grammar”? And if it was, to what extent was the thematic concept determined by the basic function in harmony with the icon or motif selected for the iconic visualisation of that thematic concept? Icons used for analogous, mutually interrelated themes frequently substituted each other, or icons that were created earlier and thus had already been part of the repertoire of motifs might have been borrowed. This is what happened in this case: by selecting the lion(s) spearing to express the “core” sense/motif, they chose an icon the characters and elements of which have multiple meanings and are therefore multifunctional, allowing them to be combined into a complex, coherent structure of several semantic layers. However, by doing so, they virtually completely concealed the deeper sense and with that the basic function of the object, as I will discuss in Part 3. Fortunately, my attention was attracted by the above-mentioned two “anomalies” and led me towards the deeper layer(s).
22
It must also be taken into account that the icons and constellations6 that visualised a given theme, especially in the apotropaic or mortuary-funerary area, in most cases represented the characters transposed to the divine/mythical dimension. That is, they were depicted in prototypical activities and roles which had their prefigurations in the world of the gods and basic mythical situations. The roles within these constellations were not necessarily static. Hence, for example, the two “main roles” of the father-son constellation7 were not always assigned to Osiris, god of the Underworld, and his son and heir Horus, but could, for example in a solar constellation, also be filled by the gods Atum and Shu.8 Closely linked to this constellation was the thematic complex of the “reconstitution”, including all its aspects. In this study, another constellation is of equal importance: “crystallising” and iconizing the theme of the (mythical) struggle against dangerous being(s) representing chaos and disorder. A virtually supra-cultural, archetypal schema of this constellation is represented by the “evil (dragon/snake, etc.) contra the saviour” in which the latter is presented as able to avert any danger in a crisis. In the course of history, many substitutes were used for the different actors involved in this schema in accordance with the personal interest of the given group.9 Another important factor in regard to the relation between the images and the content and meaning they visualised is time. Diachronically viewed, this connection did not always remain consistent; for example, the original relation between an image and its content/meaning could have been modified by changes in the religious worldview. Understandably, the image of the ENEMY was predominantly associated with Seth, who murdered Osiris. This interpretation of the mythical enemy was certainly primarily applied in contexts related to Osiris, although not exclusively, as in the solar regeneration theme another aspect or role of the same Seth is emphasised: on the journey of the Sun (bark) through the Underworld he helped the solar god Ra by spearing the Apophis snake, which threatened the continuation of the Sun’s progress.10 The demonization and stigmatisation of Seth culminated in the Late Period but must have reached an advanced stage in the Third Intermediate Period, which partly affected his iconography. On the one hand, we know of several instances of his name and image being erased during the Osorkon II (Twenty-second Dynasty).11 On the other hand, it is also significant that the target of the spearing changed in the picture, or vignette, illustrating chapter 40 of the Book of the Dead during the Twenty-first Dynasty.12 The original constellation was relatively unambiguous: by performing the act of spearing, the deceased prevented the “Great Devourer” = snake = the enemy of the Sun(’s journey) from overpowering the donkey = Seth = the defender of the Sun’s boat and its sailing through the night. As pointed out by Rita Lucarelli, the changing attitude towards Seth (-donkey) might have been reflected in the scene on the vignette, in which the donkey was directly pierced.13 Compared with Seth’s earlier status in the Ramesside Period (state god and patron of the dynasty), this
23
depiction reveals an especially marked and negative shift in his judgement. Yet Seth was still not viewed as ultimately evil in the Third Intermediate Period, since for example some vignette variants (on papyri and on coffins) illustrating chapter 108 of the Book of the Dead represent his earlier function as the defender of the Sun (and thus the deceased), depicting him as he repels Apophis at night on Bakhu, the eastern peak of the universal mountain, thus stopping the Solar bark from freezing to a standstill. Returning to chapter 40 of the Book of the Dead, in terms of hermeneutics, it can be seen that the original, coherent relation between the topic of the spell and the vignette was reinterpreted, becoming looser and more vague. As we are not aware of any pictorial and textual precedents and parallels, it would be unfounded to conclude, merely based on the visual representation on the vignette, that it originally functioned as a spell to drive off a snake-shaped “Great Devourer”. (In certain cases—perhaps partly influenced by vignettes used in similar, apotropaic chapters—the motif and symbolic meaning of the spearing might have reached a degree of abstraction whereby it no longer referred to a concrete, bloody spearing to defeat specific or potential enemies, but was aimed at repelling an incident, an event or a state regarded as damaging or dangerous. In my interpretation, to be expounded in Part 3 of my study, I will include this solution in my discussion on one of the semantic layers of the plaque.) Embodied as a great cat (perhaps a serval), the sun-god himself was able to act against the snake, his solar enemy. In addition, goddesses belonging to the sphere of the sun-god, being the daughters/ spouses of the Sun, were primarily and initially imagined as theriomorphic, angry lionesses, and also assumed the form of a female cat, sometimes even included in snake-killing scenes. Because of their aggressiveness, these lionesses could successfully assist in protecting the Sun in the Netherworld. In a metaphoric sense, conveying the symbolic meaning of the “Solar Eye” and receiving the Sun into this Eye, they were able to protect him during his circuit and his regeneration in the Underworld. One dimension in which the cat14 and lion symbolism merged was undoubtedly the feminine Solar Eye concept, and its dual aspect (wild, angry: tamed, appeased) in particular. (In Part 3 of this study I will refer to the similar function performed by gatekeeper lions and cats in the Netherworld in discussing the shared aspects between the concepts associated with them. However, at this point I focus on the evolution of the motif of the snake-killing scene with the participation of cats, and ideas associated with the Solar Eye.) The vignette variants of chapter 17 of the Book of the Dead used in the New Kingdom depicted the tomcat, identified with the sun-god Ra, cutting up or beheading the snake with a knife in an unambiguously solar setting: at the ished tree of Heliopolis.15 According to one of the interpretations, the Apophis snake might have personified a natural phenomenon perceptible in Egypt: the dark stratus cloud in the low horizon before dawn.16 In any case, the successful
24
confrontation with Apophis directly led to the new sunrise, and indirectly to the continuation of universal order. The spell in chapter 17 survived until the Ptolemaic Period, and its pictorial motif can be discovered in the decoration of several tombs in the Ramesside Period, in the New Kingdom artisan/ artist settlements in Deir el-Medina in Western Thebes.17 Deborah Sweeney regarded this scene alongside another type of tomb scene, i.e. the motif of “the cat under the mistress’s chair”, as local characteristics indicating the fondness for cats in this area. While in Deir el-Medina the former scene always figured tomcats, the vignette of a mythological papyrus (on the Ta-wedjat-Ra papyrus, with a very telling name, dating from circa 1000 BC) undoubtedly features a female cat with teats. The latter was explained by the fact that the cat assumed the sex of the deceased woman;18 however, it might have been even more important on a theological level that it resulted in a semantic shift to the female aspect and integrated the cat motif into the context of the Solar Eye myth. Hence, on a theoretical level, this shift might have partly taken place as Lana Troy discussed in her study exploring patterns of the “queenship” concept. She claims that underlying Egyptian religious thinking was a dualistic worldview consisting of interactions between oppositions. Thus, the gender oppositions are ultimately complementary, as the two sides together are the manifestations of the creator god (mainly the sun-god in the New Kingdom), that is, they both form part of the creator god.19 (Regarding them as components of a larger unit, the strict separation of grammatical genders is easy to resolve. When the feminine gender is used to refer to the sun god, it is obviously a reference to co-substantial feminine entities, i.e. the goddesses linked to it, and the Solar Eye.20) Therefore, perhaps fundamentally because of this Solar Eye connotation, the lioness-shaped goddesses were later represented as peaceful cats, and in the case of Mut, the wife of the Theban Amun(-Ra), a phonetic similarity might have been a contributing factor.21 Thus, Egyptians saw the eye of Ra (his female complementary part, partner) in the female cat character of the snake-killing scene, who, standing by her husband/father (=Ra) encountered the enemy together with him. The motif of the cat cutting up the snake followed an interesting course in the New Kingdom. It was not only popular in the pictorial programme of private tombs in western Thebes, but transformed into composite religious thematic cryptograms it might have also been used in sepulchral inscriptions, where it possibly denoted the sound “f”, expressed in the “Normalschrift” with the sign of a horned viper. Moreover, the same sound might have been written with a cryptogram depicting only the cat,22 omitting the image of the snake. The question arises whether the latter cryptogram represents a higher degree of abstraction in comparison to a composite sign, or if the image of the snake was deleted as an act of apotropaic precaution. Since we are unaware of either the mythical prefiguration or the
25
pictorial and textual precedents or parallels, it would be almost impossible to uncover the original association basis this cryptogram was derived from. (The situation is similar in the case of the complex picture of our plaque: the deeper, partly cryptographically coded meaning could be arrived at if we had a sufficient number of analogies at our disposal.) Connecting the cat and the Sun is frequent in another important area of cryptographic applications, called Amun trigrams.23 Concealment and thus an intention to protect by means of cryptography was applied especially in certain elements of the Solar (cyclic) ascent = birth, regeneration, such as their place, method and means. On the other hand, crypting or concealment were also aimed at emphasising the main point.24 Without letting the cat out of the bag, it is important to note that in the next part of my study the wedjat-eye on the obverse of the plaque will be interpreted in connection with the Solar Eye theme, i.e. the nocturnal journey of the Sun in the underworld until dawn, while the depiction on the reverse is regarded as one of the threats and difficulties of the last, liminal stage preceding the Sunrise/ regeneration, which—as already briefly touched upon—is the area where the various tools of cryptography were frequently used. If the lion-slaying motif can be studied in a composition in which it is constructed in conjunction with another icon with a presumably similar connotation, a better understanding can 1 . pa r a l l e l
D e p i c t i o n s o f t h e s l ay i n g o f t h e s n a k e
a n D t h e l i o n , c y l i n D e r s e a l , t e l l - e s.- s. a f i , i s r a e l (after keel–uehlinger, 1998, ill. 89)
be gained of the shared context of these two analogous scenes. This opportunity was
afforded by a cylinder seal from Canaan (instead of considering the cultural differences of interpretation25 from the point of view of contemporary viewers, I focus here on the most evident Egyptian
interpretation). This piece discovered in Tell es.-S.afi (Israel)26 clearly demonstrates that although the outlines of a shared theme might be discovered, it is essential to accurately identify the characters in
icons, which is somewhat uncertain in this case, in order to refine the theme and clarify the internal relations within the constellation. The white steatite piece from the Ramesside period (Late Bronze
26
Age) connects the slaying of the snake and the lion, and while it shows a Syrian influence in respect to its genre, its decoration followed an Egyptian trend (fig. 1). The first writer who published the cylinder seal, R. Giveon,27 correctly identified the figure grasping one of three lions by its tail and about to smite it with his scimitar as Seth, based on his characteristic ears and the attribute “great of power”. At the same time, he saw the other god, lifting a flail, as beaked and reminiscent of Amun and believed the slain enemy he holds in his hands to be a gazelle. In contrast, a decade later, Othmar Keel regarded this animal as a horned viper and identified the god as Seth, the conventional enemy of the Apophis snake.28 Thus, he positioned Seth—or more accurately Baal-Seth, i.e. his form united with the Canaanite weather god—in the dual role of a snake-slayer and a lion-killer.29 The figure of Baal and Seth became more closely linked in the Late Bronze Age, but their syncretic relationship must have looked back on a longer history.30 The Seth-Baal iconography had several similarities with the Canaanite god Reshep, too.31 These communities were partly rooted in Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Canaanite ideological and iconographic tendencies (also characteristic in the period in areas other than Canaan), distinguished by an emphasis on male gods, as well as on aspects expressing belligerence, dominance and the possession of power, certainly accompanied by the relevant attributes and the various enemies slain. Hence, the lion which Seth-Baal might have once stood on was not interpreted by Keel and Uehlinger as an attribute of the god, but as a depiction of Baal’s mythological opponent, Mot32 which interpretation did not become widely accepted.33 The depiction is far less unambiguous in scenes showing Seth-Baal as a snake slayer, a more frequent depiction,34 who takes a weapon in his hand and encounters the lion (by smiting/spearing it), which is obviously his opponent.35 According to Keel
and his workshop, the fight depicted in the cylinder seal from Tell es.-S.afi, in which the smiting is directed at two targets, might have implied that the Baal-Seth fight was not aimed at a (concrete) force of nature
but was instead a “comprehensive war against anything that is inimical to life”. It can be added (still in the context of the Egyptian iconographic “reading”) that the fight is waged against all that is potentially dangerous to regeneration. That is, while Apophis was an obstacle in the Sun’s orbit in the Netherworld BEFORE the cyclic morning rise of the Sun (and the deceased), the lion personifies the hostile, alien forces of chaos, based on one of its symbolic meanings found in Egypt and the Near East. As is well known from J. Assmann’s relevant studies, the prerequisite of sunrise is the restoration of (solar) order (M3c.t), including the driving away of all obstacles and malignant forces BEFORE the sunrise (for more detail, see the upcoming Part 3 of my study). The study of the cylinder seal in question takes us further if we regard the two scenes not as separate but as interrelated in conveying the same concept. Can the duplication of the scene be traced back to the division of some sort of bipartite
27
role/aspect/function? If so, we need to settle for mere assumptions when uncovering these opposite roles, since the figure of the snake-slayer on the cylinder seal with a beak/nose (?) allows several interpretations. Of these, Keel’s seems the most likely: he identified the figure as Seth, saying that the long appendage of the face is the nose of the so-called Seth animal.36 In this case we can attempt to explain the double appearance of Seth(-Baal) with the attributes and aspects associated with Seth in the Ramesside period. At the time Seth was worshipped as a state god and regarded as being of equal importance to the empire’s high-priest at Thebes, Amun(-Ra), king of the gods, with whom he shared the same cult in many places.37 The position of Amun-Ra in the Nineteenth Dynasty is preserved in royal monuments such as the “400-year stela”, on which Seth is named as a ruler for several hundred years, confirming that the inauguration of Seth’s reign as king was regarded as an official royal ceremony. Therefore, Seth, just like Amun, could be referred to as king of the gods by shifting the emphasis, god AND king.38 This cylinder seal might also visualise this combination. As a snake-slayer, Seth would be depicted in his traditional, (cosmic) divine role, while this depiction of him as a lion hunter/smiter emphasises a royal context, in which he is a royal warrior or a warrior assuming the role of a king. (Since this combination appears coherent, let us briefly play with the following idea: if the snakeslayer on the cylinder seal were beaked, the [warrior] Horus, the falcon-shaped sky god, could arise as a suitable solution; he could be seen as performing the task of snake-slaying instead of Seth. After they reconciled, Horus and Seth might have actually encountered the Apophis together, from as early as the time of the Pyramid Texts).39 R. Giveon’s hypothesis, however, does not seem to hold up. He concluded that the short hieroglyphic inscription of the cylinder seal, i.e. Seth’s epithet “great of power” was carved by a person who spoke Egyptian but was inexperienced in writing and copying. This assumption was based on the fact that the two leopard head hieroglyphs—expressing pHty—power, strength—were fronted and placed at
the top of the expression (deviating from the grammatically correct word order).40 It is more likely
that it was a kind of emphatic usage of one of the words for POWER, which might have been linked to lions and their smiting,41 as if it were a label for the scene. (Replacing the usual w3s-sign, the wsr-emblem was emphasised in the plaque of Shoshenq III, partly for the same reason.) One of the basic meanings of the lion symbolism, to be explored in depth in Part 3 of this study, is POWER, and in connection with that, REGENERATION. In Egyptian worldview, the world is an emanation of the creator god, including various forces and powers objectivised (for example in symbols and images, while the gods, the king, and people are distinguished by the share they have at a given time of these.42 The Sun, Ra, and Amun(-Ra), the latter being solarised in the New Kingdom,
28
could sub-delegate the maintenance of solar order on earth to the ruler (i.e. to a divine manifestation on earth), and on a cosmic level, to warrior gods, like Horus (and other Horus forms, Montu, Seth, Onuris/Shu, etc.), who were capable of acting effectively in the earthly sphere, too. The pharaoh appears as the keeper of world order in the theologically equivalent hunting and smiting the enemy scenes alike. He is basically identified with gods with a warrior aspect, enabling him to promote regeneration in this form by conquering the cosmic and worldly enemies. The lion, the royal beast, might have equally symbolised royal power and the power of the inimical forces of chaos (like in the Near East). According to the Egyptian worldview, there was no contradiction between these two; on the contrary, they were closely connected, since power had to be operated within a system of relations (take possession of it from somebody, practised against somebody, or protect it). Triumphing over the lions, the king, or the god assuming the king’s role, demonstrates that he already possesses those powers and authorisation, including the strength that supersedes that of the enemy, required for the continuation of the world order and the maintenance of his rule, ensuring that regeneration can take place without disruption. Especially noteworthy in this context is a group of New Kingdom scarabs depicting the king arching, in which the lion is the target of archery, a skill embodying royal power.43 A kind of systematic approach is clearly manifest in the arrangement of inscriptions/labels and good-luck signs either accompanying the lion or the king’s figures. These symbols of various good wishes probably not only added an apotropaic surplus function to the icons but must have been connected to the images and conveyed the (deeper) meaning of the scene. This can be well ascertained in those pieces where the wsr-staff, the sign of strength and power, can be seen behind the king on the scarab base bearing a smiting the enemy scene, thus focusing this triumphal motif on the demonstration of the king’s strong and powerful nature (figs. 2a–b44). At the same time, the immanent objective of the representation of power, i.e. to ensure regeneration, were also alluded to directly in those cases—still in the category of smiting the (human) enemy theme—where obvious regeneration symbols (e.g. an Xpr-scarab)
were used besides the wsr-emblem in another part of the picture field.45 The same function might have been carried out by some pieces of the group of scarabs decorated with the motif of the king
arching a lion, where the wsr-hieroglyph was again linked to the ruler (placed behind him), while the nfr-sign was placed near the lions. In this case the latter, i.e. the symbol of the “perfect (renewal)”, conveyed the meaning of regeneration, which was one of the inherent meanings of the lion hunt in the New Kingdom (figs. 3a–b).46 The close link between the fight with the lion motifs with the solar regeneration theme is manifest even more clearly on scarabs where these scenes are accompanied by the sun disc (Rc) and nfr-sign combination (figs. 4a–b),47 which Keel translated as “vollkommene Sonne”.
29
2.a
. l at e
Br onze age scaraB
(after keel–uehlinger 1998,
82–83, ill. 97a)
121, ill. 144a)
3.a . l i o n h u n t
3.B . l i o n h u n t
(after keel 1990a, 31–33,
(after keel 1990a, 34–35,
a B B . 8 1 [ = t a f. 1 0 D ] )
a B B . 9 [ = t a f. 1 1 ] )
4.a . l i o n h u n t
4.B . l i o n h u n t
(after keel 1990B, 268,
(after keel 1990B, 268,
aBB. 44; keel–uehlinger
a B B . 4 6 [ = t a f. x i i i , 1 ] )
1998, 82, ill. 101a)
30
2.B . s c a r a B , l at e i r o n a g e
(after keel–uehlinger, 1998,
He expounded in detail what he meant by this phrase when discussing another, well distinguishable group of eighteen scarabs, most of which surfaced in Palestine. He identified the centrepiece of the scarabs in this group presumably originating from Philistia from the tenth or ninth century (= Twentysecond Dynasty) BC, i.e. the image of the enthroning Egyptian ruler, as the depiction of the “monarch as Sungod” theme.48 The pieces in this group were made with the local linear engraving style, therefore, they can stylistically be definitely considered a reinterpretation of the theme according to the local tradition, yet, they drew their motifs mainly from Egyptian iconography, although some local alterations and additions were made to them.49 Keel partly based his identification of the king with Horus on the throne, assuming the form of the sun-god, on the analysis of the subsidiary symbols surrounding the ruler with a blue crown. The functions contained in the “monarch as Sun” and “the porter of heaven” motifs (the representations of which were placed on two surfaces of the same amulet, perhaps to enhance the apotropaic functions of the motifs; see for example the parallel
5 . the two cosMic r oles of the Divine pharaoh, the guarantor of universal orDer on two siDes of a pl aque: Monar ch a s sun or the porter of heaven ( a f t e r k e e l 1 9 8 2 , t a f. 1 3 a )
depictions on the two sides of a plaque quoted by Keel (fig. 550) fit in well with the cosmic role of the divine Pharaoh, the guarantor of universal order.51 Thus, Keel sees that the king operates in such a divine role within the Sun–king– order framework both in the case of this special Palestinian group of scarabs (with an enthroning pharaoh, and in the case of scarabs depicting the fight with the lion scene and bearing an Rc nfr inscription. As in recent decades the more subtle meaning of “perfect (renewal)” has become increasingly accepted in the interpretation of the nfr concept, this meaning more accurately reflecting in a solar context the daily, cyclical rebirth of the Sun (and the king/deceased who accompanied him in the Afterlife), his “creatio continua”—regeneration can be included in the above Sun–king–order relation. Hence, it must be the case that the main objective of the Rc nfr inscription is not so much to identify
31
the actor participating in the scene but much rather to label the scene along with the inherent apotropaic wish (belief in the rebirth of the Sun, which can be achieved through the act depicted in the scene, e.g. averting chaos by arching the lion; the wearer of the amulet/the deceased would profit from the beneficial effects of the induced sun birth/sunrise in a future time dimension. As previously mentioned, as far as the roles are concerned, it is the Sun (Amun-Ra, Ra) who commissions the king or the war god Horus, assuming the role of the king,52 to maintain the kingdom and ensure the cosmic order using the power invested in him. Smiting the enemy forms part of this. (Ra is the judge of enemies trying to destroy the truth in other contexts too, but he does not directly enforce the judgement.) The Sun, both omnipotently and latently can be present in the struggle fought for him, and it can also be expressed both in pictures and text that he actually stands in the background. New Kingdom scarabs in some cases borrowed the well-known icon from other areas of art, in which, before military campaigns along with the sword of victory Amun-Ra, handed the Pharaoh the authorisation, the power and the hope of triumphing over the enemy in the coming war. For the same reason, in some scarabs the inscription “Ra”, but even more obviously “the beloved of Ra” (mrj Rc), was placed above the god spearing the snake,53 indicating that the fighter or actor was not Ra but his champion, the king/Horus, who restores order and power, by defeating the solar enemy, by which he also acts in Ra’s favour. Thus, the complex system of symbols in lion hunt scenes includes the king’s propagandistic boasting of smiting a royal beast, a “victor”, in the spirit of the universal truth of “smite the big, and be an example to the small”54; however, the fundamental source of the apotropaic benefit is the multi-layer interrelation of order and regeneration. It seems that the royal lion hunt was associated with the motif of divine foreordaining and commission, as well as with a kind of renewal concept not only in Egyptian culture.55 In connection with texts with a solar context (solar hymns and litanies, etc.) Jan Assmann observed as early as in 1969 how the “Doppelintention” of the practice of magical protective power and subduing the enemy was linked with the hymnal worship of the Sun. He analysed the “dw3 Rc sxr cpp” (Re anbeten,
Apopis fällen) formula as an especially condensed expression of this.56 (Having discussed the possible metaphoric nature and implicitness of the relation between the slaying the snake/lion motif and its pictorial representation, I will apply all this to the complex structure of meaning of the plaque that forms the subject of my study, and explore the conceptual pattern of its deep structure, while admitting that I arrived at this conclusion by originally following another line of reasoning. However, instead of presenting the arguments leading up to my conclusion in this part of my study, I deemed it necessary to first provide a more general methodological background here.) Assmann also pointed out that it is not infrequent in texts with magical content aimed against the enemy that after triumph (achieved
32
by the Sun’s earthly or cosmic representative authorised and helped by the Sun), the sun god was worshipped and celebrated as he also achieved triumph/vindication against the enemy.57 (I regard the concept of “vindication” as an important underlying meaning of this plaque’s symbolism, and even as its cryptic key expression, see Part 3 of my study.) This integral connection between the themes of punishing the enemy and vindication was mapped out subtly and in a structuralist manner by H. Roeder, based on funerary and cult texts.58 His theory was soon ascribed to such prominent scholars as H. Willems59 or N. Billing.60 Thus, the structural and not at all accidental overlaps between certain Netherworld Guides that resulted from the similarities in this deeper pattern began to clearly take shape. Several scholars discovered that the slaying of the Apophis snake (in the Book of Amduat) and the punishment of the enemy (in the Book of Gates) falls on the same section of the Sun’s orbit in the Underworld: the 7th hour of the night.61 After the 6th hour—when the Sun descends to the lowest point on its journey through the Underworld, and the mystical unification of Osiris and Ra takes place—the deceived who accompanies Ra already steps into the ascending phase, but before reaching the final goal, i.e. before passing through the gate at the eastern horizon, he has to demonstrate that he is worthy of further ascension and crossing ¨3.t by overcoming dangers that test his
strength, power and abilities: then, nothing will stand in the way of the rising of the Sun/the (daily) regeneration of the deceased. The plaque’s complex structure of meanings and its conceptual patterns that determine the deep layer can only be fully understood if our interpretative goal is to conduct a study at more analytical levels than usual in the case of scarabs and plaques, although the tripartite analytical method, used e.g. by Regine Schulz, practically traceable to E. Panofsky’s art theory, is mostly sufficient for the accurate description of the aforementioned.62 Yet, the questions that arose (see the anomalies mentioned in the introduction of my study) in connection with this in many respects special, the royal plaque requires a method allowing a more profound investigation procedure. In his revolutionary interpretation of the decoration of an early Middle Kingdom coffin (Heqata) in 1996, H. Willems applied a novel approach by regarding the whole coffin as a structured composition with the decorative elements as the building blocks.63 He identified six analytical levels (as opposed to the previously used one level applied in the case of analysing funerary objects), which follow one another in an increasing degree of interrelatedness. The first four levels remained within the boundary of the object, of which the information directly relating to the object and resulting from the analysis of the previous levels is synthesised on the fourth level providing an overall picture of the object.64 Exploring beyond this, the possible interrelations and interplay between the ever-broadening dimensions of the object and its
33
context were examined at levels 5 and 6.65 (The compatibility of these dimensions, their integral “nesting in each other” basically results, again, from the order of the created Egyptian world manifesting in similar ways on both a small and a large scale.) The cohesion between the different layers of meaning built on each other was created by analogies that connect the layers through references and also play a part in the formation and configuration of semantic structures. These analogies operate with dual(ly complementary) pairs of categories,66 which are expounded in the deep structure by inherent oppositions.67 Two conceptual categories, or more accurately a complex of themes incorporating several themes, might have worked according to a similar organising principle; the analogy between them was also instrumental in building the symbolic network of references and interrelations between the various layers of this plaque. One of the aforementioned thematic complexes is (hegemonic) RULE/dominion (with themes such as obtaining and practising power/control over the enemy), and the other is LIFE (with themes such as averting bodily disintegration as well as bodily reintegration and restitution). These could be manifest at various semantic levels, depending on whether the meaning focused on the earthly/power political world, on the divine/mythical-cosmic world, or placed emphasis on the cultic/ritual aspect (providing a kind of transition between these dimensions). Roeder primarily focused his attention on the concept of Sechem-power/rule/dominion and on the related concept of ruling over the enemies.68 In the thematic complexes of LIFE and RULE two other processes might have been thematised, forming consecutive ontological levels in (textual and pictorial) compositions with the motif of Osiris—reconstitution and manifestation—being their prototype.69 During these processes all that Osiris was also deprived of for some time, namely life and rule/kingship, was returned to the deceased/king. The process referred to by the general term of reconstitution or restoration, precedes the process of manifestation, and it restores somebody or something from a state of disorder and disintegration into his or its original state. Thus, it conveys a more comprehensive and deeper meaning of restoring Order through the symbolic configuration of the disintegration-reintegration opposite.70 Its objective is more than “resurrection” as at the semantic level related to political power it also entails the restoration to the deceased of royal attributes, regalia, abilities, powers and property.71 On the plaque studied in this research the political reconstitution was not aimed at Sechem-power but specifically at the wsr-power, not coincidentally, as confirmed by the emphatic wsr-sign. Manifestation, i.e. the reappearance of the one reconstituted, is ultimately life triumphant. The movement and transformation during this process is more than “ascension”, as ascension only constitutes the meaning of this concept from a cosmic aspect.72 One of its most characteristic textual terms
34
makes it unambiguous that what we have here is a prj “coming forth” (from the Netherworld, which at the power political level means entering power/dominion and in a cyclic approach it is a REgeneration.) Therefore, before the process of manifestation could take place, the restoration of Order had to be realised at several levels (including the reclaiming of power through the act of smiting the enemy) during the reconstruction. Thus, the fulfilment of these and the possession of the obtained warrants and abilities had to be declared as a prerequisite of manifestation. This is why this manifestation is represented by the opening of cosmic portals and passageways, and opening is linked to the aforementioned conditions. The deceased had to prove he possessed all the above before he reached the portals, i.e. when passing through the liminal area directly preceding the manifestation. One of the acts expressing hegemonial reconstitution in this liminal phase is crossing by taking a wide stride, which not only expressed the traversing, repossession and grasping of the territory ruled, but also attested to the presence of the power regained through smiting the enemy and reusable against any malignant force. The successful outcome of smiting the enemy in the liminal phase was made possible by the verdict of the divine tribunal. In the past, the damage/death/bodily disintegration inflicted on the king/ Osiris/deceased by the (Sethian) enemy was remedied by the tribunal’s verdict of “vindication against the enemy”. The final destruction of the enemy could be executed in the Netherworld with this divine verdict, or warrant, which was granted (in the Horus constellation) before the tribunal at Heliopolis. Horus descended to his father, Osiris, as Ra’s “ba” to take part in his resurrection and to ensure his vindication. In possession of vindication (m3c-xrw) Horus as Ra’s “ba” successfully confronts the enemy, after which the Sunrise and his father’s regeneration are guaranteed.73 That is, this “vindication against the enemy” means future protection in the Afterlife, and at the same time guarantees free movement during the voyage through the Underworld. More specifically, it grants Osiris—who was restored to life again and entered into power—free entry into the Afterlife, and makes it possible for the Sun and the deceased (as well as Horus, performing his tasks in the Netherworld) to exit from Dat (through the gate of the horizon, at the first light. This vindication therefore has a preliminary and a subsequent process attached to it, and can thus be divided into three time dimensions. “Vindication against the enemy” involves the future as a prospective goal. Thus, this vindication means not only protection but also the granting of free passage to the ascension (through the gate of horizon). (This concept, in which the smiting of the enemy icon is used to include the aforementioned apotropaic meaning, originates from a royal sphere of ideas, as pointed out by Roeder, and theophanised the royal power political context.74) This is the same tool (and the same goals involved) which can be recognised in the decoration program of our plaque.
35
Preliminary summary To console the readers who followed my argumentation in the first two parts of this study, I will bring forward some of the final conclusions I arrived at in the semantic synthesis to be expounded in Part 3 (especially as that part will not be published in the scope of this periodical).75 The representation of potency is one of the semantic dimensions of the lion spearing composition only at face value, as it forms part of a far more complicated semantic framework. The coded nature of the deeper semantic levels, at times expressed cryptographically, probably resulted from the plaque’s religious theme with a solar relevance; the piece’s basic function also seems to be integrally linked to the solar vision of the Afterlife suggested by the object placed on the deceased’s chest as well as in this region of the funerary equipment. 76 After analysing each meaning of each element of the depiction before arriving at my synthesis in Part 3, it became conspicuous that their common denominator was the above outlined “vindication against the enemy” concept, since all the related elements (the function of Horus/the king/the deceased, their attire, run, white crown, and even the canide accompanying him) form part of the symbols and central motifs of this concept. The plaque records the “triumph over the enemy by justification”, a stage in the liminal region. The depicted constellation is basically atemporal and non-narrative; yet, as previously seen, it represents a state in the present that serves as a transition between certain (temporal and causal) antecedents as well as states and events desired to be gained and guaranteed in the future. In the present the main actor of the scene is placed in a so-called Horus constellation, intervening to protect his father, Osiris, and to help in his regeneration. The king can be seen in a similar warrior Horus function in the tomb of Shoshenq III (¡r-nd-it=f, “Horus, who protects his father” as a Horus figure), as a matter of fact performing the ritual of resurrecting his own Osiris/king form. In possession of vindication he performs the final enemy destruction and thus the deceased is granted free passage. In regard to the enemy represented in the composition, the lion and the royal lion hunt, popular in the New Kingdom, might have been chosen for various reasons. However, the latter was used to express the concept of vindication and to configure the meanings implied by it at multiple levels. In relation to vindication the plaque did not focus on obtaining the Sechem-power and putting it into operation, but rather demonstrated the wsr-power. As illustrated above in the case of several scarabs, this power was somehow connected with the motif of triumph over lions. As far as usual good wish formulae go, the wsr-symbol in the inscription of the plaque is an uncommon element, but it is placed centrally. Importantly, it denotes the type of power that is included in the throne name of Shoshenq III and in one of the peculiar iconographies on the southern wall of his burial chamber, in both cases linked to the restoration of Order.
36
The other peculiarity of the composition—in my view—is that the lion hunt motif was transformed into a “Schutzbild” protecting the deceased by condensing the demonstration of power (against the enemy, i.e. the lion) in the liminal territory and its final objective, i.e. free passage through the eastern gate of the horizon, into one image,77 with the desire that the deceased would not be held up by the two “horizon lions” at the end of the liminal phase of Afterlife, at the gate of the horizon leading to the earthly realm, during his course, identical with the orbit of the Sun, before the new dawn/ regeneration/manifestation.78 All things considered, my observations summarised in the first two parts of my study, together with the larger dimension of the funerary context (= Willems’ 5th analytical level) to be discussed in the synthesis of Part 3, almost unequivocally confirm that this plaque formed part of the found group of the tomb of Shoshenq III, and it must have followed the same course from there, the chest of the mummy (from the tomb to its emergence in the United States), as the Brooklyn heart scarab presented by Sagrillo (see the previous part of my study). Péter Gaboda is Egyptologist at the Department of Egyptian Antiquities, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.
notes 1
This two-line hieroglyphic inscription can be found on side A of a rectangular faience plaque. It describes the apotropaic power manifest in the depiction of the royal figure smiting the enemy, and puts into words its nature and modus operandi, see E. Hornung and E. Staehelin, Skarabäen und andere Siegelamulette aus Basler Sammlungen (Ägyptische Denkmäler in der Schweiz 1), Mainz 1976, 252, Nr. 307 (and Taf. 30); B. Jaeger, Classification et Datation des Scarabées Menkhéperrê (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis SA 2), Fribourg and Göttingen 1982, 64, § 256, Nr. 5. The depiction of the royal figure on side B provides an exact representation of the inscription: the royal figure smites the enemy before Montu, the falcon-headed god of war. This implies that the topics expressed in the images and/or in the text on the two sides cannot be treated separately. P. Eschweiler discussed the concept of the sšmw “image” primarily through its use in the Amduat book of the Underworld: Bildzauber im alten Ägypten. Die Verwendung von Bildern und Gegenständen in magischen Handlungen nach den Texten des Mittleren und Neuen Reiches (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 137), Fribourg and Göttingen 1994, 190–96. Starting out from the Egyptian commentary on the 1st and 2nd hours of the Amduat, he proposed a form of existence with a specific task assigned to it and performing the function of “potentielle Epiphanie”, beyond the earlier interpretations, i.e. “form of appearance”, “processional image”. At the same time he referred to the merely “transitorisch” nature of this form of existence, all the more so as Ra-Osiris, a temporary unification during one stage of the journey through the Underworld, might have denoted the end of the Amduat.
37
A plaque that appears to be a variant of the Basel plaque emerged in 2012 in the publication of a French auction, (Pierre Bergé & associées, Archéologie, vendredi, 30 Novembre 2012, Drouot-Richelieu, 44, Nr. 329). The basic composition on this steatite plaque with the name Menkheperra, dated to the Third Intermediate Period, is almost identical to that of the Basel piece, with only a few differences. Here Montu holds a M3c.t emblem in his hand, and a small lion accompanying the king leaps forward between the king’s legs. The short and unfortunately not illustrated reference in the catalogue might allude to the inscription carved into the other side, presumably containing two “cryptographic” hieroglyphic lines, or perhaps an identical/similar motto. (Regarding the problem of dating the motif of lions accompanying kings on seal amulets, see P. Gaboda, “A royal lion hunt/fight motif on a wedjat plaque of Shoshenq III: An exceptional evocation of a favourite New Kingdom theme in the Libyan Period (Part 1)”, Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts. A Szépművészeti Múzeum Közleményei 116–117 (2012), 33–48, esp. notes 41–43. During the synthesising analysis of themes and motifs in the final, third, and autonomous part of my study series, to be published later, I will discuss the operation of the temporarily assumed roles and images of gods in connection with the depiction of the king/god on the Budapest plaque. 2
O. Keel, Das Recht der Bilder gesehen zu werden. Drei Fallstudien zur Methode der Interpretation altorientalischer Bilder (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 122), Fribourg and Göttingen 1992, esp. 267–71. Attributing more significance to images and regarding them as highly revealing by themselves, O. Keel did not consider it as absolutely necessary to include the texts in order to understand the depiction on an iconographic level. (He repeatedly stressed that depictions of gods can reveal more about them than their names and epitheta, etc.) However, it does not mean that he disregarded the textual sources at his disposal; he believed that images and texts should be studied together at the iconological/interpretative level.)
3
Cf. E. Hornung, “Die Tragweite der Bilder. Altägyptische Bildaussagen”, Eranos 48 (1979), Vorträge gehalten auf den Eranos Tagung in Ascona vom 22. bis 30. August 1979, Frankfurt 1981, 214: “Bilder sind offen und weisen sich hinaus auf weitere Seinsbereiche, in ihren ist die ganze Wirklichkeit enthalten, in ihrer Widersprüchligkeit und Vielsichtichtigkeit.”
4
H. Brunner, “Illustrierte Bücher im Alten Ägypten”, reprint, in Das hörende Herz. Kleine Schriften zur Religionsund Geistesgeschichte Ägyptens, ed. W. Röllig (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 80), Fribourg and Göttingen 1988, 363–84. He arrived at the conclusion that images (vignettes) executed in several ways were less fixed than texts especially based on the spells of the Book of the Dead.
5
O. Keel, and Ch. Uehlinger, Gods, Goddesses, and Images of God in Ancient Israel, Minneapolis 1998, §6, 12ff.
6
The term “constellation” was introduced into Egyptology by J. Assmann in several of his works, e.g. in “Die Zeugung des Sohnes: Bild, Spiel, Erzählung und das Problem des ägyptischen Mythos”, in J. Assmann, W. Burkart, and F. Stolz eds., Funktionen und Leistungen des Mythos: drei altorientalische Beispiele (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 48), Freiburg and Göttingen 1982, 13–61.
38
7
J. Assmann, “Das Bild des Vaters im Alten Ägypten”, in Das Vaterbild in Mythos und Geschichte. Ägypten, Griechenland, Altes Testament, Neues Testament, Hrsg. H. Tellenbach, Stuttgart, Berlin, Cologne, and Mainz 1976, 12–49, esp. 30ff.
8
N. Billing, Nut the Goddess of Life in Text and Iconography (Uppsala Studies in Egyptology 5), Uppsala 2002, 27.
9
Ch. Uehlinger, “Der Mythos vom Drachenkampf: Von Sumer nach Nicaragua. Ein biblisches Feindbild und seine Geschichte”, Bibel und Kirche 46, no. 2 (1991), 66–77.
10
For the positive role of Seth fighting against the Apophis snake, see H. te Velde, Seth, God of Confusion. A Study of his Role in Egyptian Mythology and Religion, Probleme der Ägyptologie 6, Leiden 19772, (Chapter 14: Seth repelling Apophis), 99ff; L. Kákosy, “Une version abrégée du chapitre 108 du Livre des Morts”, Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts 20 (1962), 3–10; J. F. Borghouts, “The Evil Eye of Apophis”, Journal of Egyptian Archeology 59 (1983), 114–49. (Cf. also A. von Lieven’s interesting idea proposing that the worshippers of Seth might have attempted to restore Seth’s positive image even in the context of Osiris. She believes that a version of the myth might have existed in which Osiris’s adultery committed at the expense of Seth might have provided reason and an excuse for Seth to murder his brother, see “Seth ist im Recht, Osiris ist im Unrecht! Seth Kultorte und ihre Version des Osiris Mythos”, Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 133 (2006), 141–50.
11
D. Schorsch, “Seth”, in M. Hill and D. Schorsch eds., Gifts for the Gods. Images from Egyptian Temples, New York
12
This spell belonged to one of the thematic groups (chapters 31–42) with apotropaic functions targeting the
2007, 34–37, esp. 35, and the literature referred to in note 5. dangerous animals and hostile powers in the Underworld. 13
R. Lucarelli, “The Vignette of Chapter 40 of the Book of the Dead”, in J.-C. Goyon and C. Cardin eds., Proceedings of the Ninth Congress of Egyptologists, Grenoble, 6–12 September 2004 (OLA 150), Paris, vol. I, 2007, 1181–86.
14
For a comprehensive discussion of the symbolism and theological meaning of the cat, see e.g. L. Störk, “Katze”, in W. Helck and W. Westendorf eds., Lexikon der Ägyptologie III, Wiesbaden 1975, 75–76 (Kater); J. Malek, The Cat in Ancient Egypt, London 1993.
15
For the “Ra cat contra Apophis snake” motif (in chapter 17 of the Book of the Dead), originating from the textual prefiguration of the spell 335 in the Coffin Texts: M. Broze, “Le chat, le serpent et l’arbre–ished (Chapitre 17 du Livre des Morts)”, in L. Delvaux and E. Warmenbol eds., Les divins chats d’ Egypte: un air subtil, une dangereux perfum, Leuven 1991, 109–15, esp. 112–13; N. Summerfeld Estrep, “Feline embodiment of divinity. A wooden state of a cat and a cat sarcophagus in the Kelsey Museum”, Bulletin of the University of Michigan Museums of Art and Archaeology 10 (1992–1993), 66–91, esp. 73, 75 and 81–84; Malek 1993, 79, 83; J.-P. Corteggiani, “La ‘butte de la Décollation’, à Héliopolis”, Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie 95 (1995), 141–51 (esp. 147); D. Sweeney, “Cats and their people at Deir el-Medina”, in D. Magee, J. Bourriau, and S. Quirke eds., Sitting beside Lepsius. Studies in Honour of Jaromir Malek at the Griffith Institute, Leuven, Paris, and Walpole, MA 2009, 531–49, esp. 535–36, 543.
16
Broze 1991, 109, n. 2.
39
17
Sweeney 2009, 535–36; A. Mekhitarian, “Le chat dans les tombes thébaines privées”, in Delvaux and Warmenbol 1991, 23–30.
18
Malek 1993, 83.
19
L. Troy, Patterns of Queenship in Ancient Egyptian Myth and History (Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Boreas, Uppsala Studies in Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Civilisations 14), Uppsala 1986. Troy calls the frame of reference she set up for this feminine component the “feminine prototype”, which she defines thus: “one element in a system of complementary dualities, functioning in the context of androgyny of the primeval source, … comprising in itself a complementary dualism of mother and daughter as a continuum which interacts in the dynamic of regeneration” (p. 53). She regarded Hathor, the goddess of the sky, the divine model of the queen (i.e. the feminine aspect of kingship); thus, they both both have the dualistic nocturnal sky/solar eye character. The queen, and the royal ladies, who are the priestesses of a god, are in fact manifestations of this feminine prototype, i.e. they can assist the regeneration of the “father” as the “daughter-eye”. This close association between the EYE concept and the priestesses (of a royal origin) can also explain why Amenirdis I, the high priestess of Amun (who was also the daughter of the Kushite ruler, Kashta) could choose a cryptogram with a wedjat-eye in her name inscription, as seen on the Budapest hedgehog scaraboid, see P. Gaboda, “Un scaraboïde de hérisson à inscription cryptographique”, Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts. A Szépművészeti Múzeum Közleményei 73 (1990), 85–92.
20
L. Cabrol, « Stèle anonym aux deux chats », in G. Andreu ed., Les artistes de Pharaon. Deir el-Médineh et la Vallée des Rois, Paris 2002, nos. 219, 270. On the “lunette” of the Ramesside limestone stela the Sun’s setting and rising phases are contrasted as an old “great” cat (= Atum) and a perfectly reborn (nfr) young (= Ra) cat, and in both cases the noun “cat” is written in the feminine form (mi.t). This piece of the Ashmolean Museum (inv. no. 1961.232.) also exemplifies the so-called generational transition concept, which defines “reconstitution” as the transition between two consecutive generations. The two cats—one personifying the descending and the other the ascending phases of the Sun—represent the meeting of the old to the new, and their transition. (The same can be seen in the case of a couple of bulls on a bronze piece from the end of the Third Intermediate Period, preserved in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, i.e. the transition and shift with a solar connotation are embodied by two animals, who are called the embodiments of the two forms of the sun god in the inscription (as I will point it out in my upcoming study titled “When two bulls meet…”).
21
For the goddess Mw.t as a cat (and for its phonetic similarity with mi.t “female cat”), see H. te Velde, “The cat
as a sacred animal of the goddess Mut”, in M. Herma van Voss et al. eds., Studies in Egyptian Religion Dedicated to Professor Jan Zandee (Studies in the History of Religion 43), Leiden 1982, 127–37; Summerfeld Estrep 1992–1993, 82–84; Malek 1993, 90–91.
22
J. C. Darnell, The Enigmatic Netherworld Books of the Solar-Osirian Unity. Cryptographic Compositions in the Tomb of Tutankhamun, Ramesses VI and Ramesses IX (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 198), Fribourg and Göttingen 2007, 21ff. In Dra Abu el-Naga, one of the earliest tombs after the Amarna Interim is that of the High Priest of Amun called Parennefer from the late Eighteenth Dynasty. (For the discovery of the tomb, see F. Kampp and J. Seyfried,
40
“Eine Rückkehr nach Theben”, Antike Welt 26 (1995), 325–42; F. Kampp, “Vierter Vorberichtüber die Arbeiten des Ägyptologischen Instituts der Universität Heidelberg in thebanischen Gräbern der Ramessidenzeit”, Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 50 (1994), 176–88). In the enigmatic writing system of the tomb there was only one cat, as a cryptogram with the value of “f”, in one the words at the beginning of the “Adoration of Amun-ra” text. Cryptography was used intentionally here, too. In connection with the three larger literary contexts of the New Kingdom (cryptography in monumental texts, private texts and royal netherworld books), Darnell refers to the occasional overlap between monumental and netherworld cryptographies. Under certain circumstances monumental cryptographies (e.g. on wall sections oriented to the east, devoted to the Solar ascent) can be seen as religious cryptographs in which the use of cryptography was called for by the texts referring to the Solar cycle or to the “liminal” areas between the living and the Netherworld. See Darnell 2007, 18–19. 23
For the evaluation and literature of Amun’s trigrams, see Gaboda 1990, notes 19–20. In the Amun trigrams, which are concealed modes of writing the name of the god Amun(-Ra), the symbol of the cat was at times used for the consonant m (acrophonically formed from the word mjw). It was especially popular on (seal) amulets and scarabs. An oval plaque in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest (inv. no. 51.370) illustrates well
how the two sides reflecting upon each other mirror the same concept of regeneration. The oval shape frequently bears the formal symbolism of being in the nascent state (in statu nascendi). The papyrus bush on one of the sides is a symbol of regeneration, both as a plant and as a symbol referring to the place of birth and nurturing of Horus. The other side bearing Amun-Ra’s trigram with a cat sitting on a neb-basket inside is a manifestation of solar regeneration. (In certain cases the neb-basket can be regarded as the symbol of the earthly level, with its upper horizontal line representing a kind of horizon line, used to emphasise the manifestation of the figure placed on top.) The use of this trigram motif was not restricted to small arts. For example, it can also be seen in the decoration of the coffin lid of a Chantress of Amun, dating from the second half of the Twenty-first Dynasty, preserved in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest. The cat sitting on the nbw-sign (often alternating with the nb-sign), the central character of scene 3, already contained several aspects of “the Great God”, and formed an Amun trigram together with the group of signs around it. See É. Liptay, Coffins and Coffin Fragments of the Third Intermediate Period (Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest) (Catalogues of the Egyptian Collection 1), Budapest 2011, 11 (inv. no. 21.2093/1–2). Metaphorically, this motif might have been chosen because of the above outlined connections between priestesses and the felide Solar Eye, which appears not to have been a unique occurrence since it appears
in the same place of a coeval coffin in Athens, cf. Olga Tzachou-Alexandri, Ο Κόσµοςτης Αιγύπτου στο Εθνικο Αρχαιολογικο Μουσειο/The World of Egypt in the National Archeological Museum, Athens 1995, 181 (inv. no. NAM ANE 3409.). For the discussion of the cat hieroglyph, not in its cryptographic meaning but as one of the elements of the hieroglyphic writing system reflecting the well-ordered conceptual world of Egyptians, see also A. McDonald, “The Curiosity of the Cat in Hieroglyphs”, in Magee, Bourriau, and Quirke 2009, 361–79.
41
24
In the famous novel by Jorge Luis Borges, operating with multiple and concealed meanings, El jardin de senderosque se bifurcan, 1941, a sinologist discovers that an old Chinese philosopher described the construction of the labyrinth he planned to be part of his life’s work in his intricately structured book, which he left behind. The word “labyrinth” is never used in the book, since, as explained by one of the characters, “In a riddle whose answer is chess, what is the only prohibited word?” (The answer is obviously the word “chess”, intended to be concealed.)
25
For different Canaanite “readings”, see for example O. Goldwasser, “Canaanites reading Hieroglyphs. Horus is Hathor?—The Invention of the Alphabet in Sinai”, Ägypten & Levante 9 (2006), 121–60.
26
Tell es.-S.afi (Hebrew name: Tell Zaphit), or “White Hill”, located in what was the plain of Philistia in the Iron Age. According to widespread supposition, it was identified as the Biblical Gath, the first Philistine town, where
Goliath lived. A. M. Maeir, based on the findings of the “Tell as-Safi/Gath Excavation”, recently led by him, confirmed the veracity of this belief. For a more careful approach regarding the localisation of Gath highlighting various problems and currently available alternatives, see M. D. Press, The Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon. Ashkelon 4. The Iron Age figurines to Ashkelon and Philistia, Winona Lake (Indiana) 2012, 27, n. 15. The Egyptian influence can also be clearly perceived in a significant ensemble of (Iron Age) objects of Philistine iconography comprising mainly ivory pieces, seals, and seal impressions, see D. Ben-Shlomo, Philistine Iconography. A Wealth of Style and Symbol (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 241), Fribourg 2010, 85ff. Cylinder seals and seal impressions in Early Bronze Age Palestine already bore the image of the lion, which played an important symbolic and iconographic role in the cultures of the period. Tell es.-S.āfī is also famous for another
unique cylinder seal with the image of a lion, which Maeir discovered in situ, in an Early Bronze Age III house
a few years ago. He did not regard this cylinder seal made of the tusk of a hippopotamus as being of Egyptian origin, but assumed the presence of artisans specialised in advanced craftsmanship in the area of southern Palestine in that period. The posture of the (crouching) lion depicted on the find, its number (only one, as opposed to the generally two or three animals in other areas of Byblos and Israel), and the unusually naturalistic mode of depiction are very rare: A. M. Maeir, I. Shai, and L. K. Horwitz, “‘Like a Lion in Cover’: A cylinder seal from 27
Early Bronze Age III Tell e es.-S.afi /Gath, Israel”, Israel Exploration Journal 61, no. 1 (2011), 12–31.
R. Giveon, “A cylinder-seal from Tell Zaphit”, in The Impact of Egypt on Canaan. Iconographical and Related Studies (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 20), Fribourg and Göttingen 1978, 97–98, fig. 49. The piece originated from a local “Roman burial cave”, from secondary use.
28
O. Keel, “Nachträge zu ‘La glyptique de Tell Keisan’”, in O. Keel, M. Shuval, and Ch. Uehlinger, Studien zu den Stempelsiegeln aus Palästina/Israel. Bd. III: Die Frühe Eisenzeit. Ein Workshop (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 100), Fribourg and Göttingen 1990, 310 (fig. 82); Keel-Uehlinger 1998, 79, ill. 89.
29
Cf. also: I. Cornelius, The Iconography of the Canaanite Gods Reshef and Bacal: Late Bronze and Iron Age I Periods (c. 1500–1000 BCE (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 140), Fribourg and Göttingen 1994, 212ff. (the discussion of “Bacal/Seth, the serpent/lion and monster slayer”).
30
A Sidon scaraboid dated to the late Twelfth Dynasty, recently discovered by Claude Doumet-Serhal, guides us to the beginnings of the identification of Seth and Baal. On the scaraboid Seth, referred to as “Lord of ’I3ii” by
42
the object’s western Semitic owner, see H.-C. Loffet, “The Sidon Scaraboid S/3487”, Archaeology & History in Lebanon 24 (2006), 78–84. According to O. Goldwasser, this suggests that the god might have been worshipped in his form identified with Baal at the time along the Lebanese coast, see Goldwasser 2006, 123, n. 23. The identification of Seth with Baal must have taken place in the Nile Delta region (on open areas attractive to Canaanite settlers), or in Byblos in the Levant, possibly mediating Egyptian motifs. From the late Twelfth Dynasty Near-Easterners infiltrated Avaris/Tell el-Dabca, a town under Egyptian supremacy, located in the eastern Nile Delta. Attesting to the Canaanite cults brought by these settlers and to the local adoption of Baal-Zephon, a northern Syrian god, is the famous cylinder seal of Avaris, dated to the early Thirteenth Dynasty, with its central figure being Baal-Zephon, striding on two mountains, see E. Porada, “The cylinder seal from Tell el-Dabca”, American Journal of Archaeology 88 (1988), 485–88; M. Bietak, “Zu Herkunft des Seth von Avaris”, Ägypten & Levante1 (1990), 9–16 (esp. 12–13); M. Bietak and I. Forstner-Müller, “Topography of New Kingdom Avaris and Per-Ramesses”, in M. Collier and S. Snapf eds., Ramesside Studies in Honour of K. A. Kitchen, Bolton 2011, 23–50, esp. 29. At the beginning of the Second Intermediate Period, King Nehesy (early Fourteenth Dynasty), ruler of the Eastern Delta region with his seat in Avaris, was referred to Seth as the Lord of Avaris in a piece attributed to him. According to Bietak, much later, in the New Kingdom, the Temple of Seth in Avaris might have been the so-called 400-year stela, erected by Ramesses II in honour of his predecessors, in which Seth is referred to as the ancestor of the Ramessides (originating from Avaris) and, listing his royal titles, mentioned as a king having ruled for 400 years. 31
Cf. I. Cornelius 1994. About the question whether Seth was regarded as one of the manifestations of Reshef in addition to the shared characteristics, see K. Tazawa, “Syro-Palestinian Deities in the New Kingdom: Reshef, Seth and Baal”, in J.-C. Goyon and Ch. Chardin eds., Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of Egyptologists, vol. II (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 150), Leuven 2004, 1799–1806.
32
Keel-Uehlinger 1998, 114.
33
Thus, it was evaluated as a possible but rather experimental hypothesis for example in: B. A. Strawn, Leonine image and metaphor in the Hebrew Bible and the ancient Near East (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 212), Fribourg and Göttingen 2005, 89. In the case of deities standing on a lion or a horse, as well as some goddesses introduced into Egypt from the Near East, several interpreters of Canaanite iconography frequently regarded these animals as attributes alluding to the warlike aspect, which became more and more dominant from the Late Bronze Age. By doing so, they omitted the idea of regeneration associated with both animals in Egypt, and even the fact that it cannot be excluded—partly in connection with the associations linked to these animals in Egypt—that standing on a lion/ horse might have also been the indication of a divine epiphany. (More will be said about concepts of regeneration as part of the lion’s wealth of symbols. The mysterious horse figure seen on the uppermost part of the so-called Taanach cult stand from Canaan, with this upper part representing the sky, might be the horse as an expression of solar regeneration.)
34
For numerous examples of the glyptic motif of the snake-slayer Seth-Baal, see Keel 1990, esp. 302ff; I. Cornelius 1994, 212ff, etc.
43
In the previous part of my study I dealt with the plaque from Zagazig with a scene of slaying Apophis on one of its sides (Musée Royaux, Bruxelles, KMKG-MRAH E 6190) primarily because of its earlier, erroneous dating (for a long time it was dated to the period of Shoshenq III, instead of the Ramesside period), see Gaboda 2012, note 17. For the related literature and analysis of the motif, see Keel 1990, 312, fig. 87; I. Cornelius 1994, 214ff, for the dating, 214, note 3. 35
For Seth-Baal conquering lions already on Late Bronze Age seal amulets, see Keel 1990, 306ff. (figs. 77, 79, 82); Keel-Uehlinger 1998, 114, and figs. 88a–90a.
36
In snake-slaying scenes from the New Kingdom, Seth is often depicted as bull- or human-headed. The so-called Seth animal, with big ears and a long nose can clearly be identified among the figures in this cylinder seal, but the other figure wears a tall headgear reminiscent of the crown of Lower Egypt. P. de Maret again proposed that this difficult-to-identify species might be an aardvark, which disappeared from Egypt during its historical period, but its ethology and attributes (nocturnal feeder, hides in its burrow during daytime, subsists on larvae termites and scarabs!) made it suitable to be regarded as the enemy of solar order, and one of the embodiments of Seth; see P. de Maret, “L’oryctérope, un animal ‘bon à penser’ pour les Africain est il à l’origine du dieu égytien Seth”, Bulletin de l’Institut Français d‘Archéologie Orientale 105 (2005), 107–28.
37
C. A. Hope and O. E. Kaper, “Egyptian interest in the Oases in the New Kingdom and a New Stela for Seth from Mut el-Kharab”, in M. Collier and S. Snapf eds., Ramesside Studies in honour of K. A. Kitchen, Bolton 2011, 219–36. In the cult of Seth—an outsider, a god separated outside of Egypt—oases (such as Mut el-Kharab, the centre of the Dakhleh Oasis) and the outlying regions, etc. have special features, but authors consider not only Seth’s general Ramesside features and attributes but also list some rare Seth hymns and votive objects manifesting his relation to Amun (among these is the double-sided stela from Zagazig, from the period of Rameses II, with the Amun-ram on one of its sides and Seth spearing the Apophis snake on the other, 233). One of Seth’s epithets on the votive stela from Mut el-Kharab is “son of (sky goddess) Nut”, “Lord of the heaven”. For more about his connection to Amun in the New Kingdom, see J. Vandier, “Le dieu Seth au Nouvel Empire”, Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts Abteilung Kairo 25 (1969), 188–97.
38
This concept can be observed not only in Egypt but also in a depiction found in the Levant. A building lintel discovered in secondary usage in a Qubeibeh village was published in 1957. It bears the title “king of the gods” followed by the image of a reclining Seth (as an ideogram), see J. Kaplan, “Archaeological Survey of the Jibne District”, Yediot 21 (1957), 203; J. Leibovitch, “A hieroglyphic inscription from Qubeibeh”, Yediot 21(1957), 208–10. The dating of this building lintel was later corrected by O. Goldwasser, pointing out the New Kingdom parallel of the Seth-king combination, thus ultimately dating the piece to the Nineteenth Dynasty (in contrast to the previous dating to the Hyksos period), see O. Goldwasser, “On the date of Seth from Qubeibeh”, Israel Exploration Journal 42 (1992), 47–51.
39
See Te Velde 1977, 71, n. 3.
40
Giveon 1978.
44
41
M. Schade-Busch, “Zur Königsideologie Amenophis’ III. Analys der Phraseologie historische Texte der Voramarna Zeit”, Hildesheimer ägyptologische Beiträge 35 (1992), 120. Discussing the m3j pHtj “der kraftvolle Löwe”
royal epithet, this kind of power originates from a god who bestowed his power upon the king. It is primarily mentioned in connection with Horus, Seth and the lion. It was originally a bestial power, WHICH THE KING MUST POSSESS TO SLAY THE ENEMY, and thus regarded as a prerequisite of his hegemonic ruling. 42
Eschweiler 1994, 302
43
O. Keel, “Der Bogen als Herrschaftssymbol. Einige unveröffentlichte Skarabäen aus Ägypten und Israel zum Thema ‘Jagd und Krieg’”, in Keel, Shuval, Uehlinger 1990a, 27–65; O. Keel, “Berichtigung und Nachträge zu den Beiträgen II–IV, a., Berichtigung zu ‘Der Bogen als Herrschaftssymbol’”, ibid., 1990b, 263ff.
44
On the Late Bronze Age scarab in fig. 2a, the pharaoh smites an enemy/captive whose hands are tied behind his back (= Keel-Uehlinger 1998, 82–83, fig. 97a), while the wsr is behind the king, similarly to the Early Iron Age piece in Fig. 2b, from the Megiddo hoard (= Keel-Uehlinger 1998,121, fig. 144a). In any case, in the stamp-seals and scarabs discovered in Megiddo/Tell es Mutesellim during the German excavations in the early twentieth century, the figure of the lion appeared surprisingly frequently both in the shape of the objects and the motifs depicted in them. (Unfortunately, the hoard was discovered from the inside of a vessel originating from an unclear stratigraphic context, but due to the often inaccurate documentation of the dig, some pieces found in its vicinity might have been included in the material. Despite these difficulties and the hoard being scattered in various museums, O. Keel managed to reconstruct the hoard of 32 pieces. A large part of the collection, comprising seals originating from different periods, proved to be objects made in late Ramesside mass production; the time spectrum of the entire material spans from late Iron Age I to Iron Age II C, thus including scarabs from the Twenty-second Dynasty. According to Keel, the objects with an Egyptising overall picture must have been mainly made in the Eastern Delta of Egypt, while some might have been produced in Southern Palestine. Cf. O. Keel, Studien zu den Stempelsiegeln aus Palästina/Israel IV. (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 135), Fribourg and Göttingen 1994, 1–52; and its review by W. A. Ward, Journal of the American Society 116, no. 3 (1996), 535–37; O. Goelet, Israel Exploration Journal 48, nos. 3–4 (1998), 292–95, esp. 292–93; and also touched upon in S. Münger, “Egyptian stamp-seal amulets and their implications for the chronology of the Early Iron Age”, Tel Aviv 30 (2003), 66–82, esp. 74, n. 4.
45
B. Jaeger, Essai de classification et datation des scarabées Menkhéperrê (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis. Series Archeologica 2), Fribourg and Göttingen 1982, 817, note (scarab with smiting the enemy theme with wsr-sign behind the king and xpr-symbol above the enemy).
46
Fig. 3a (= Keel 1990a, 31 and 33, Abb. 8, Taf. 10 D; Keel 1990b, 267). On the scarab of the former Matouk collection (M 3269), the king with a blue crown takes aim at the lion sitting on his rear legs. Keel regarded the branches between the king and the lion (similarly to the depiction in Fig. 4a) as well as the sitting posture of the lion as a means of precaution aimed at reducing the aggressiveness of the lion image to the benefit of the pharaoh. The branches seem to separate the lion, while the lion’s strange, slouching posture shows the animal as unfit to fight, and already a captive of the king’s power.
45
In fig. 3b (= Keel 1990a, 34–35, Abb. 9, Taf. 11 A), moreover, the lion turns its back to the king with the blue crown. Besides the possible protective function of the branches, Keel certainly did not ignore the fact that motifs of vegetation frequently symbolise regeneration. Regeneration—obviously depicted as above, i.e. linked with the strength of the lion—seems to be an inherent part of the lion symbolism. This was already suggested earlier in the case of some scarabs (e.g. Hornung-Staehelin 1976, 126–27). LIFE forces and regenerative power were among the symbolic meanings of the image of the lion on scarabs already from the Middle Bronze Age IIB, see Keel–Uehlinger 1998, 19, 23; Strawn 2005, 80. As seen in the above examples, not only the lion itself had such a meaning, but also some seal amulets depicting hunt/combat/striking. (In an exceptional manner, on a specimen attributed to the corpus of Amenhotep III’s commemorative scarabs, and within this to the text type commemorating the Pharaoh’s lion hunt, a nfr-sign is engraved “on the outer left-hand thickness of the base”, see C. Blankenberg-van Delden, “Once again some more commemorative scarabs of Amenophis III”, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology (1977), 83–87, C 115. 47
On the scarabs in figs. 4a–b, the sun disk and the nfr-signs linked together read Rc–nfr (which at times might have appeared on the base of scarabs separately, also in association with solar regeneration, but not in this particular combination). Fig. 4a shows a piece from the Lachish Str VI (= ca. 1200–1150), in which the wsr-sign can be clearly seen behind the pharaoh, see R. Giveon, Scarabs from recent excavations in Israel (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 83), Fribourg and Göttingen 1988, 82ff, no. 94 and pl. 7,94; Keel 1990a, 268, Abb. 44; Keel-Uehlinger 1998, 82–83, fig. 101a. Fig. 4b shows a steatite piece, now at Munster University, in which the same expression again occupies the upper register of the picture in-between the combatting parties, see E. Zenger, “Erwerb von Antiken aus Palästina-Israel”, Gesellschaft zur Förderung der westphälischen Wilhelms-Universität 1980/81, Münster i. W. 1981, 45; Keel 1990a, 268, Abb. 46, Taf. XIII, 1.
48
O. Keel, “Der Pharao als ‘vollkommene Sonne’: Ein neuer ägypto-palästinischer Skarabäentyp”, in S. IsraelitGroll ed., Egyptological Studies (Scripta Hierosolymitana 28), Jerusalem 1982, 406–512; Keel 1994, 53–134. Also compare with I . J. de Hulster, Iconographic Exegesis and Third Isaiah (Forschungen zum Alten Testament 2. Reihe 36), Tübingen 2009, 7.6.2, Pharao als “vollkommene Sonne”, 208ff.
49
In this group of Palestinian stamp-seals, the Egyptian motifs are reworked and appear together with unusual, probably local motifs. Peculiar is the motif of a uraeus snake protruding from the mouth (and not the headdress) of the king on the throne, as well as that of the snake that are also embodiments the fiery Solar Eye, which in this case might have symbolised the scorching breath of the sun god. Other unusual elements are the position of the hands (stretched out before and behind him) of the royal figure sitting on a so-called palace façade throne. However, in the case of this group of scarabs Keel attributed the fact of the Palestinian reinterpretation a historical implication that goes too far when he suggested their users were (Egyptophile) Canaanites who welcomed Shoshenq I’s attempt to resurrect the empire (= his invasion of the region); this is also sustained by W. A. Ward 1996, 536. Nevertheless, regardless of the cultural point of view, the motivation of the apotropaic use of these pieces is certain: the image of the enthroning Pharaoh is a guarantee of the appropriate operation of (cosmic order) and the destruction of evil.
46
50
Keel 1982, 490–91, 522 Abb. 13A; J. de Hulster 2009, fig. 7.19.
51
Ibid., 471–72.
52
L. Popko provides an interesting example, albeit originating from the Greco-Roman period, of the division and historical actualisation of the roles included in the smiting the enemy iconography: in a Baltimore relief depicting a lancing, falcon-headed god, the defeated enemy is shown as a Persian (presumably as a result of the anti-Seleucid propaganda at the time), see L. Popko, “Der Speerkämpfende falkenköpfige Gott: ein Fall ptolämaischen Propaganda”, Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 135 (2008), 89–92. He also traces back the iconography to scenes in which the king subdues the hosts of chaos, thus it is also the case of a god performing the role of a king.
53
O. Keel, “Nachträge zu La glyptique de Tell Keisan (1971–1976)“, in Keel, Shuval, and Uehlinger 1990, 313.
54
Turkish saying Büyüğü dövde küčüklere ibret olsun, see I. Kúnos, Török nyelvkönyv [Turkish Language Book], Budapest 1916, 20.
55
E. Weissert, “Royal hunt and royal triumph in a prisma fragment of Ashurbanipal (82–5–22,2)”, in S. Parpola and R. M. Whiting eds., Assyria 1995: Proceedings of the 10th Anniversary Symposium of the Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, Helsinki, September 7–11, Helsinki 1995, 339–58. In the prisma fragment that he discusses the New Assyrian king’s lion hunt was immediately followed by the akītu-festival, providing a similar sequence of events
as in Egypt, where the hunt was followed by regeneration. “…when the New Year approached, Ashur, the king of the gods and probably also Ishtar, his warrior daughter, were expected to subdue the mythical hosts of chaos in the plain; and the king, the ruler of [hu]mankind , was for his part expected to subdue the incarnate hosts of chaos, that is, the lions”; see Weissert 1995, 349; Strawn 2005, n. 212. In the context of our research Weissert’s observation is important, since he claims that the hunt-related inscriptions and depictions of this ruler from the seventh century BC usually belong to one of two schemas: he either fights on a plain, protecting humans and animals as a faithful shepherd; or the hunt takes place as a ritualised drama, in an urban area, in which case there are eighteen lions, which he regards as symbolic and identical in number to the gates of the wall that surrounded greater Nineveh, guaranteeing the safety of every exit from the capital. In the third part of my study, I will explain the magic aim of the lion-spearing motif on the plaque of Shoshenq III in a somewhat similar way, through discussing the impact exerted on the gateway/passage-keeper lions that function as so-called horizon lions standing in the way of regeneration.
56
J. Assmann, Liturgische Lieder an den Sonnengott, Untersuchungen zur altägyptischen Hymnik I. (Münchner Ägyptologische Studien 19), Berlin(-West) 1969, 182, n. 68. This duality was also pointed out by Ph. Derchain in connection with the cosmic roles of the king. He distinguished between “positive” rituals (with the intention of strengthening the results of the victory and the triumphant power) and “negative” rituals (to eliminate harmful results, and to weaken the inimical forces); see “Le r le du roi dans le maintien de l’ordre cosmique”, in L. de Heusch et al. eds., Le Pouvoir et le Sacré (Annales du Centre d’ Etude des Religions 1), Bruxelles 1962, 61–73, esp. 67.
57
Assmann 1969, 182, notes 71 and 272. Cf. For a characteristic comparison between the earthly representative of divine order and the cosmic, mythical enemy of the Sun in Netherworld, cf. J. Zandee, Death as an Enemy According to Ancient Egyptian Conceptions, Leiden 1960, the part titled “B. 17 The use of the term xfty enemy”, 217ff.
47
58
H. Roeder, Mit dem Auge sehen. Studien zur Semantik der Herrschaft in den Toten- und Kulttexten (Studien zur Archäologie und Geschichte Altägyptens 16), Heidelberg 1996.
59
H. Willems, The Coffin of Heqata (Cairo JdE 36418). A Case Study of Egyptian Funerary Culture of the Early Middle Kingdom (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 70), Leuven 1996.
60
N. Billing, Nut. The Goddess of Life in Text and Iconography, Uppsala 2002.
61
E.g. Assmann 1969, 89; Willems 1996, 366.
62
Erwin Panofsky’s model of art interpretation has obviously had an influence on the development of the methodology of iconology in Egyptology. In his approach to meanings, his first and foremost objective was the primary identification of motifs and forms (pre-iconographic level), which was followed by their analysis (iconographic level), and finally the synthesis of all the information (iconological level). For Panofsky’s model applied to some specific themes in Oriental Studies, see e.g. P. Eschweiler 1994, 6; I. J. de Hulster 2009, the part titled “3.7 Researching images”, 67–90, esp. 77ff (overview of iconographic research from Panofsky through Bätschmann to today). The primary importance of analysis before synthesis in Egyptology is emphasised in H. Roeder, “Mit dem Auge sehen. Ägyptisches und ägyptologisches zum ‘Auge des Horus’”, Göttinger Miszellen 138 (1994), 37–69, esp. 194; Billing 2002, 193. (According to the latter, analysis predominantly seems to answer “how?”, while synthesis strives to give an answer to “what?”). In her catalogue on scarabs, R. Schulz also distinguishes three interpretative levels: the visual/syntactic level constitutes the study of various aspects of form, type, layout and style (which basically equals identification), the semantic level contains the interpretation (= analysis) of icons, script signs, motifs and texts, while the contextual level entails the analysis of the component parts of the theme and the programme (that is, synthesis), see Khepereru-Scarabs. Scarabs, Scaraboids and Plaques from Egypt and the Ancient Near East in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore 2007, 4.
63
H. Willems 1996, 363ff.
64
He handled the decorative elements belonging to levels 1 and 2 individually and in groupings, while possible correlations between the surfaces that bear the respective decorations were examined at level 3.
65
At analytical level 5, the correlation between the object and the archaeological context it is directly embedded in (e.g. the burial chamber and its architectural and decoration programme) was investigated, while at level 6 it was applied more comprehensively, i.e. to the burial (chamber) itself, which forms part of a larger-scale funerary building complex.
66
For the ultimate binary oppositions, dual and (triple) categories, see e.g. L. Troy 1986, 7–9; J. Assmann, Ägypten, Theologie und Frömmigkeit, Stuttgart, Berlin, and Cologne 1991, 90–98; J. Gwyn Griffiths, “Some Egyptian conceptual triads”, in U. Luft ed., The Intellectual Heritage of Egypt (Studia Aegyptiaca XIV), Budapest 1992, 223–28, esp. 228; J. Gwynn Griffiths, Triads and Trinity, Cardiff 1996, 19–21, 30, 46, 57, 81, 86, 89, 154, 227, 306; G. Englund, “Gods as a Frame of Reference. On Thinking and Concepts of Thought in Ancient Egypt”, in Idem
48
ed., The Religion of the Ancient Egyptians. Cognitive Structures and Popular Expression, Proceedings of Symposia in Uppsala and Bergen 1987 and 1988, Uppsala 1989, 7–28. 67
Billing 2002, section “II.1. Duality as ontology”, 26.
68
Roeder 1996, 9–10 (summed up e.g. in the section “Sechem und die Herrschaft gegen Feinde”.
69
Billing also uses these as a guideline when examining the goddess Nut, as the two principal levels; see Billing 2002, 26 and 30, Section “II.1.1. Reconstitution and manifestation: major thematic arrangements”.
70
Roeder, 1996, 131–32, table 132.
71
Sechem-Herrschaft, thoroughly studied by Roeder, was the central theme of the power political dimension, forming part of the thematic concept of RULE, which described the hegemonic position of the deceased, see Roeder 1996, 19–74, 154–73.
72
Billing 2002, n. 38.
73
Roeder 1996, 9–10.
74
Ibid., 22.
75
Due to its length, my study (series) was divided into three parts primarily along methodological lines, as follows: Part 1: a description of the visual levels (form and typology) of the object (applying R. Schulz’s model). Part 2: introduction to the semantic analysis aimed only at the discussion of problems of methodology. Part 3: begins with a semantic analysis of the main motif of the two sides. First the wedjat-eye as a polysemantic symbol of “reconstitution” in the Third Intermediate Period is discussed, followed by standard, conventional interpretations of the antagonist of the central scene of side B, the lion, and the motif of the royal lion hunt, while also touching upon the formal (and contentual?) New Kingdom antecedents that appear the closest to the depiction. This is followed by the semantic synthesis, in which the definition of the semantic layer(s) is attempted, treating all the pictorial and textual elements of the object as a compositional unit. At this point I will attempt to establish the relations between the two sides of the object (= ca. Willems’ 3rd analytical level). Then, by exploring the specifics of the meaning and the function of the object, as if stepping out of the object, I will call attention to correlations in ever-widening circles of integration (in connection with the iconographic programme of the burial chamber (= in accordance with Willems’ 5th analytical level).
76
M. Bommas, “Das Motif der Sonnenstrahlen auf der Brust des Toten. Zur Frage der Stundenwachen im Alten Reich”, Studien zur altägyptischen Kultur 36 (2007), 15–22 (mainly vindication, 19).
77
The value of the cryptographic reading of the lion and rectangle combination in the meaning of “vindication”, as well as other possible symbolic values of the rectangle, allowing the interpretation of the rectangle as a kind of gate of horizon/gateway, the entrance guarded by horizon lions, will be expounded in the next part of the study.
78
For horizon lions, see e.g. D. Budde, “Zur Symbolik der sogenannten Schulderrosette bei Löwendarstellungen”, Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 127 (2000), 116–35, esp. §1.
49
50
a k r at e r w i t h p h r y n i s i n B u D a p e s t
a n D r á s k á r pát i
“Vases on which a phlyax masks appears as the sole decoration are fairly common in Apulian red-figure, but they are normally of comparatively small dimensions, the majority being choes between 8 and 11 cm in height. The appearance therefore of a bell-krater, on the reverse of which a phlyax mask is depicted on a much larger scale, is a matter of both stylistic and iconographic importance.” With these words, Arthur Dale Trendall began one of his last articles, the publication of an Apulian bell-krater 23.5 cm in height in a New York private collection.1 His description, however, is just as true of another Apulian red-figured bell-krater (17.3 cm in height) in Budapest, on which the sole decoration on each side is a single masked male (side A) and female (side B) head. The vase is most noteworthy for the inscription
ΦΡΥΝΙΣ, in added white, next to the male head on side A, which relates the object to another bell-krater
in Salerno with a comic scene, where one of the figures is also labelled with the name ΦΡΥΝΙΣ.2 The same kind of name-inscription connects two different regions from different craft traditions: a pottery workshop in Apulia with that of Asteas’s in Paestum. The Phrynis vase from Apulia (figs. 1a–b) was acquired by the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest in 1996. The vase, of unknown provenance, was published by Katalin Vandlik in 2002. Its close parallel in California clinches the attribution of Trendall and Cambitoglou: our vase belongs to the production of the Winterthur Group (third quarter of the fourth century BC); and it is indeed “likely that the two vases belong not only to the same group, but to the same hand”.3 The Budapest Phrynis vase stands at the intersection of three disciplines in Classical studies, each of which has seen significant advances in the past decade; a reassessment is therefore warranted. First, Phrynis, the name of a famous musician, is deeply implicated in the often heated cultural polemics that surrounded the New Music of Athens in the second half of the fifth century BC, whose predominantly political ramifications have been rendered much clearer by the proceedings of the Warwick conference on Mousikê, published in the volume Music and the Muses.4 Second, the reception of Attic theatre and drama in South Italian Greek and Italic culture5 is an area that has been strongly modified by new research.6 Third, as the results of recent studies in the archaeology of South Italy clarify, the Budapest vase was probably intended for the non-Greek Italic market;7 a fact that would, if confirmed by clay analysis, substantiate the arguments of those scholars who believe that there was also a market for Apulian “phlyax” or “comic” vases outside Tarentum.8 51
1a-B
.
kr ater with phrynis, siDes a anD B, Bu Da pe s t, M u s e uM of f i n e a rts
The Winterthur Group comprises about 120 surviving vases, most of which bear (either on one side or both) a woman’s head in profile as their sole decoration, a much-repeated motif in the Apulian art of the late fourth century.9 One bell-krater in a Laguna Hills (California) private collection attributed to the Group in RVAp Supplement I10 differs from the other five similar pieces, listed under no. 563, in that the figural decoration common on the main side (in this case, a walking nude youth with phiale) is “matched” on the back side by a comic head with a female mask, type RR (fig. 2), instead of the usual schematic female head.11 Vandlik referred to the Laguna Hills vase as a close parallel for the Budapest piece, and thus confirmed Trendall’s attribution. Trendall also mentioned the Laguna Hills vase along with two others as parallels in his discussion of the bell-krater in the New York private collection.12 The close connection between the Laguna Hills and Budapest vases is also confirmed
by the inscription that accompanies the decoration: ΤΡΑΓΩ∆ΟΣ.13 The dialect of the inscriptions on the Winterthur Group vases is impossible to establish.14
RVAp Supplement II (563d) lists the mentioned bell-krater, which meanwhile had entered the Budapest collection. It stands out from the production of the group as much as the vase with a comic mask in Laguna Hills stood out of the list of monotone Winterthur vases in Supplement I.15 Supplement II included another similar piece: a lekanis in a different Californian private collection
52
(fig. 3).16 My comments to the description of no. 563d1 (the Budapest vase) can be summarized in three points: (1) while the decoration of the Laguna Hills vase is described as “female head wearing mask”, that of the Budapest vase is defined as “head of woman to left”. In the notes, the author refers to the figure as: “looks to be wearing a mask”. Vandlik has shown that the female “head” on the Budapest vase is in fact an RR type mask, which in the detailed classification of comic masks provided by Webster and Green represents the “wolfish woman”, a relatively rare type in the series of old women’s masks.17
2
.
k r at e r w i t h M a s k t y p e “wolfish woM an”,
The female mask on the Budapest vase is iden-
l aguna hills, california,
tical to the one on the Laguna Hills vase.
p r i vat e c o l l e c t i o n
(2) The male masked head figures in the description as a bearded satyr head. (3) Of the pictorial elements in added white, the laurel wreath is mentioned and only Side B is reproduced (RVAp II Suppl. 2, 68,8). To date, three vases of the Winterthur Group are known:18 all three have a masked female head, but only the Budapest piece has a comic mask on both sides. The four comic masks and
the ΤΡΑΓΩ∆ΟΣ inscription on these Winterthur Group vases share a common context in the world of Greek-language theatre which is also confirmed by the ΦΡΥΝΙΣ inscription,19
and perhaps by the IHPNΩ inscription as well.
3
.
lekanis with feMale heaD, wearing coMic Mask, orange count y california, p r i vat e c o l l e c t i o n ,
53
Winterthur Group vases with mask and/or inscription Shape
RVAp no. /Collection
Decoration: side A
Decoration: side B
Bell-krater
Suppl. I 563d
Nude youth moving to
Laguna Hills (Calif.)
the left carrying a phialê;
Private Coll.
INSCRIPTION
Female head wearing a comic M A S K (type RR), in profile to left with I N S C R I P T I O N ΙΗΡΝΩ (?) in added white (now largely vanished)
above
to right ΤΡΑΓΩ∆ΟΣ in added white
Bell-krater
Suppl. II 563d1
Male head in profile,
Female head in profile,
Budapest Museum of
wearing a laurel wreath
wearing a comic
Fine Arts, 97.A.1
(in added white) and
MASK
(type RR), to left
comic M A S K , to left with INSCRIPTION
ΦΡΥΝΙΣ
and kithara, both in added white Lekanis
Suppl. II 563f
Female head in profile,
Orange County (Calif.),
wearing comic M A S K
Dr. M.A.Telson Coll.
(close to type XC ?),
Panther
to left
In his list of Apulian mask representations, Trendall mentions 29 vases decorated only with male masks (MAV 150−2, nos. 12–40). Among these, only one is of a larger size (a chous 19 cm in height, no. 40). With the exception of two vases 11 cm in height, all are between 8.5 and 9.5 cm tall, and with the exception of one small skyphos (height 6.8 cm, no. 29 = PhV 167), all are choes.20 Thus, the Budapest vase’s mask with ΦΡΥΝΙΣ inscription is—except for the New York vase published by Trendall in 1995—the
only comic male mask to date that occurs on a larger vase not of the chous shape. (Among bell-kraters, however, 17.3 cm in height stands for small size.)
54
Female masks are rarer as the sole decorations of a vase. Trendall mentions only six (MAV 142, nos. 9–14), on a variety of shapes (bell-krater, pelike, chous, olpe, and pyxis lid). The Budapest vase is thus an addition to the brief list of pieces with such representations. Moreover, apart from the Budapest object, only one other Apulian vase is known with a single mask on both sides (the small skyphos mentioned above). In summary: the Budapest vase is noteworthy in every respect, and a rare exception in the red-figure production of fourth-century South Italian workshops.
The decoration of the Budapest krater is especially remarkable for the inscription ΦΡΥΝΙΣ and
the kithara, both in added white on top of the black background.21 It could hardly be a mere coincidence that there is another comic vase with the inscription Phrynis. The vase in Salerno, another bellkrater (fig. 4), was painted by Asteas, the leading master of Paestan vase painting, about fifteen years before the execution of the Budapest piece.22 On the Salerno vase one of the figures wearing a comic mask is identified in the inscription as Pyronides. His white hair and beard, his nearly frontal view, and the relatively restrained caricatural features of the face that are much stronger on other comic vases; the decorated tunic and himation which, again differently from the usual style, hangs down to cover the genitals; the lack of the belly and bottom padding normal on comic actors; and the stick bent at the top in his hands are all striking elements on their own, but together give unusual dignity to the figure of Pyronides. Angrily, he drags after him the second figure, Phrynis, marked with the attribute of the kithara and also named in the inscription. Phrynis is shown in full profile with strongly exaggerated facial
4
.
va s e w i t h a s t e a s p h r y n i s – p y r ó n i D é s s c e n e , salerno, Museo pr ovinciale
features (snub nose, chin jutting out parallel to the nose), and with the usual attributes of comic actors (padded belly and arse, theatrical phallus, clearly visible nipples).23 His stance, leaning backwards away from the other figure, clearly shows his resistance to following Pyronides, or to giving up his instrument (in the picture, Pyronides seems to be dragging Phrynis by his kithara-strings).
55
Phrynis a famous dithyrambographos of fifth-century Athens was at the time very well-known in the Greek world, and as a quote of Aristotle more or less contemporary with the vase brilliantly illustrates: “It is true that if there had been no Timotheus we would have been without much of our lyric poetry (melopoia); but if there had been no Phrynis there would have been no Timotheus.”24 As a musical innovator, Phrynis was as famous as Timotheus, or as his friend and colleague Euripides, all of whom, according to anecdotes, suffered criticism and mockery for their innovations. If Phrynis had not been a well-known poet of the generation before Timotheus, then Aristotle could not have used the similarities between Phrynis and Timotheus as an analogy to construct the story of a masterpupil relationship: the philosopher’s views reflect opinions of all his predecessors. The figure of Phrynis the musician appears several times in Attic Old Comedy. The Suda adds that comic poets often mentioned Phrynis’ numerous musical innovations by which he “diverted music away from its traditional forms”.25 The reasons for Phrynis and other fifth-century musical reformers’ identification in the ongoing comic polemic against the New Music Revolution with the figures of the sophist and the sycophant26 became clear only after the “Warwick turn” in Greek music studies.27 It was in the intellectual milieu of Athenian politics of New Music, that the figure type of the new musician and poet, a radical, over-the-top, extravagant person exemplified in the Cinesias (1373–1409) and the Poet (737–84, 903–57) of the Birds, appeared in comic theatre. He is mentioned in Clouds (333) as a “songbender of kyklioi choroi”,28 and he shares at least one important trait, that of musical extravagancy with Aristophanes’ caricatures of Agathon (Thesm. 39–174) and Euripides (Frogs 1119–363). This helps to explain why musical allusions and jokes occur so frequently in the surviving plays and fragments of Attic old comedy.29 Apart from making the audience laugh, they also mark the character’s political attitude. If he attacks musical innovations or New Music composers, the audience can be certain that he stands on the side of aristocratic conservatives. Plato sketches similarly the character of Laches (Lach. 188d): his role as an aristocratic military commander befits to disparage the Ionian, Phrygian and Lydian harmoniai, and to praise the only “pure” Dorian scale. The audience was able to comprehend jokes that alluded to the double meanings implicit in musical terms. In the Knights, Aristophanes coins a name for a musical scale from the verb “to bribe” (“dorianising” harmonia: dorodikisti, 996): the only one, naturally, that Cleon was ever able to learn. In a famous fragment of Pherecrates’
Cheirôn (fr. 155 PCG) Mousikê complains, in sexualised puns on musical language, about the New Music composers, including Phrynis, who have subjected her to violent abuse. The joke is funny not because the audience was aware of the specialised musical terminology,30 but rather because, as Csapo has shown,31 New Music itself politicised the vocabulary of music as a weapon in the ideological struggle.
56
Following Dobrov and Urios-Aparisi,32 Vandlik33 suggested a possibility to connect the wolfish woman mask of the Budapest krater to Pherecrates’ Mousikê, an old hetaira. If Mousikê is indeed an old hetaira, the humour of the scene would be weakened by undermining the effectiveness of the play on words catching the double entendre of the musico-sexual technical terms: it is hardly surprising that a hetaira talks dirty. The comedy of the scene is sharper if Mousikê, an innocent waif until that point, recites her sufferings to Dikaiosynê, in musical terms that become increasingly nasty and violent, with only the audience aware of what “else” they might mean. Sexually ambiguous allusions are common in relation with any female character in comedy, not only hetairai. Eupolis, who was—as we will see below—probably the author of our Phrynis scene, speaks in sexually ambiguous terms of the “female” chorus of his Poleis, each of whose members stood for a city of the Delian league.34 Otherwise, if Mousikê is now an older hetaira, was she always one? And why should such a Mousikê be complaining to Dikaiosynê? Mousikê here is better interpreted as one of Old Comedy’s many female metapoetic figures and female personifications.35 Therefore when, placing the Pherecrates fragment in the context of ongoing debates in Athens on the politics of music—which is what Mousike is referring to when she complained about her sufferings at the hands of the avant-garde—the idea that she should appear as a hetaira is “ideologically” counterproductive, since it is central to the attack on New Music that its practitioners raped and ruined a music that had, till then, been a more or less noble and pure. Consequently, any link between the “wolfish” woman mask on the Budapest Phrynis vase and Pherecrates’ Cheiron comedy seems to be unlikely. There remains, however, another possibility: the Salerno krater and the Budapest piece both refer to the same comedy. The Phrynis character in theatre was a product of the New Music debate: one of many figures of ridicule and fun, a harmful creature who would be expelled from the ideal state and who could be paraded for the audience’s amusement in comic competitions, but who was at the same time praised and whose music very much enjoyed in dithyrambic and kitharodic competitions. In the case of Phrynis and other members of the musical avant-garde, it is important to distinguish between the historical composer and the comic character. The historical Phrynis is not to be identified with the character derived from him by the comic poets, just as the real Euripides should not be confused with the “Euripides” of Aristophanes. Old Comedy sought to capture its audience by representing living contemporaries without the natural blunting effect of the stylization of the characters in the drama. The double aspect of these characters (real and fictive), in their original place and time, was an essential part of their reception. But with time their real aspect was unavoidably lost, as the comic character in drama moved
57
further and further from the historical figure. In repertory performances, decades later and perhaps widely removed in space, Phrynis and the other poets, complex figures to the poets’ contemporary Athenian audiences, were reduced to their comic types. Although the fourth-century South Italian audience was naturally aware that they had been famous poets in their time, none of them could have seen them in real life. If a painter wished to represent a comedy performance with a scene from a play, the nature of Attic Old Comedy and its Nachleben meant that with time there was no essential difference between an inscription that said “Xanthias”, and one that said “Phrynis”. Both are represented by the painter as characters in comedy, and not as historical figures.36 The names of comic characters are common not only on vases with scenes from comedy, but also on vases connected with tragedy: Asteas, more than any other Paestan or South Italian painter, makes frequent and enthusiastic use of this ancient device of the vase-painter. This is to say that Vandlik’s statement37 accepted by Piqueux38 that “the names of historical musicians appear very rarely on vases” does not prevent from interpretation. Taking all this into account, it is clear that the question whether the “Phrynis” inscription and kithara on the Budapest vase refer to the famous Phrynis of Athens, either as a figure in comedy or history, or as Vandlik suggests at the end of her article, “to an unknown fourth-century musician living in Magna Graecia who took up the name of his well-known Athenian predecessor”,39 is basically irrelevant. In the latter case, the very gesture of assuming Phrynis’ name alludes to everything that it denotes—both the historical Phrynis, and the comic figure who emerged from the political polemics surrounding New Music. Vandlik proposes several interpretations of the “Phrynis” inscription. Among these she also suggests the theatrical context. “The main problem”, she claims, is that “South Italian vase-painters did not illustrate, in the strict sense of the word, the comedy that inspired the image: therefore when interpreting a vase one need not think of a particular scene in a certain play. By depicting a typical character or situation, the artist or the patron could visualize a certain comedy he had seen. Athenian plays could also be depicted in this manner; the routes and processes by which Attic drama reached South Italy are, however, still uncertain. What seems clear though, is that the artists who made the phlyax vases, whatever the sources on which they drew, worked primarily from local theatrical productions.”40 The character of the relationship between vases and theatre is still debated. This raises the question: do the Phrynis vases from Paestum and Apulia have any kind of connection to any particular comic performance? From a general methodological perspective, today this is a tired and somewhat pointless debate, although the essential grounds for scepticism still apply. A vase painting related to a theatrical production is never a straightforward illustration of the play or scene it depicts, since it obeys its own
58
iconographic conventions. That is to say—as Oliver Taplin has concluded in a summary of the debate, aiming to reduce the distance between the two positions, or to show that it is not in fact as great as it might appear—that the so-called philodramatic method of interpretation is not efficient. When a vase painting is made, although it does not illustrate the play to which it refers to, the theatrical culture of the day must have still been in the mind and intentions of the painter, since it was this very connection that accounted for its surplus of meaning and its interest to a potential buyer. The acquaintance and perhaps even the experience of the viewer of stage comedy must have played a role in the images’ artistic effect.41 South Italian productions of Attic comedies constitute the second point that justified the tentative interpretation in the vase’s first publication. Vandlik42 alludes to the fact that scholars researching the inscriptions of so-called phlyax vases in the Attic dialect had already in the mid-twentieth century raised the possibility that the images reflect local Italiot performances of Attic drama. An interpretation of a vase by the Tarporley Painter in Würzburg as a representation of the Thesmophoriazousae (Csapo 1986 and Taplin 198743) represented the tipping-point, and it seems that today there is a broad consensus that Attic plays formed part of the standard repertory of South Italian drama. As a result, several vases can now be included in the list of those that have some kind of relationship to Attic drama. They prove that comic scenes attested in all five areas of Western Greek44 fine painted pottery formed part of a larger culture of theatre and theatrical representation diffused wherever Greek was spoken, which in a way made use of the best plays and repertory of Attic Old and Middle Comedy. Asteas’ Phrynis vase in Salerno belongs to this group and perhaps so does the Apulian vase in Budapest.45 One starting point for our interpretation of the “Phrynis” inscription is thus the possibility that Phrynis, though a historical figure of fifth-century Athens, may have appeared as a character on fourthcentury comic stages, even in South Italy. Thus, the inscription on the Phrynis vase in Budapest, like the “tragôdos” inscription46 on another vase of the Winterthur Group, marks or confirms the world of local theatre as the context for comic masks. Scholars agree that Asteas’ Pyronides-Phrynis vase preserves a scene from Demoi, Eupolis’ wellknown and best-cited comedy with a production date in the 410s.47 The known fragments of Demoi, which make up about 10 percent of the original play, do not contain the name of Phrynis, only that of Pyronides; still, as Revermann notes, “Taplin’s identification [of the Asteas vase] with the Demoi is as certain as it can be in this area”.48 It is possible that there existed another play with Pyronides and Phrynis, but if so, it remains unfound.
59
Musical politics as a theme and motif occur not only in the comedy of Aristophanes and other contemporary writers, but in Eupolis’ as well.49 There is, for example, the music teacher in Aiges, who teaches a peasant music and the elegant “Athena dance” (frr. 3, 15, 18). In several cases, the New Music theme explains the use of musical terms in close proximity to verbs with sexual or with some pejorative innuendo (frr. 121, 124, 126). In Prospaltioi (fr. 263), a character obviously close to Phrynis or Cinesias speaks of his own song in a pretentious and falsely grandiloquent compound word (mousodonêmata, cf. Birds 943). In Baptai, orgiastic music is a key element in the caricature of the orgiastic Thracian cult
of Cotytô in the play; the scholiast notes that in this comedy Eupolis represented immodest people— Athenian citizens had to dance in womens’ clothing, praying to a lyre-playing woman. Another musical motif in the same piece is the emotionally involved apostrophe to ecstatic or erotic musical instruments (frr. 82, 83, 85), and the play also contains a female character boldly being asked to play an instrumental overture from a scandalous “new dithyramb” piece (fr. 81, aulêson hautê kyklion anabolên tina, cf. Peace 830 and Birds 1385). In a fragment of an unknown comedy of Eupolis (fr. 395), Socrates picks up a lyre to accompany his performance of a song by Stesichorus, during which he also manages to cleverly steal a jug of wine. A similar motif occurs in a fragment of the Heilotes (fr. 148). What sort of song should a man perform at the symposium? Should it be one of the old and respectable but boring “classics” (Stesichorus, Simonides or Alcman) accompanied by the lyre? Or should it be a piece in the fashionable “new” style, with a scandalous theme or place of origin (a tavern or a brothel), accompanied
by an exotic instrument (iambykê, trigônon), of the kind Gnesippus composed? (cf. Thesm. 960–8, Clouds 1335–8, and Birds 919). Finally, it is certain that Eupolis fr. 366., mousikê is mocking New Music.50 Eupolis’ Demoi, like many plays of Old Comedy, seems to have comprised a series of “intruderscenes”51 involving clashes between paradigmatic figures, one of whom represents the “good old days” and the other the new decadence. The “intruder scene” fits both the plot and the underlying situation dramatized in the play. The latter presented the moral and political state of contemporary Athens so depraved and unbearable that only a miracle could save the city. The miracle is provided by a fictive character who resembles Aristophanes’ Dicaeopolis: Pyronides (also a speaking name).52 He brings up(or summons) from the Underworld Solon, Miltiades, Aristeides and—according to Martin Revermann this is one of the big twists in the plot—as fourth the much more recent figure of Pericles. Their task is to restore order to Athens.53 From a fragment from the end of the play which parodies the closing scene of Eumenides, it is clear that the purification was successful. Fr. 133, which opines that the State is not a plaything for children, sets out the essence of the hoped-for solution: the Demos
60
must develop to be mature enough to properly choose qualified and incorruptible leaders, like the Four in their time, each in his own field. The moral is drawn in the “intruder scene” (fr. 99.78ff) in which Aristides deals ruthlessly and strictly with a contemporary stock of a trouble-maker, the sycophant. After saying “take him away and hand him over...”, and “if only the temple-robber Diognetus would fall into my hands”, he reaches the essential moral conclusion, prescribing to the chorus (the personified demes of Attica) which represents the whole of the Athenian people that they “be just, so that all just men... [text missing] ... I, for my part, proclaim to the whole city...” (fr. 99.118).54 The second half of Demoi is structured by the scenes of the four “great men”. Aristeides (the Just) teaches manners to the sycophant. Miltiades (the military genius) whips some useless modern strategos into shape, Pericles (the statesman) does the same with a demagogue (Hyperbolos?). Solon (the Wise Man and the Poet) takes a sophist as his target. A scene with Phrynis, the “new dithyrambist” and comic representative of the “decadent and immoral” New Music, augmenting this rogues’ gallery of typical contemporary villains mocked and brought into line by the four purifying heroes of Athens, thus perfectly suits the play’s plot. In the past two decades, scholars of Greek drama have begun to pay considerable attention to regions other than Athens.55 The western Greeks not only adopted Attic theatrical customs with ease, but regarded them as their own, which contributed to the growth, over only a few decades, of an institutionalised theatrical culture centred on the festivals of Dionysus, which spoke not only to Athenians, but to Panhellenic culture more generally, and to non-Greek cultures which encountered it then or later.56 The reception of Greek theatre in Paestum can be analysed within this broader frame of cultural Hellenization or rather acculturation.57 In the first half of the fifth century, Posidonia, a colony with a flourishing Hellenic identity and culture founded by settlers from Sybaris at the mouth of the Sele River, was an important link in the overland routes that connected Campania with the Tarentine Gulf.58 The colony’s influence probably diminished after the destruction of Sybaris by Croton in 510 BC, but the most striking change in the region’s demographics and culture came earlier, when Posidonia fell at the end of the fifth century to the Lucanian tribes that had been expanding since the beginning of the century towards the rich Tyrrhenian littoral and the coast of Magna Graecia. With this, the town and its Greek inhabitants came under the control of a Lucian ruling elite.59 Doubts about the continuity of Hellenic culture in Posidonia are spurred particularly by the following fragment of Aristoxenus: “We do as do the Posidoniates who dwell in the Tyrrhenian Gulf. It has been their lot, who in the beginning were Greeks, to become completely barbarized, turning into Etruscans or Romans, and to change their language and other customs so that today they celebrate only one Greek festival. Coming
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together for this, they recall the ancient names and practices, lament one with another and go on their way after shedding many tears. In this way, then, says Aristoxenus, when the theatres are barbarized and the music which has spread so far has fallen into deep corruption, those few of us who survive also recall among ourselves what real music was.”60 Are we to conclude from Aristoxenus’ simile61 that Greek culture and religion survived in the city, whose first language was now Oscan, only as an esoteric subculture represented in occasional nostalgic festivals? Szilágyi describes the process by the example of the Lucanians. When they took Paestum, the “Lucanians were faced for the first time, in what was perhaps one of the decisive moments of their ethnogenesis, with the task of acquainting themselves from the inside with the organisation of a city-state, and either to assimilate into it or destroy it utterly. As often in the course of their encounters with the Greeks, they chose a peaceful course which the archaeological finds are testimony to, by contrast with the texts. This did not, however, imply a one-sided surrender, but rather a process of mutual acculturation.”62 Especially important examples of this process of mutual acculturation are the box shaped tombs plastered and frescoed with elaborate figural scenes which inform us “not only about the customs and beliefs of the Lucanian population of the area”, but constitute, for Szilágyi, “the only independent Lucanian art-form, reflecting a unique and a sovereign ‘translation’ of Greek artistic forms into a local pictorial language.”63 Paestan red-figure vases, which flourished contemporaneously with tomb-painting, testify to another trend in the mutual acculturation of the Greek and Lucanian. All Paestan red-figure masters used a style and technique taken from the workshops of Magna Graecia: their production is found in the whole sequence of graves. Their subjects included scenes from Greek mythology and theatre; Greek inscriptions of names are also common, with the Greek-named painters Asteas and Python signing their works in Greek: egraphe.64 Paestum, always open to Hellenic culture, continued with its Lucanian or Greek-Lucanian elites and mixed the Lucanian and Greek population to consume and assimilate the products and cultural forms of the Greek civilisation of the south of Italy. Greek letters and fragments of Greek names are found on terracotta moulds from Paestum, and Greek masters made jewellery and minted coins, and even worked on the construction of the city walls. An inscription on a black-glazed patera from a grave and its whole funeral context make it clear that the Lucanian elites mingled with the Greek population, while Dionysius of Halicarnassus mentions that the Oscan conquerors married into local elite Greek families in Neapolis. (Strabo says the same of Oscan speaking Campanian rulers in Cumae.)65 Greek cults continued throughout the period of Lucanian domination, from the second quarter of the fourth century until the beginning of the third. This is a sign not only that Greeks and Lucanians were lived together in peace in Paestum, but also that the city, though under Lucanian rule, was undergoing power-
62
ful hellenisation.66 There is thus no real reason to deny that the Greek theatrical subjects on Paestan painted pottery may have addressed themselves to a local Greek, Greek-Lucanian, and Lucanian audience. The Aristoxenus fragment informs us of what is noteworthy and worth mentioning; but it is silent about what it takes for granted. It tells us that in Paestum even towards the end of the fourth century BC, when the language of the majority was no longer Greek but Oscan, there was a small group consisting of the descendants of former Greek elite families whose members regularly gathered to remember their ancestral traditions.67 But Aristoxenus does not mention what he takes for granted: in Paestum the Lucanians were assimilated to a Greek polis-society which continued to flourish, maintaining its traditional religious cults uninterrupted under their rule.68 Lucanian-Greek culture was the natural continuation of a local Greek tradition, and easily assimilated new Greek elements. That is to say: the Paestan workshop (with its roots in Sicily69) that painted the Salerno vase could rely on the local experience of Eupolis’ Demoi performance. The scene on the Phrynis vase in Salerno thus belonged to the culture of Greek theatre, which was present in Paestum as well. Could the Budapest Phrynis vase also have a connection to Eupolis’ play? The question must be asked, since the image of the mask alone does not necessarily allude to a theatrical context.70 As attributes of the musician Phrynis, the kithara and the laurel wreath point with greater probability to an interpretive context shared with the Salerno vase. The figure of the comic actor appears on Western Greek vases already at the end of the fifth century, first on Lucanian and early Apulian ware, and then from the mid-fourth century on vases from Sicily, Campania, and Paestum.71 A typical feature of comic scenes is the specific focus on a given dramatic scene: something with no precedent in Attic vase painting. Erika Simon, discussing the comic scenes painted by Asteas himself, affirmed that each seems to represent a concrete production or performance: “the story is represented as if it were being acted before our eyes”, she writes, quoting Trendall, adding that their emphatic concentration on the everyday seems to foreshadow the spirit of Menander’s comedy.72 Richard Green also describes this mode of depiction as a harbinger of Hellenistic “escapism” (what we see is what is being played out in front of us on the stage): the vase aims to remind the owner of a certain theatrical experience. In the world of the symposium wine, success, drama and the mask all acquire the same essential significance as symbols of the Dionysiac principle that underlines the ordinary man’s idea of happiness.73 The theatrical mask takes on an increasingly important role in iconography, being treated as an autonomous element rather than a prop, and becomes first the symbol of the comic figure, and then the symbol of the Dionysiac world of theatre. At the same time, the actor steps out of his own theatrical world to become one of Dionysus’ entourage: the figure of the comic actor and the satyr grow
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ever closer together.74 This theatrical iconography—even in cases where the vase represents a single theatrical moment or combines several such into a single synoptic picture—becomes comprehensible to the viewer if he is able to connect his own theatrical experience to the image. The comic vase, like the symposium scene, can represent a given theatrical piece without referring to a specific performance. Just as the symposium scene does not necessarily commemorate “yesterday’s” banquet but the banquet tout court in which, alongside the wine and music, the participants were increasingly entertained with comic scenes; so comic vases did not aim to be the “program” of yesterday’s performance, but rather a commemoration of (Greek) comic performances as such, with their constant central figure, the masked and costumed actor being provoking and ridiculous. A vase with Phrynis could remind a buyer of the shared experience of Greek comedy even if he had never seen a play with Phrynis, since he’d seen other plays of the same kind. Comic masks, even in the simpler decorations of the Winterthur Group, thus represent the “general but concrete” Dionysiac/sympotic forms of popular theatrical themes. In the sympotic scene, the smaller size and relatively careless artistic realization lends a certain pictorial autonomy to the masks —otherwise key iconographic motifs—displayed above the figures. The inscriptions narrow this wider context to the theatrical culture of the symposium with its entertaining Greek-language farces. If Robinson’s hypothesis,75 which sets the location of the market of the Winterthur Group workshop not in Tarentum, but in some smaller centre of Messapia is proved correct, then the Budapest Phrynis vase may be ranked among those arguments which suggest a revision of the older image of Tarentum as the sole centre of a monocultural Greek reception of Apulian vase painting.76 Trendall called attention to the fact that masks appear last on Apulian vases belonging to the circles of the Darius and Underworld Painters, disappearing on later productions to reappear at the time when New Comedy became popular. He adds that since masks appear as vase decoration only within this circle of painters, and are missing in that of the Patera and Baltimore Painters—artists active outside of Tarentum—the less interesting vases with masks for decoration must also be Tarentine products.77 But if the Budapest Phrynis vase, together with the two other pieces in California, was made for the Messapian market, then it is a sign of mutual acculturation between Messapians and Greeks, and we must posit for the Messapians both Greek-language theatrical productions and a taste for vases with theatrical themes. This, however is another chapter in itself.78 András Kárpáti is professor at the Department of Classical Studies of the Faculty of Humanities, University of Pécs. author’s note
The text of this paper was translated by Péter Agócs, to whom I wish to express my warmest thanks.
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notes 1
A. D. Trendall, “An Apulian bell-krater depicting the mask of a white-haired phlyax”, in A. Griffiths ed., Stage Directions: Essays in Ancient Drama in Honour of E. W. Handley (BICS Suppl. 66), London 1995, 87. New York, Fleischman collection F 298: he attributed the vase to the Chevron Group, close in style to the Winterthur Group. On the designations “phlyax vase” and “comic vase” see most recently T. H. Carpenter “Prolegomenon to the Study of Apulian Red-Figure Pottery”, American Journal of Archaeology 113 (2009), 34: “These vases are traditionally but inaccurately called ‘phlyax vase’ in the belief that they show ‘phlyakes’, a local Tarentine form of comedy mentioned by Athenaeus (14.621f). Recent studies, however, have shown that at least some of the scenes on these vases refer to Attic rather than local comedies.” The phlyax comedy of Dorian South Italy, most obviously connected with the name of Rhinton, begins after the sequence of so-called phlyax vases ended; the name “comic vase” has, therefore, a better warrant: C. W. Dearden, “Plays for Export”, Phoenix 53 (1999), 243; T. H. Carpenter, “Images of Satyr Plays in South Italy”, in Satyr Drama. Tragedy at Play, ed. G. W. M. Harrison, Swansea 2005, 232; D. Walsh, Distored Ideals in Greek Vase Painting. The World of Mythological Burlesque, Cambridge 2009, 74.
2
Paestan r.f. bell krater, Asteas, Salerno, Museo Provinciale, Pc 1812; RVP 65,19; PhV 58. Publication: P. C. Sestieri, “Vasi pestani di Pontecagnan”, Archeologia Classica 12 (1960), 155–69; see also A. Goulaki Voutira , “Some Notes on Phrynis by Asteas”, Apollo 15 (1999), 13–15; K. Vandlik, “Phrynis”, Bulletin du Musée hongrois des beaux-arts 97 (2002), 145; I. C. Storey, Eupolis. Poet of Old Comedy, Oxford 2003, 169–72; M. Telò, Due note ai „Demi” di Eupoli, Philologus 2003 (147), 13–43; A. Piqueux, “Quelques réflexions à propos du cratère en cloche d’Astéas ‘Phrynis et Pyrnonidès’”, Apollo 22 (2006), 3–10; E. Csapo, Actors and Icons of the Ancient Theater, Oxford 2010, 61–63.
3
Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts, inv. no. 97.1.A, ; A. D. Trendall and A. Cambitoglou, The Red-figured Vases of Apulia, Suppl. II.2, London 1992 (henceforward RVAp), 218, 563d1. See Vandlik 2002, 144–45; parallel in California: bell-krater (Winterthur Group), Santa Monica (priv. coll.), RVAp Suppl. I: 122, 563d; A.D. Trendall, “Masks on Apulian Red-Figured Vases”, in J. Betts, T. Hooker, and J. R. Green eds., Studies in Honour of T. B. L. Wester (henceforward: MAV), vol. 2, Bristol 1988, 142 (no. 9). On the Budapest vase cf. Piqueux 2006, 3, 8; Csapo 2010, 80, n. 83.
4
P. Murray and P. Wilson eds., Music and the Muses. The Culture of “Mousikē” in the Classical Athenian City, Oxford 2004.
5
I follow Carpenter 2009: 28 in using the term Italic instead of indigenous or native.
6
Most recently Csapo 2010, 83–116 (esp. 96–103), with a survey of earlier bibliography.
7
The proceedings of the conference “Beyond Magna Graecia: New Developments in South Italian Archaeology. The Context of Apulian and Lucanian Pottery”, held at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio, the results of which may be relevant to the Budapest Phrynis vase, are not yet available in print.
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8
See e.g. T. H. Carpenter, “The Native Market for Red-Figure Vases in Apulia”, Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 48 (2003), 1–24, and E. G. D. Robinson, “Reception of Comic Theatre amongst the Indigenous South Italians”, Mediterranean Archaeology. Australian and New Zealand Journal for the Archaeology of the Mediterranean World 17 (2004), 193–212; contra J. R. Green, “Notes on Phlyax Vases”, Numismatica e antichita classiche. Quaderni ticinesi 20 (1991), 53: “Natives seems not to have interested [in theatre].” In this paper I only hint at the possible localization of the Budapest Phrynis vase to Messapia, see A. Kárpáti, Múzsák ellenfényben, Budapest 2014, for a more detailed discussion.
9
Trendall and Cambitoglou place the Winterthur Group in the circle of the Gioia di Colle, the Darius, and the Underworld Painters. The group’s prevailing decoration explains why it was excluded from ch. 21.A “Smaller vases ... with figured scenes”, and discussed under 22.B “Vases normally decorated with heads”. On the group, see RVAp II: 694–95; on its localisation in Messapia: E. G. D. Robinson, “Workshops of Apulian Red-Figure outside Taranto”, in Eumousia: Ceramic and Iconographic Studies in Honour of Alexander Cambitoglou (Mediterranean Archaeology. Australian and New Zealand Journal for the Archaeology of the Mediterranean World, Suppl. 1), ed. J. P. Descœudres, Sydney 1990, 192.
10
122, 563d.
11
On mask types, see T. B. L. Webster and J. R. Green, Monuments Illustrating Old and Middle Comedy (BICS Suppl. 39, henceforward MMC), 3rd ed., London, 1978, 13–26. Trendall (RVAp II: 647– 49) on the typical characteristics of 22.B vases: the female head on side B is usually so conventional that it not only lacks a connection to the main side, but is often also the work of a different hand. This is certainly not true of the masked heads on either side of the Budapest vase.
12
Trendall 1995, 89–90; see also n. 1 above.
13
On name inscriptions (“fictional labels”), see O. Taplin, Comic Angels, Oxford 1993, 42; Idem, Pots and Plays: Interaction Between Tragedy and Greek Vase-Painting of the Fourth Century, Los Angeles 2007, 19; Green 1991, 55, and J. W. Wonder, “What Happened to the Greeks in Lucanian-Occupied Paestum? Multiculturalism in
Southern Italy”, Phoenix 65 (2002), 43. On the ΤΡΑΓΩ∆ΟΣ inscription on the Laguna Hills vase, and on the
ΤΡΑΓΟ∆ΟΣ inscription on the Tarporley Painter’s vase in New York, see A. D. Trendall, “Farce and tragedy in
South Italian vase-painting”, in Looking at Greek Vases, ed. T. Rasmussen and N. Spivey, Cambridge 1991, 164; Idem 1995, 90; Taplin 1993, 62; C. W. Marshall, “A Gander at the Goose Play”, Theatre Journal 53 (2001), 66, n. 42; Csapo 2010, 47. 14
On Apulian comic vases, the dialect of most name inscriptions cannot be affirmed, but where it can be, it is not Doric but rather Attic or near-Attic (the dialect of comic vase inscriptions from Paestum is less constant, but rather close to Ionic). On an Apulian comic calyx krater of the Tarporley Painter (New York MMA 24.97.104) with the inscription ΤΡΑΓΟ∆ΟΣ (sic), as on three other vases with “tragedy-related” inscriptions, the dialect
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is Attic but the alphabet Tarentine: a sign, according to Csapo (2010, 49) that the Painter did not work from a painted model but rather heard these words dictated in the Attic alphabet, and then added them—naturally in the local alphabet—to the image. RVAp Supplement I includes only one of the inscriptions on the Winterthur Group vase in Laguna Hills (ΤΡΑΓΩ∆ΟΣ), and it was only in his 1995 article that Trendall published the inscription
(hardly legible) on the other side, where the letters ΙΗΡΝΩ stand beneath the chin and beside the neck of the female masked head. “Their interpretation”, he added, “remains uncertain” (Trendall 1995, 90, cf. MAV 142). It is remarkable that as the Budapest Phrynis vase of the Winterthur Group might have some connection with
a name-inscription by Asteas so the IHPNΩ(?) on the Winterthur vase in California may reflect a name-inscription painted on another comic scene painted by Asteas. On this question, see Kárpáti 2014. 15
RVAp Suppl. II also lists a series from one child grave (561 b–d), which stands out similarly among the schematic production of the Winterthur Group.
16
Lekanis: RVAp Suppl. II.2: 218, 563f, Dr. M. A. Telson Collection, Orange County CA. Trendall says (1995: 90) the female masked head is similar but more naturalistic, and he does not identify the mask type.
17
On mask types, see MMC3 13–26.
18
RVAp Suppl. I. 563d, Suppl. II. 563d1, and 563f.
19
Trendall 1995: 90: “clearly associates the vase with drama”. On the inscriptions, see nn. 11 and 12, above.
20
On the oinochoe (chous) as the most typical shape for vases decorated with masks as the sole design, see Green 1991, 52–53.
21
For a detailed description, see Vandlik 2002, 143–44.
22
See n. 2, above.
23
See M. Revermann, Comic Business. Theatricality, Dramatic Technique, and Performance Contexts of Aristophanic Comedy, Oxford 2006, 147, 148, n. 73, who claims that Asteas’ Pyronides is the most dignified of all the comic figures known to him: the contrast with the emphatically ugly Phrynis is thus all the stronger. Cf. Piqueux 2006: 4: “dénote une certaine distinction sociale”. On comic ugliness: Revermann 2006, 145–58.
24
Met. 933b. Translated by W. D. Ross. For sources relating to Phrynis, see NP s.v. Phrynis; M. Telò, Eupolidis Demi, Testi con commento filologico, 14, Florence 2007, 28–33 [non vidi, see Csapo 2010, 80, n. 81]. For anecdotes on Timotheus and Euripides, see Satyros, Vit. Eurip. = P. Oxy. 1176 fr. 39, col. 22; Plut. An seni 795d. The inscription on the vase can be read as alluding to the fifth-century Phrynis even if we accept the suggestion by Vandlik (2002, 149) that there may have been “a musician in 4th-century Magna Graecia who, like some others, including the vase-painter Polygnotus took up the name of a famous predecessor”. On why this is quite unlikely, see below.
25
Ar. Nub. 969-71; Pherecr. fr. 155 PCG; Suda s.v. Phrynis.
26
See C. Carey, “Old Comedy and the Sophists”, in The Rivals of Aristophanes. Studies in Athenian Old Comedy, ed. D. Harvey and J. Wilkins, Swansea 2000; B. Zimmermann, “Comedy’s Criticism of Music”, in Intertextualität in der griechisch-römischen Komödie, eds. N. W. Slater and B. Zimmermann, Stuttgart 1993, 44.
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27
“It will be an influential volume, I predict, because it will mark a turning point in understanding music as a Greek cultural product”—wrote Simon Goldhill in his Bryn Mawr review (6 November 1999) on J. G. Landels’ volume (Music in Ancient Greece and Rome, London and New York 1999). The material of the Warwick conference held in 1999: Murray and Wilson 2004, esp. E. Csapo, “The Politics of the New Music”, 207–48; P. Wilson, “Athenian Strings”, 269–306; and A. Barker, “Transforming the Nightingale: Aspects of Athenian Musical Discourse in the Late Fifth Century”, 185–204. Further important contributions to New Music: M. L. West, Ancient Greek Music, Oxford 1992, 356–72; R. W. Wallace, “An Early Fifth-Century Athenian Revolution in Aulos Music”, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 101 (2003), 73–92, E. Csapo, “Later Euripidean Music”, Illinois Classical Studies 24–25 (1999–2000), 399–426; Idem, “Star Choruses: Eleusis, Orphism, and New Musical Imagery and Dance”, in Performance, Iconography, Reception: Studies in Honour of Oliver Taplin, eds. M. Revermann and P. Wilson, Oxford 2008, 262–90; P. Wilson, “The aulos in Athens”, in Performance Culture and Athenian Democracy, eds. S. Goldhill and R. Osborne, Cambridge 1999, 58–95; Idem, “The Sound of Cultural Conflict: Kritias and the Culture of Mousikê in Athens”, in The Cultures within Ancient Greek Culture: Contact, Conflict, Collaboration, eds. C. Dougherty and L. Kurke, Cambridge 2003, 181–206; Idem, “Thamyris the Thracian: the archetypal wandering poet?”, in Wandering Poets in Ancient Greek Culture. Travel, Locality and Pan-Hellenism, eds. R. Hunter and I. Rutherford, Cambridge 2009, 46–79; A. D’Angour, “The New Music—so what’s new?”, in Rethinking Revolutions through Ancient Greece, eds. S. Goldhill and R. Osborne, Cambridge 2006, 264–83; Idem, “The sound of mousikē: reflections on aural change in ancient Greece”, in Debating the Athenian Cultural Revolution: Art, Literature, Philosophy, and Politics, 430–380 BC., ed. R. Osborn, Cambridge and New York 2007, 288–300; D. Fearn, Bacchylides. Politics, Performance, Poetic Tradition, Oxford 2007, 181–205; T. Power, The Culture of
Kitharôidia, Cambridge Mass. and London 2010, 500–49; P. LeVen, “New Music and its Myths: Athenaeus’
Reading of the Aulos Revolution (Deipnosophistae 14.616E–617F)”, Journal of Hellenic Studies 130 (2010), 35–47 who calls attention that “recent scholarship had started re-evaluating the originality of New Music” (44, n. 28). 28
See e.g. Csapo 1999–2000, 416–17; Csapo 2004, 207; West 1992, 357–59, 363–66.
29
It is hardly possible to list them, particularly if we take the fragments into account (cf. however, F. Conti Bizzarro, Poetica e critica letteraria nei frammenti dei poeti comici greci, Napoli 1999, 31–33, 79–90, 107–108). On Old Comedy’s criticism of the “new musicians”, see Zimmermann 1993, Power 2010, 507–16.
30
On the musical literacy of the Athenian dramatic audience see M. Revermann, “The Competence of Theatre Audiences in Fifth- and Fourth-Century Athens”, Journal of Hellenic Studies 126 (2006), passim, esp. 117. On the musical training of Athenian citizens: K. Robb, Literay and Padeia in Ancient Greee, Oxford 1994, 183–213.
31
Csapo 2004, 229–41.
32
“The Maculate Muse: Gender, Genre and the Chiron of Pherekrates”, in G. W. Dobrov ed., Beyond Aristophanes: Transition and Diversity in Greek Comedy, Atlanta 1995, 155.
33
Vandlik 2002, 148.
34
See frr. 223, 244, 247; cf. Storey 2003, 218–20.
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35
Metapoetical: E. Hall, “Female Figures and Metapoetry in Old Comedy”, in Harvey–Wilkins 2000, 414; impersonations: J. Henderson, “Pherekrates and the women of Old Comedy”, in Harvey–Wilkins 2000, 142. The idea, proposed, though only as a simile, already by Lloyd-Jones (“Notes on P. Turner 4 [Aristophanes Ποίησις]”, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 42 [1981], 25) was extended and developed by Dobrov (“From Comedy to Mimesis: Comedy and the New Music”, in Griechisch-römische Komödie und Tragödie II., ed B.. Zimmermann, Stuttgart 1997, 49–74), who placed it in a broader frame: “comedy’s evolving response to dithyramb”. Henderson considers (2000, 142) the hetaira interpretation unlikely. Cf. Zimmermann 1993, 40, M. de Simone, “The ‘Lesbian’
Muse in Tragedy: Euripides µελοποιός in Aristoph Ra. 1321–28”, Classical Quarterly 58 (2008), 482, and Wilson 2004, 63. See Dobrov and Urios-Aparisi 1995, 139–73. 36
On the fact that the Athenian topicality of the plays doesn’t necessarily clash with their South Italian reception, see e.g. J. R. Green, Theatre in Ancient Greek Society, London and New York 1994, 66–67; Dearden 1999, 242; A. D. Trendall, “On the Divergence of South Italian from Attic Red-figure Vase-painting”, in Greek colonists and native populations: proceedings of the first Australian congress of classical archaeology held in honour of A. D. Trendall, ed. J-P. Descœudres, Oxford 1990, 227–28; Robinson 2004; O. Taplin, “How was Athenian tragedy played in the Greek West?”, in Theater Outside Athens: Drama in Greek Sicily and South Italy, ed. K. Bosher, Cambridge 2012, 247–50.
37
Vandlik 2002, 148.
38
Piqueux 2006, 6.
39
Vandlik 2002, 148.
40
Ibid.
41
On the relationship of vase to theatre-production, see J. R. Green, “On Seeing and Depicting the Theatre in Classical Athens”, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 32 (1991), 28, 41. Green’s idea of “verbal enhancement” is nicely summarised by M. C. Miller, “In strange company: Persians in Early Attic Theatre Imagery”, Mediterranean Archaeology. Australian and New Zealand Journal for the Archaeology of the Mediterranean World 17 (2004), 171: “R. Green … came up with the helpful concept of ‘verbal enhancement’. The phrase encapsulates the ‘value added’ by the pot-painter, who witnessed (or heard about) performance, and perceived elements that were not technically part of the performance, but rather part of his imagination sparked by other aspects of performance: verbal descriptions, perhaps suggestive music.” Taplin surveys (2007, 23–26) the field of contention between the “philodramatic” and “iconocentric” schools of thought; in particular on the relationship of vase painting to comedy: ‘This [any relationship to any particular play], I shall argue, is to throw the baby out with the bathwater: in rejecting all the unacceptable assumptions of the philodramatists, they have thrown out the interesting and important connections that are worth exploring - with due caution and perspective” (26). Earlier in the same vein: B. Seidensticker, “The Chorus of Greek Satyrplay”, in Poetry, Theory, Praxis. The Social Life of Myth, Word and Image in Ancient Greece: Essays in Honour of William J. Slater, ed. E. Csapo and M. Miller, Oxford 2003, 22: “…but on the other hand one should not, as French scholars ... tend to do, throw the baby out with the bath-water and reject most of the precious evidence that some vases, carefully analysed, can supply.” (Could the repetition reflect a conference debate?)
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42
Vandlik 2002, 148, n. 39.
43
A Csapo, “A Note on the Würzburg Bell-Crater H5697 (‘Telephus Travestitus’)”, Phoenix 40 (1986), 379–92; O. Taplin, “Phallology, Phlyakes, Iconography and Aristophanes”, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 213 (1987), 92–104.
44
The number of known comic vases which was 191 in Green 1994, 70 is growing: 250 in Walsh 2009, 13, Csapo, however—referring (2010, 52) to Green’s (unpublished?) catalogue—mentions 592 of which “342 show mere masks (or masks in non-dramatic scenes)”.
45
Csapo 1986; Taplin 1987. Csapo 2010, 52-67 is a fresh and detailed survey of the entire question with earlier bibliography and several interesting new hypotheses. Arguing or accepting that some, at least, of the South Italian comic scenes point to Greek comedies are (with no pretence to exhaustiveness): Trendall 1991, 166; Green 1991, 55, Green 2003, 181; Taplin 1993, 30–54, 89–90; H. A. Shapiro, “Attic Comedy and the ‘Comic Angels’ Krater in New York”, Journal of Hellenic Studies 115 (1995), 173–75; M. Schmidt, “Southern Italian and Scilian Vases”, in The Western Greeks, ed. G. Pugliese Carratelli, Milan 1996, 448, 455; Dearden 1999, 242–46; A. Hughes, “Comedy in Paestan Vase Painting”, Oxford Journal of Archaeology 22 (2003), 281; Walsh 2009, 13–14, 74–78; Robinson 2004, 206; Carpenter 2005, 221–22, 232 and Carpenter 2009, 32–34. See also: E. Csapo and W. J. Slater, The Context of Ancient Drama, Ann Arbor 1995, 54–55, and Robinson 2004, 207: “phlyakes” on Apulian comic scenes wear fundamentally Athenian costumes seen on Athenian terracotta statuettes.
46
A comic context for the tragôdos inscription is given by the Tarporley Painter’s calyx-krater. It is still debated
whether this vase represents a comic plot, or whether it thematises the opposition of tragedy and comedy: see note 11 above. 47
Apart from Aristophanes’ plays, Demoi is the only old comedy of which we know that copies continued to be made after AD 300, see Storey 2003, 34.
48
Revermann 2006, 318. Cf. Taplin 1993, 42; NP s.v. Phrynis; Storey 2003, 121-31; Csapo 2010, 61-62. Trendall writes (RVP 64 and 1991, 167) that the Asteas vase reflects a comic version of the punishment of Phrynis by the Spartan ephor Ecprepes, who cut the extra strings off the lyre, reducing them to seven. For the anecdote: Plut. Agis 10. 7.2; Ap. Lac. 202c5; Quomodo quis 84a5. The same anecdote is told of Timotheus (Plut. Ap. Lac.
238c9; Boeth. De inst. mus. 1.1; Cic. Rep. 2.39; Paus. 3.12.10; Ath. 636e) and about Terpander (the archaikôtatos!): Plut. Ap. Lac. 238c1. Another version (without mention of the punished musician) says that the Argives established a fine for kithara-players using more than seven strings: Ps. Plut. De mus. 1144f. 49
In detail, see Storey 2003, 330-33, who gives references for all the themes mentioned briefly here. The fragments
50
Mousikê pragma esti bathy ti kai kampylon: kamptein (‘bend’) is a keyword of the linguistic strategy of New Music
of Eupolis are cited by their PCG numbers. critique (see note 25): compare e.g. Ar. Nub. 333, 969–72; Thesm. 53, 68; fr. 953; Pherecrates fr. 155.9,15 PCG and Csapo 2004, 229. 51
On the “intruder scenes” typical of Old Comedy, see Revermann 2006, 291–92, and passim.
70
52
On the question of Pyronides’ speaking name see Piqueux 2006, 3 and the detailed analysis of Csapo 2010, 61–63, which moves well beyond the old dilemma of choice between Pyronides or Myronides. On the latter question, see the survey of Storey 2003, 116–21, and Storey 2000, 185, note 5 (with earlier bibliography).
53
On the basic conceit of the play and the reconstruction of the plot, see Storey 2003, 111-33 and Revermann 2006, 311–69 (with earlier bibliography). The idea of a return from the Underworld appears in a Phrnyichus fragment (fr. 32 PCG, vol. 7: 409) as well.
54
The confrontation of Old and New is naturally a common motif in Old Comedy: for Eupolis, see fr. 129 (Demoi), 219 (Poleis); the “good old days” are also found several times in Aristophanes (Eq. 191–3, 1319–55; Nub. 960–70; Ach. 595; Ran. 718–37); cf. Zimmermann 1993, 46. See in general A. d’Angour, The Greeks and the New. Novelty in Ancient Greek Imagination and Exprience, Cambridge 2011.
55
Motifs that connect the biographical or anecdotal traditions relating to particular tragic and comic poets to Sicily and Magna Graecia: (i) the given poet lived and was active in Sicily or South Italy as well as Athens, or came from the West to live in Athens; (ii) after successes in Athens he travelled to the West for one reason or another, where he again enjoyed success with patrons and audiences. Recent discussions: Csapo 2010, 85–87; 95–99; cf. also Green 1994, 67–69; Dearden 1999, 244–45; E. Csapo, “The Rise of Acting: Some Social and Economic Conditions behind the Rise of the Acting Profession in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries B.C.”, in Le statut de l’acteur dans l’Antiquité, ed. C. Hugoniot, F. Hurlet, and S. Milanezi, Tours 2004, 56, 66–68; Taplin 2007, 6–9; Walsh 2009, 347, n. 25.
56
On the cult of Aeschylus and Euripides in Magna Graecia, see Satyros Vit. Eurip. 19 (= P.Oxy. 1176 fr. 39 col. 19), Arist. Rhet. 1384b15–7 (with schol.); Plut. Nic. 29; Pl. Leg. 659 a–c.
57
Carpenter 2009, 38: “To use the term ‘Hellenized’ for these people, who had been trading with the Greeks for several hundred years, is meaningless unless the specific meaning is that they were Hellenized in the same sense that mainland Greeks were orientalized in the seventh century. In other words, the Italic inhabitants of Apulia took only what they wanted from Greek culture and transformed it into something new that was uniquely their own. Ultimately, the message is that we should approach Apulian red-figure vases on their own terms.” See in general K. Lomas, “Cities, states and ethnic identity in southeast Italy”, in The Emergence of State Identities in Italy in the First Millenium BC., eds. E. Herring and K. Lomas, London 2000; K. Lomas ed., Greek Identity in the Western Mediterranean. Papers in Honour of Brian Shefton, Leiden 2004; N. Purcell, “South Italy in the Fourth Century BC”, in The Fourth Century BC. The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 6, 2nd ed., ed. D. M. Lewis et al., Cambridge 1994; R. D. Whitehouse and J. B. Wilkins, “Greeks and natives in south-east Italy: approaches to the archeological evidence”, in Centre and Periphery: Comparative Studies in Archeology, ed. T. C. Champion, London 1995, 102–37.
58
E. Greco, “Greek Colonisation in Southern Italy: A Methodological Essay”, in Greek Colonisation. An Account of Greek Colonies and Other Settlements Overseas, vol. 1, ed. G. R. Tsetskhladze, Leiden and Boston 2006, 178–79. On the name Posidonia-Paestum (Paistano) see Wonder 2002, 40.
71
59
See e.g. T. J. Dunbabin, The Western Greeks. The History of Sicily and South Italy from the Foundation of the Greek Colonies to 480 B.C., Oxford 1948, 25–26, J. Gy. Szilágyi, In Search of Pelasgian Ancestors, Budapest 2004, 117–21; Wonder 2002, 40–41.
60
Symm. symp. fr. 124 Wehrli = Ath. 14.632a. For “Etruscans or Romans”, see Robinson 2004, 209 with further references.
61
Aristoxenus mentions the Greeks of Posidonia as an analogy for the ‘barbarised’ theatrical music of Tarentum.
62
Szilágyi 2004, 126. Cf. Rausch 2004, esp. 240, 249–52.
63
Szilágyi 2004, 127.
64
Cf. M. Rausch, “Neben- und Miteinander in archaischer Zeit: die Beziehungen von Italikern und Etruskern zum Griechischen Poseidonia”, in Lomas 2004, 240, 249–52. On Greek subjects, see Wonder 2002, 42 (with further bibl.) and the detailed list in A. Rouveret, “L’organisation spatiale des tombes de Paestum”, Mélanges de l’École française de Rome. Antiquité 87 (1975), 601: “… leur [Asteas, Python] thématique—scènes génériques mais aussi épisodes inspirés par la mythologie et le théatre grec (tragédies et comédies phlyaques).” The frequency of the two names all over the Greek world is shown by the fact that both occur in all six volumes of the Lexicon of Greek Personal Names. On the Sicilian background of the Paestan workshop, see A. D. Trendall, Red Figure Vases of South Italy and Sicily, London 1989, 198–201; Trendall 1990, 219; Trendall 1991, 151, 167; E. Simon, “The Paestan Painter Asteas”, in Greek Vases: Images, Context and Controversies, ed. C. Marconi, Leiden and Boston 2004, 117; Wonder 2002, 43; Hughes 2003, 283.
65
15.6.4 and 5.4.4.
66
See Wonder 2002, 45–47. On an earlier phase of these processes of hellenisation (universal by our period), see Szilágyi 2004, 117: “Throughout the seventh and sixth centuries BC this essentially peaceful symbiosis of the Greeks with the native population led to a slow but general hellenisation and the consolidation of an indigenous elite.”
67
A similar analysis with slightly different emphasis: Wonder 2002: 52, cf. K. Lomas, Rome and the Western Greeks 350 BC–AD200, London and New York 1993, 132: “This does not represent an attempt to suppress Greek religion, however, despite statements to the contrary by Aristoxenos … this harrowing account of suppression does not fit either the epigraphic or the archaeological evidence. … The Greek language was still in use and Greek temples and sanctuaries remained in use, with little overt evidence of disruption.”
68
Szilágyi 2004, 128.
69
Hughes (2003, 282–83) finds it unlikely that the travelling companies who found an enthusiastic paying audience for their productions along the Greek-speaking South-Italian littoral would have made such a lengthy detour to the north, or that the local Lucanian elites, however peaceful their co-existence with the local Greek population, would have supported Greek cultural events and festivals. And since he thinks it impossible that his theatrical scenes were drawn after imported models, it seems to him most likely that Asteas brought the theatre, as a theme
72
for vase painting, with him when he moved his workshop over from Sicily. Contra: Robinson 2004, 205–06; Csapo 2010, 113, note 127 and below. On travelling theatrical companies, see Dearden 1999, 239, 244–46; Taplin, 2012. 70
On the three broad categories of mask-representation, see J. R. Green, “Theatrical Motifs in Non-Theatrical Contexts on Vases of the Later Fifth and Fourth Centuries”, in Trendall 1995, 94, and MAV 137–39.
71
See Green 1995, 119. Carpenter (2009, 34) makes a statistical argument: of the 78 vases with comic scenes listed by Trendall, only 5 of the 19 kraters with known provenance come from Tarentum and the rest from Apulia, with 8 from Italic settlements—the balance in favour of the hinterland speaks for the Italic reception of Greek drama.
72
Simon 2004, 119. On the specificity or particularity of comic scenes, see Taplin 2007, 27. In analysing the relationship of image and theatrical performance, one must distinguish between comedy and tragedy. Just as tragedy does not (or very rarely does) reflect on its own character as theatre, so the vase that consciously refers to a tragic performance does not, as a rule, foreground the theatrical context. Tragedy does not break the dramatic illusion; the vase-painter does not break the mythological illusion. Comedy in the theatre constantly exploits devices of metatheatricality; and so, the vase painting that consciously evokes the comic theatre will call the viewer’s attention to the fact that he is seeing a theatrical performance. (Cf. Taplin 2007, 27. On metatheatrical aspects of Greek drama, see G. W. Dobrov, Figures of Play: Greek Drama and Metafictional Poetics, Oxford 2001; on comedy’s metatheatrical exploitation of the aulete, see Taplin 1993, 70–75, 105–10.) The wooden stage is often visible; sometimes with stairs or a step-ladder; cf. also Green 1991.
73
Green 1995, 118–19. Plut. Mor. 712b: New Comedy became so strongly identified with the symposium that it was easier to imagine it without wine than without Menander. Robinson (2004, 208) argues that scenes of Dionysiac/ sympotic theatrical performance, superficially very much borrowed from the Italiot Greeks (i.e. sitting actorfigure in a naiskos with hanging comic mask) were not slavishly adopted by the Italic Messapians; rather, they were active and creative partners in this as in other assimilated Greek religious or cultural forms, transposing them to a funerary context where their relevance was again perhaps assured by Dionysus.
74
See Trendall 1990, 226–27; Green 1991, 53–54, Green 1995, 119; and Hughes 2003, 288–90.
75
Trendall 1990, 192.
76
See Carpenter 2003 and 2009; Robinson 2004 and Taplin 2007: 21; on the interest in Greek threatre among Italic elites in Apulia, see esp. Trendall 1991: 152 (in connection with “theatrical” vases found at Ruvo).
77
MAV 139; see also Trendall 1995, 90 and PhV 11.
78
For the Budapest Phrynis vase as a probable evidence for non-Greek reception of theatre culture, see Kárpáti 2014.
73
74
zuM schlachtsarkophag iM MuseuM Der BilDenDen künste, BuDapest – nachantike üBerarBeitungen antiker sarkophage
h a n s r u p p r e c h t g o e t t e − á r p á D M. n a g y
Der vorliegende Beitrag behandelt mehrere Sarkophage, die sich aufgrund von nachantiken Überarbeitungen zu einer Gruppe zusammenschließen lassen. Der Ausgangspunkt der Diskussion ist ein Beispiel im Museum der Bildenden Künste in Budapest. a . D e r s c h l a c h t s a r k o p h a g i n B u D a p e s t, M u s e u M D e r B i l D e n D e n k ü n s t e , i n v. a . 3 6 4 ( a B B . 1 – 8 )
Beim Budapester Schlachtsarkophag handelt es sich um einen Kasten, der an der Vorderseite mit einem aufwendigen Schlachtfries verziert ist. Er ist seit 1972 eine Leihgabe aus dem Museum im west-ungarischen Sárvár. Über die sammlungsgeschichtliche Herkunft des Stückes ist leider fast nichts bekannt.1 Der Sarkophag besteht aus relativ großkristallinem, weißem Stein, der von graublauen Adern durchsetzt und nach dem Augenschein wie auch aufgrund der naturwissenschaftlichen Analyse2 als prokonnesischer Marmor zu identifizieren ist; die Oberfläche ist an manchen Stellen rötlich verfärbt. Die Form des Kastens ist bei einer Länge von durchschnittlichem Maß recht flach, dabei deutlich breiter als hoch.3 Derartig gestreckte Formate sind z. B. von unverzierten, mit Profilen oder auch anderen einfachen Elementen ausgestatteten römischen Sarkophagen4 der früheren Kaiserzeit bekannt. Die flache Rückseite des Sarkophagkastens (Abb. 1), aus der links der Mitte ein größeres, halbrundes Stück ausgebrochen ist, weist am unteren Rand einen mehrere Zentimeter breiten Streifen auf, der mit einem Zahneisen grob bearbeitet ist, während die Fläche darüber gesägt und anschließend geglättet erscheint. Die dünne Wandung mag darauf hindeuten, daß diese Zurichtung erst in der Neuzeit erfolgte, obwohl solche ‚Leisten‘ auch bei antiken Sarkophagrückseiten in Rom vorkommen: Dabei hat man eine flache Platte von oben her abgesägt und dann unten abgebrochen, um anschließend den Steg der Bruchfläche grob, allerdings andere Werkzeugspuren als hier zurücklassend, abzuarbeiten. Für eine neuzeitliche Abarbeitung der Rückseite des Kastens spricht zudem der folgende Befund: In der rechten Hälfte wurde ausgehend vom oberen Rand eine streifenförmige Vertiefung 75
1
.
B u D a p e s t, M u s e u M D e r B i l D e n D e n k ü n s t e , i n v. a . 3 6 4 : s c h l a c h t s a r k o p h a g , r ü c k s e i t e
2
.
B u D a p e s t, M u s e u M D e r B i l D e n D e n k ü n s t e , i n v. a . 3 6 4 : s c h l a c h t s a r k o p h a g , i n n e n a n s i c h t
für eine Klammer grob eingearbeitet, die unten in einem etwa quadratischen Dübelloch endet. Die Form und Ausarbeitung mit unverwitterten Zahneisenspuren lassen erkennen, daß es sich um eine neuzeitliche Arbeit handelt, mit der wohl eine Abdeckung des Sarkophages befestigt wurde – vielleicht entsprach dieser Klammer eine zweite im ausgebrochenen Teil links. Die Nebenseiten und die zweite Langseite sind mit Reliefs verziert, die im sogleich folgenden Hauptteil des Beitrages behandelt werden. Zuvor soll noch ein Blick in den Sarkophagkasten selbst geworfen werden (Abb. 2): Die eine – von der reliefierten Langseite aus betrachtet: rechte – Schmalseite hat einen geraden Verlauf, nur die Ecken sind im Innern leicht abgerundet; die andere Seite dagegen bildet ein Halbrund von ca. 25 cm Radius, so daß die Wandung insbesondere an den Ecken der linken Seite massiv blieb. Der mit dem Flacheisen gleichmäßig geglättete Boden des Sarkophages liegt in
76
diesem halbrunden Abschluß etwas höher, weil dort oberhalb einer gerundet ansteigenden Kante eine Art stilisierten Kopfkissens ausgearbeitet wurde. Dieses zeigt in der Mitte innerhalb eines leicht erhabenen, fein bearbeiteten Randes eine nach vorn offene Kreisform, die die Position des Kopfes des in der Grablege Bestatteten markiert. Das gesamte Sarkophaginnere ist gut, im Bereich des ,Kissens‘ erstaunlich fein ausgearbeitet, und da wir solche Gestaltung auch von anderen antiken Sarkophagen5 kennen, ist es sicher antik. Diese Bearbeitung des Inneren in Verbindung mit dem verwendeten prokonnesischen Marmor und den Gesamtmaßen sind klare Indizien, daß es sich bei unserem Sarkophag um ein antikes Produkt handelt, einen Kasten wohl ohne Reliefschmuck, der an seinen Außenseiten allerdings so weit umgestaltet wurde, daß die antike Oberfläche dort verloren ist. Die rechteckigen Schmalseiten des Sarkophages in Budapest sind mit Waffenreliefs verziert (Abb. 3–4): links erkennt man vor gekreuzten Speeren einen diagonal gelegten Ovalschild mit einer Mittelrippe, die in Voluten und einer zentralen Spitze endet und sich zum Zentrum hin zu einer Rautenform erweitert, auf deren Spitzen Blüten-ähnliche Ornamente stehen – die Form der Rippen-Enden vergrößert und gestreckt wieder aufnehmend; rechts sieht man einen Rundschild mit zentralem Buckel, hinter dem ein Schwert in seiner Scheide und eine Doppelaxt gekreuzt sind. Die Ausarbeitung der Reliefs, die in
3–4
.
B u D a p e s t, M u s e u M D e r B i l D e n D e n k ü n s t e , i n v. a . 3 6 4 : s c h l a c h t s a r k o p h a g , linke unD rechte neBenseite
manchen Bereichen mit Flacheisenspuren und unterschiedlicher Relieftiefe unfertig ist, läßt sich als nachantik identifizieren. Dies ergibt sich aus der Tatsache, daß die Darstellungen so weit in die Wandung eingetieft wurden, daß zwar noch das antike Loch des Klammerendes deutlich erhalten ist, doch der dorthin führende Kanal der Klammer, die zum Deckel hinaufreichte, links vollständig und rechts nur mehr als sehr flache Einarbeitung kenntlich ist. Hier wurden auf den Nebenseiten also in eine einst
77
wohl glatte Wandfläche die Reliefs so eingetieft, daß nicht nur der Reliefgrund, sondern auch die höchste Erhebung der Darstellung (mindestens um die Tiefe des Klammerkanals) tiefer liegt als die ursprüngliche antike Außenfläche des Sarkophagkastens. Schließlich kann auch für die Motive der Sarkophagschmalseiten gezeigt werden, daß sie in ihrer jetzigen Form und Kombination nachantiken Ursprunges sind, denn sie haben Vorbilder, die teilweise von Waffenmotiven antiker Reliefs,6 wie sie auch auf der Sarkophagfront erscheinen, übernommen wurden, teilweise auch im antiken Formengut ganz anderer Monumente7 ihre Vorbilder haben. Auf die Nebenseiten greifen teilweise die Mäntel oder Paludamenta über, die zu zwei Tropaia gehören, die den Relieffries der Vorderseite (Abb. 5–8) an beiden Rändern rahmen. Man erkennt jeweils kurze Stücke von Pfosten, auf denen links ein metallener Helm und rechts ein Haarschopfhelm
5
.
B u D a p e s t, M u s e u M D e r B i l D e n D e n k ü n s t e , i n v. a . 3 6 4 : s c h l a c h t s a r k o p h a g , f r o n t g e s a M t
stecken, während darunter Kleider und Waffen angebracht sind: zwei Schilde von der Art des Diagonalschildes an der linken Nebenseite sowie zwei Speere hängen recht weit seitlich, als seien sie an Querstangen aufgehängt. Zu Füßen der Tropaia sitzen auf dem Boden je ein gefesselter, nackter Barbar, durch Torques um den Hals und das struppige Haar als Kelten (Gallier) charakterisiert. Der linke hat seine Beine gekreuzt und wendet sich zurück, der rechte in nahezu spiegelbildlicher Haltung blickt zum Kampfgeschehen hinauf. Zwischen diesen Rahmenfiguren tobt ein Schlachtgetümmel aus mehreren Kampfgruppen, die teilweise miteinander verflochten sind (Abb. 6–8). Ein mit Helm und Panzer gerüsteter Krieger stürmt nach rechts und faßt mit seiner linken Hand in den Zügel eines fliehenden Reiters, den er mit seinem Schwert in der gesenkten Rechten angreift. Zuvor hat er einen nun am Boden ausgestreckt liegenden Gegner getötet, dessen Schild oberhalb dessen Kopfes zwischen den Beinen des Kämpfers aufrecht steht. Der Gefallene ist mit einem schräg über seine linke Schulter gezogenen, Chiton-artig
78
kurzen Gewand bekleidet; sein linkes Bein hat er noch angewinkelt und mit dem Fuß neben dem rechten Knie auf den Boden gestellt. Der unbekleidete, fliehende Reiter sitzt nackt auf seinem nach links galoppierenden Pferd und wendet seinen Kopf dabei zurück zu einem voll gerüsteten berittenen Soldaten, der einen Mantel um die Schultern gelegt hat. Er reißt gerade sein nach rechts bewegtes Pferd herum, daß über ein zusammenbrechendes anderes Pferd zu springen scheint. Der Soldat sticht bei dieser heftigen Aktion mit seiner erhobenen Rechten, in der wohl eine Lanze zu ergänzen ist, auf einen nackten Gallier herab. Dieser gleitet seitlich vom stürzenden Pferd, gerät mit seinem linken Bein unter den Tierleib, während das rechte noch auf dem Pferderücken Halt sucht, und greift im Sturz in die Trense. Die folgende Gruppe besteht aus zwei berittenen Barbaren und einem schräg von hinten gesehenen gepanzerten Reiter mit wehendem Mantel. Sein nach vorn springendes Pferd, das den Kopf nach hinten gewandt hat, hat er mit einer Panther- oder Löwenschabracke gesattelt. Er sticht mit einer kurzen Waffe auf sein Gegenüber ein,
6–8
.
B u D a p e s t, M u s e u M D e r B i l D e n D e n k ü n s t e , i n v. a . 3 6 4 : s c h l a c h t s a r k o p h a g , f r o n t, D e t a i l s von links nach rechts
79
einen fast unbekleideten, muskulösen Gallier, der mit einem vom Hals und den Schultern nach hinten wehenden Gewand auf nach links galoppierendem Pferd wiedergegeben ist. Beide überreiten ein zusammenbrechendes Pferd und den zu diesem gehörigen Gallier, der mit einem kurzen Gewand bekleidet ist und niederstürzt. Dabei stützt er sich mit dem angewinkelten rechten Bein und dem linken Arm ab, während das linke Bein untergeschlagen ist und die rechte Hand einen Dolch in seine Brust stößt. Sein im Selbstmord entsetzter Blick ist nach schräg oben gerichtet, wo ihn der Pferdehuf des berittenen Soldaten sogleich treffen wird. Zu den folgenden, verschränkten Kampfgruppen leitet ein einzelner Gallier über, der von hinten gesehen ist: Sein muskulöser, breiter Rücken, der in kräftiger Kampfbewegung erhobene rechte Arm mit dem Schwert, der mit langem Haar bedeckte Hinterkopf und der linke Arm, der den von innen gezeigten Trapez-förmigen Schild hält, sind eindrucksvolle Motive. Hinzu kommt zur imposanten Gesamtwirkung der Ausfallschritt nach vorn. Die Angriffsaktion freilich hat keinen direkten Gegner. Im Hintergrund kämpft ein weiterer Barbar – kenntlich am langen Haar und Bart – nach rechts gegen einen berittenen Soldaten. Er schützt sich mit einem Rundschild und trägt ein kurzes Gewand, das an seinen Hüften zwischen den anderen Kämpfern sichtbar ist. Der voll gerüstete Reiter wendet sich ihm mit nach hinten gedrehtem Körper zu und sticht mit einer Lanze auf ihn ein, die er in unnatürlicher Haltung vor dem nach oben gerichteten Kopf gefaßt hat. Sein Pferd sprengt nach rechts, folgt mit dem Kopf aber der Kampfrichtung seines Reiters. Die Dreiergruppe im Hintergrund vervollständigt ein im Ausfallschritt nach links stürmender Gallier zu Fuß; er ist mit kurzem Gewand bekleidet und schützt sich mit einem Pelta-Schild in der Linken; in der hoch erhobenen rechten Hand schwingt eine Doppelaxt gegen den Reiter vor ihm. Im Vordergrund ist eine weitere Dreiergruppe zu sehen: Links hat ein Soldat mit Helm und Panzer einen vor ihm in die Knie gebrochenen Gallier am Haarschopf gepackt, um ihm mit der Waffe in der erhobenen Rechten den Todesstoß zu geben. Daß der deutlich unterlegene Kelte sich mit seiner rechten Hand vom linken Arm seines Gegners zu befreien sucht, ist offensichtlich ohne Erfolg, er wird getötet werden wie der rechts neben ihm sterbende Gallier. Jener bricht – noch auf die Knie gestützt und den Pelta- (oder Oval-) Schild in der Linken haltend – auf sein Gesicht, das neben dem gefesselten Kelten vor dem Ecktropaion auf den Boden schlägt; beim Sturz ist sein kurzes Gewand nach vorn gerutscht und entblößt sein Hinterteil. Die hier vorhandenen Kampfmotive sind von antiken Schlachtsarkophagen8 gut bekannt. Am nächsten kommt den Szenen und Details auf der Front des Budapester Sarkophags der Ammendola-Sarkophag in Rom (Abb. 9)9. Dies gilt für die gefesselten Gallier, die vor den Tropaia sitzen, wie für die Schilde
80
und ihre Verzierungen, die auch auf den Nebenseiten des Budapester Stückes erscheinen, sowie für die Waffen. Freilich erkennt man am Budapester Sarkophag alles in vergröberten Formen, die überwiegend wohl auf das deutlich kleinere Format10 zurückzuführen sind. Die Vorbildhaftigkeit des AmmendolaSarkophages gilt aber auch für die meisten Kämpfer bzw. die Kampfgruppen11: der „zurück gewandt kämpfende Reiter“, der „an der Flanke des Pferdes hängende Barbar“, der „vorgeneigt kämpfende Reiter“ und sein sich selbst tötender Gegner sowie der heranreitende Gallier (die zusammen eine „Dreireitergruppe“ bilden), der „vom Rücken gesehene Gallier“, die „Überwältigungsgruppe“ mit dem siegreichen Soldaten in Ausfallstellung und dem „von vorn gesehenen sitzenden Barbaren“ sowie dem stark verdreht dargestellten Reitersoldaten mit Lanze im Hintergrund dieser Gruppe. Aufgrund der gestreckten Proportionen12 des Schlachtfrieses auf dem Budapester Sarkophag reichten die Motive, wie sie auf den Kästen der vorbildhaften Sarkophage mit Galatomachien auftreten, nicht aus, um den gesamten Fries zu füllen. Daher hat der Bildhauer in den Formenschatz weiterer Kampfbilder, nämlich solcher von bekannten Amazonomachie-Sarkophagen, gegriffen und zusätzliche Figuren mit geringen Variationen in das Relief des Budapester Stückes eingefügt. Die Gruppe neben dem linken Tropaion ist zusammengesetzt aus drei solchen Figuren: ein in den Zügel des Barbarenreiters greifender Kämpfer, wie er etwa auf der rechten Nebenseite des bekannten Amazonen-Sarkophages im Capitolinischen Museum (Abb. 10)13 erscheint; sein Gegner, der unbekleidete Reiter-Barbar, der von rechts heransprengt, erscheint z. B. auf dem Amazonen-Sarkophag in Toronto aus Ostia,14 dort freilich als bekleidete Amazone mit wehendem Schultermäntelchen, die – wie hier der Barbar – über einen Gefallenen hinwegreitet. Dieser Gefallene erinnert sehr stark an die tote Amazone, die etwa in der Mitte des genannten (s. Anm. 13) Amazonen-Sarkophages im Capitolinischen Museum erscheint, während der vornüber zusammengebrochene Barbar mit entblößtem Hinterteil am rechten Friesrand der Budapester Grablege die gleichartig dargestellte Amazone links der Mitte auf dem capitolinischen Stück15 imitiert. Noch genauer kopiert diese Figur die gefallene Amazone auf dem Sarkophag im vatikanischen Belvedere (Abb. 11),16 denn bei dieser erscheint zusätzlich dieselbe nach hinten gewandte Haltung des Schild-tragenden Armes. Bei diesen sterbenden Galliern sind jeweils Details der Vorbilder auf Amazonen-Sarkophagen leicht variiert, z. B. die Waffen und die Kopfhaltungen geringfügig verändert. Das Schema ist aber deutlich verwandt und muß in einer klaren Abhängigkeit gesehen werden. Dies wird schließlich besonders klar bei dem vorstürmenden Gallier am rechten Friesrand, der bei gleicher Gesamthaltung nicht nur eine den Amazonen gehörige Doppelaxt schwingt und deren Peltaschild trägt, sondern dessen Gewand ebenso im Rücken gebauscht ist wie beim Vorbild der zentral agierenden Amazone.17
81
9
.
r o M , M u s e o c a p i t o l i n o , i n v. 2 1 3 : s c h l a c h t s a r k o p h a g , a M M e n D o l a‘ ( z e i c h n u n g n a c h M o n u M e n t i i n e D i t i i , t a f. 3 0 )
Der Bildhauer des Budapester Sarkophages hat also einerseits die Hauptgruppen und Kämpfer des Ammendola-Sarkophages (und verwandter Galatomachie-Sarkophage bzw. ihrer Vorbilder18) in kleinem Format kopiert und zudem andererseits das Schlachtgetümmel erweitert durch Kampfschemata von berühmten Amazonomachie-Sarkophagen, speziell denen im Vatikan und im Capitolinischen Museum – man mag die genannten vorbildhaften Sarkophage „Ammendola – Belvedere – Capitol“ unter der Bezeichnung „ABC-Gruppe“ zusammenfassen. Als 1830 in Rom der AmmendolaSarkophag gefunden wurde, erregte dies Aufsehen,19 und so ist es denkbar, daß zwischen 1830 und 1838, als er ins Capitolinische Museum kam, eine Abformung hergestellt wurde. Zusammen mit den anderen genannten Modellen, die bereits früher sichtbar und berühmt waren, konnte er als Vorbild für die Herstellung von ähnlichen Reliefs auf Sarkophagkästen dienen. Denn daß der Budapester Sarkophag in all seiner Erscheinung der Außenseiten nicht antiken Ursprunges ist, haben wir oben gesehen – die Herrichtung der Front nach mehreren, in Rom spätestens seit 1830 bekannten Vorbildern unterstreicht dies noch einmal deutlich. Interessant ist nun die Tatsache, daß es sich bei dem Sarkophag in Budapest keineswegs um ein Einzelstück handelt. Vielmehr ist die nachantike Produktion von Sarkophagreliefs anhand von weiteren
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10
.
r o M , M u s e o c a p i t o l i n o , i n v. 7 2 6 : a M a z o n e n - s a r k o p h a g ( z e i c h n u n g n a c h a s r )
11
.
vatikan, vatikanische Museen, BelveDere, inv. 896: a Mazonen-sarkophag (zeichnung nach asr)
Beispielen nachweisbar: Es wurden dabei in den meisten Fällen antike, einfache Sarkophagkästen zum Einmeißeln bekannter Bildschemata verwendet, die in Rom von berühmten Vorbildern wie der ABCGruppe abgeleitet oder gar genau kopiert wurden. Leider lassen sich zum gegenwärtigen Zeitpunkt und mit der bislang vorliegenden, noch unvollständigen Dokumentation die Einzelheiten der Produktion (im mittleren bis späteren 19. Jhs. in Rom?) nicht ermitteln. Beim Studium der Details meinen wir auch deutliche handwerkliche Unterschiede zu sehen, die darauf schließen lassen, daß wohl nicht nur eine Werkstatt an diesen Arbeiten beteiligt war. Die folgenden Bemerkungen mögen also als Anregung aufgefaßt werden, daß sich Berufenere mit dem Thema befassen; wir beschränken uns vorwiegend auf Beschreibungen und nur erste, vorläufige Einordnungen.
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B. e i n s c h l a c h t s a r k o p h a g i M D a l l a s M u s e u M o f a r t , inv. 1999.107 (aBB. 12)
Der Sarkophag („Bergsten sarcophagus“) aus lunensischem Marmor wurde 1999 aus dem Kunsthandel erworben20. Während die Nebenseiten in flachem Relief diagonal gestellte, gekreuzte Schilde mit dem bekannten Dekor und die Rückseite in einem Architekturrahmen „some interior detailing“21 aufweisen, wurde die Front weitgehend mit derselben Figurenabfolge reliefiert, wie sie auf der Front des Ammendola-Sarkophages erscheint (Abb. 12). Bei diesem Stück, das weniger gelängte Proportionen22 hat als das Budapester, demnach eine verhältnismäßig kürzere Fläche füllen mußte, war zur Ergänzung des Frontseitenbildes nur eine weitere Kämpfergruppe vonnöten: Am rechten Rand erscheint
12
.
D a l l a s , M u s e u M o f a rt, i n v. 1 9 9 9 . 1 0 7 : s c h l a c h t s a r k o p h a g
ein vorwärts springendes Pferd mit einem Reiter, der – sehr ähnlich demjenigen weiter links – sein Gesicht mit seinem erhobenen, das Schwert schwingenden Arm verdeckt; mit diesem greift er einen Barbaren im Hintergrund neben den Tropaia-Schilden an, der sich mit einer Waffe in der erhobenen Rechten zum Schlag ausholend wehrt. Die Details wie etwa die Waffen oder die Köpfe der Kämpfer des „Bergsten Sarcophags“ in Dallas sind – entsprechend des deutlich größeren Formates – besser, klarer gearbeitet als beim Budapester Stück, sie folgen den entsprechenden Motiven des AmmendolaSarkophages deutlicher. Man kann aber anhand der stark gestauchten Figuren und einiger Mißverständnisse – wie z. B. das Kopieren der nicht erkannten Beschädigungen der Tropaia – und weiteren Unzulänglichkeiten schließen, daß auch dieses Sarkophagrelief erst nach der Auffindung des Ammendola-Vorbildes gearbeitet wurde: N. Ramage23 hat bereits erkannt, daß die Ausarbeitung von Füßen wenig überzeugend gestaltet wurde. Ebenso weist sie darauf hin, daß die Wandung des Kastens
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nach der Einarbeitung des Frieses an manchen Stellen zu dünn geriet und brach – ein Charakteristikum, das wir auch bei anderen Sarkophagen der hier behandelten Gruppe finden, bei denen ein Relief in die Rückseite eines antiken Kastens nachträglich eingearbeitet wurde. Der „Bergsten Sarcophag“ in Dallas und der Budapester Sarkophag gehen also im Wesentlichen auf dasselbe Vorbild – den Ammendola-Sarkophag – zurück, ohne dessen Kenntnis sie nicht hätten gearbeitet werden können. Somit sind ihre Front- und Nebenseiten nach 1830 entstanden. Möglicherweise geschah dies nicht unabhängig voneinander, denn Übereinstimmungen wie die Ringöse auf dem Helm des rückwärtsgewandt Kämpfenden links oder der offensichtlich nicht völlig verstandene Gallier, der sich das Schwert in die Brust stößt, deuten auf eine Werkstatt-Beziehung hin. c. e i n a M a z o n o M a c h i e - s a r k o p h a g ( i n v. 1 0 . 1 5 1 ) i n D e r h e n r y e . h u n t i n g t o n l i B r a r y a n D a r t g a l l e r y, san Marino, kalifornien (aBB. 13 –17)
Von drei Marmorsarkophagen in der Huntington-Stiftung in Pasadena wurde bislang nur einer publiziert.24 Der zweite – zum dritten s. u. unter D – ist ein Kasten aus graublauem (vielleicht prokonnesischem) Marmor,25 der ebenfalls mehrere Bearbeitungsphasen aufweist: Auf der einen Langseite erkennt man eine sehr breite Tabula ansata, die von zwei nahezu quadratischen, durch Profilleisten gerahmten Feldern flankiert wird (Abb. 13). Während innerhalb des linken eine bossierte Fläche stehen blieb, wurde die rechte mit demselben Zahneisen zurückgearbeitet wie das Innere der Tabula. Diese Seite mit einfacher Dekoration26 kann als die ursprüngliche Front des unfertig gebliebenen Sarkophagkastens betrachtet werden, sie ist nach Ausweis der Wandstärke, die sich als deutlich dicker als die gegenüberliegende Langseite erkennen läßt, nicht oder nur sehr wenig zurückgearbeitet worden. Dies gilt aber nicht für die beiden Nebenseiten, auf die ein Rundschild mit dahinter gekreuztem Schwert und einer Doppelaxt bzw. ein schräg gestellter Ovalschild mit diagonal gerichteter Lanze sichtbar sind (Abb. 14–15). Es läßt sich erkennen, daß diese Bilder nachträglich in die Flächen eingearbeitet wurden: Dafür spricht einerseits, daß die Profile viel gröber und zudem nur auf drei Seiten vorhanden sind – auf der jeweils vierten Seite des Feldes beginnt mit dem Flügel der die zweite Langseite rahmenden Viktorien der Relieffries jener Seite. Andererseits ist die Tiefe der Klammerkanäle für die Befestigung eines Deckels nur sehr gering, und sie nehmen auf die Dekoration keine Rücksicht. Im Vergleich mit den Nebenseiten des Budapester Sarkophages treten die motivischen Gemeinsamkeiten bis in Details sogleich klar vor Augen, nur geringe Variationen – ein zentrales Gorgoneion beim einen oder zwei statt einer Lanze beim anderen – sind zu beobachten. Somit kann man die beiden Sarkophage wohl eng zusammenschließen, sie können aufgrund der Ähnlichkeiten in Motivik und Ausarbeitung nicht völlig unabhängig voneinander entstanden sein.
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13
.
s a n M a r i no ( c a ) , h e n ry e . h u n t i n g ton l i B r a ry a n D a rt g a l l e ry i n v. 1 0 . 1 5 1 : a M a z o n o M a c h i e - s a r k o p h a g , r ü c k s e i t e
14–15
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s a n M a r i n o ( c a ) , h e n r y e . h u n t i n g t o n l i B r a r y a n D a r t g a l l e r y, i n v. 1 0 . 1 5 1 : a M a z o n o M a c h i e - s a r k o p h a g , l i n k e u n D r e c h t e n e B e n s e i t e
Die zweite Langseite, die heute dem Betrachter als die Front erscheint, zeigt zwischen den erwähnten Viktorien, die links ein Tropaion und rechts eine Girlande halten, einen Amazonomachiefries (Abb. 16). Das gesamte Figuren- und Gruppenensemble27 entspricht einschließlich der rahmenden Siegesgöttinnen in der Abfolge und in den motivischen Schemata dem Vorbild des Amazonen-Sarkophages im Capitolinischen Museum (s. Anm. 13). Als einzige Variation fällt die Hinzufügung eines behelmten Kriegerkopfes im oberen Hintergrund links auf: Beim Vorbild erscheint an dieser Stelle zwischen dem Pferdehaupt und dem Kopf der an den Haaren gerissenen Amazone eine freie Fläche, die hier
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16
.
s a n M a r i no ( c a ) , h e n ry e . h u n t i n g ton l i B r a ry a n D a rt g a l l e ry i n v. 1 0 . 1 5 1 : a M a z o n o M a c h i e - s a r k o p h a g , f r o n t g e s a M t
gefüllt wurde. Zudem gibt es leichte Veränderungen in Bezug auf Kopfwendungen oder Faltenmotive; wenige Details wie die Form einiger Helmbüsche wurden offensichtlich mißverstanden. Bei der starken Reduzierung der Wandstärke durch die Einmeißelung des Relieffrieses auf der primären Sarkophagrückseite geriet der Reliefgrund in manchen Bereichen so dünn, daß das Licht durchscheint (Abb. 17) oder das Material bereits völlig ausgebrochen ist. Dies kann mit allen anderen genannten Indizien noch einmal die nachantike Entstehung des Amazonomachiereliefs bekräftigen, das nach 1744, dem Fundjahr des Vorbildes im Capitol, in einen ursprünglich nur mit Profilleisten ausgestatteten Kasten eingearbeitet wurde.
17
.
san Marino (ca), henry e. huntington liBrary anD art gallery, inv. 10.151: aMazonoMachie-sarkophag, front, sehr Dünne MarMorwanDung
D. ein unfertiger aMazonoMachie-sarkophag (inv. 12.9) in Der henry e. huntington liBrary anD art gallery, san Marino, kalifornien (aBB. 18–22)
Ein weiterer Sarkophag der Huntington Art Gallery28 gehört ebenfalls in den hier besprochenen Kontext. Er besteht aus weißem (wohl lunensischem) Marmor und zeigt in unfertiger, flacher Ausführung eine Schlacht zwischen gerüsteten Kriegern und Amazonen (Abb. 18). Auch hier treten einige der bekannten Motivgruppen auf, die wir von der Sarkophagfront im Capitolinischen Museum kennen;
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aber es sind zudem weitere Kampfgruppen-Schemata zu erkennen, die gleichartig am Sarkophag im vatikanischen Belvedere (s. Anm. 16) zu finden sind, und zwar auffällig in genau derselben Kombination.29 Gegenüber dem vatikanischen Exemplar kann man am hier behandelten Sarkophagkasten nur wenige, geringe Veränderungen von Details erkennen. Entscheidend für die direkte Abhängigkeit des Sarkophagreliefs Huntington vom Vorbild im Vatikan ist die Tatsache, daß nachantike, die ursprünglichen Motive verändernde Reliefergänzungen beim Stück in Kalifornien genau (und damit in Bezug auf die antike Ikonographie falsch) nachgebildet wurden.30 Zudem hat der nachantike Bildhauer die Staffelung der Figuren in einer geringeren Reliefhöhe, dabei aber einer größeren Bildbreite umgesetzt, um die vorhandenen Proportionen der ihm vorliegenden Grablege möglichst harmonisch zu nutzen.31 Besonders auffallend ist bei den Reliefs dieses Sarkophages – das gilt auch für die Nebenseiten, die zwei Rücken an Rücken sitzende Greifen32 zeigen (Abb. 19–20) –, daß ihre Bearbeitung
18
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s a n M a r i no ( c a ) , h e n ry e . h u n t i n g ton l i B r a ry a n D a rt g a l l e ry i n v. 1 2 . 9 : u n f e rt i g e r a M a z o n o M a c h i e - s a r k o p h a g , f r o n t g e s a M t
abgebrochen wurde, als noch die meisten Oberflächen grobe Bohrlöcher aufwiesen oder mit dem Flacheisen nur einen vorläufig gestalteten Zustand erreicht hatten, und als Hintergrundfiguren bisweilen nur in den Umrissen angedeutet waren. Demgegenüber ist die zweite Langseite des Kastens (Abb. 21) weitestgehend in ihrem ursprünglichen, antiken Zustand belassen: Sie ist mit Riefeln zuseiten einer zentralen Tabula ansata in einem einfach profilierten Rahmen dekoriert, wie man es von antiken Sarkophagkästen mehrfach kennt.33 Auch hier liegt also wieder der Fall vor, daß eine antike, kaum verzierte Grablege durch nachantike Bildhauer zu einem Amazonomachie-Sarkophag umgestaltet wurde. Dies kann wegen der Bekanntheit des vatikanischen Vorbildes seit dem 15. Jh. zwar schon früh geschehen sein; doch scheint uns die den anderen Beispielen verwandte Machart eher dafür zu sprechen, daß man im Umfeld der zuvor behandelten Sarkophagüberarbeitungen, also etwa im 19. Jh., auch dieses Stück verändert hat.
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19–20
.
s a n M a r i n o ( c a ) , h e n r y e . h u n t i n g t o n l i B r a r y a n D a rt g a l l e r y, i n v. 1 2 . 9 : u n f e rt i g e r a M a zono M a c h i e - s a r k op h a g , l i n k e u n D r e c h t e n e B e n s e i t e
21
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s a n M a r i n o ( c a ) , h e n r y e . h u n t i n g ton l i B r a r y a n D a rt g a l l e r y, i n v. 1 2 . 9 : u n f e r t i g e r a M a z o n o M a c h i e - s a r k o p h a g , r ü c k s e i t e
Es soll hier noch kurz bemerkt werden, daß dieser Sarkophagkasten wohl bereits vor der Ausarbeitung als Grablege ein weiteres ,Leben‘ gehabt hat. Denn das Auflager für den Deckel, der obere horizontale Rand also, weist in der Mitte die Reste einer Profilrahmung auf, deren innerer Rand zusammen mit der eigentlichen Fläche ausgeschlagen und ausgebohrt, also gelöscht wurde (Abb. 22). Das, was geblieben ist, macht unter der Voraussetzung, daß das später eingetiefte Sarkophaginnere noch vorhanden war, den Eindruck einer großen Tabula auf einem Wandblock, eine Tafel, die vielleicht einst eine Inschrift aufgewiesen hat. Wenn diese Beobachtung richtig ist, so wäre bereits in der Antike ein marmorner Wandblock (eines älteren Mausoleums?) zur Herstellung eines Riefelsarkophags mit zentraler Tabula ansata genutzt worden, der dann in der Moderne zu einem Friessarkophag umgestaltet wurde. Die Löcher, die man in den Riefeln erkennt, mögen von einer Verdübelung im einstigen Mauerverband stammen.
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e . ein a M azonoM achie-sarkophag (sog. Doheny sarkophag) in Der BiBliothek Der universit y of southern california, lo s a ng e l e s ( a BB . 2 3 – 2 5 )
Mit dem Amazonomachie-Sarkophag im Vatikan und seiner Nachahmung in der Huntington-Sammlung vor Augen läßt sich ein kleiner Marmorsarkophag in der Bibliothek der University of Southern California in Los Angeles,34 der demselben Vorbild folgt, nun schnell als moderne Arbeit sehr bescheidener 22
.
Detail Des Deckelauflagers
Machart erkennen: Wir finden ähnliche oder gar größere Miß-
Mit profilierung-rest
verständnisse bzw. Fehler in dem flachen, bisweilen Scherenschnitt-artig gearbeiteten Reliefzyklus (Abb. 23): Neben dem
oben beschriebenen Griff der rücklings vom Pferd fallenden Figur ans Bein des Tieres statt in den Zügel ist besonders auffallend, daß der am Boden liegende korinthische Helm rechts von der Mitte beim Doheny-Sarkophag ein Gesicht bekommen hat, als ob ein Kopf darin stecke oder es sich um einen Paradehelm mit Gesichtsmaske handele. An den Schmalseiten (Abb. 24–25) erscheinen einmal mehr gekreuzte Lanzen, hier aber mit einem verballhornten Tropaion kombiniert – statt eines Helmes ist eine kugelförmige Erweiterung am oberen Ende eines dünnen Stabes gemeißelt. Links schwebt nur ein ovaler Schild neben den Pteryges des Panzers, rechts dagegen sind unter einer winzigen Rüstung ein Oval- und ein Rundschild wiedergegeben; letzterer ist mit einem freundlichen Gorgoneion mit langen, gleichmäßig-strahlenförmig zum Rand hin bewegten Haarsträhnen verziert. All diese Motive sind in der vorliegenden Form ohne antike Parallele.
23
.
los angeles (ca), universit y of southern california, Doheny-liBrary: schl achtsarkophag für ein kinD, fr ont
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24–25
.
los angeles (ca), universit y of southern california, Doheny-liBrary: schl achtsarkophag für ein kinD, linke unD rechte neBenseite
Die gesamte Reliefverzierung ist dilettantisch und in naiver, mißverstandener Art gemeißelt worden, offensichtlich nicht direkt am vatikanischen Vorbild orientiert, sondern an einer Zwischenstufe – sei es eine schlechte Zeichnung (oder ein unklares Photo?), sei es ein Werk ähnlich demjenigen der Huntington-Sammlung (hier C), von dem es aber bei all den Fehlern nicht direkt abhängen kann. appenDix
Mit nur einem Beispiel soll hier noch gezeigt werden, daß das Phänomen der Herstellung nachantiker Sarkophagreliefs oder der Überarbeitung von antiken Sarkophagen35 sich nicht auf Motive von Schlachtszenen, wie sie die ABC-Gruppe zeigen, beschränkt. Vielmehr kann man es auch bei Grablegen mit anderer Motivik nachweisen. Eine ausführliche Untersuchung dieser Besonderheit der nachantiken36 Veränderung von Sarkophagen scheint durchaus lohnend. f. e i n r i e f e l s a r k o p h a g M i t B i l D f e l D e r n i M M u s e u M o f a r t in santa BarBar a, kalifornien (aBB. 26–29)
Der Sarkophagkasten im Museum of Art in Santa Barbara37 aus weißem (wohl lunensischem) Marmor entspricht im Tektonischen einem weit verbreiteten Typus38: Auf der langen Front, die verhältnismäßig geringe Höhe besitzt, sind zwei große Felder mit gegenständig geschwungenen Riefeln durch schmale, die gesamte Höhe einnehmende Relieffelder begrenzt, während die Mitte ein von Säulen und einem gesprengten Giebel oder einem flachen Bogen gerahmtes größeres Reliefbild einnimmt
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(Abb. 26). Die seitlichen Figuren stehen – wie hier – oft auf Postamenten, bei diesem Exemplar handelt es sich um spiegelbildlich gestaltete Sepulkralgenien mit einem perizoma um die Hüften,39 die in der jeweils erhobenen Hand eine Fackel halten.
26
.
s a n t a B a r B a r a ( c a ) , M u s e u M o f a rt : r i e f e l s a r k o p h a g , f r o n t
27–28
.
s a n ta B a r B a r a ( c a ) , M u s e u M of a rt: r i e f e l s a r k op h a g , l i n k e u n D r e c h t e n e B e n s e i t e
An den Nebenseiten (Abb. 27–28) werden die Arkaden der Sarkophagmitte wiederholt: auf Säulen mit Spiralkanneluren sitzen Blüten-artig stilisierte Palmblattkapitelle, die einen flachen, geschwungenen, profilierten (statt Faszien erkennt man ein Kyma) Architrav tragen. An den Ecken liegen auf dem Architrav nach außen blickende Tiere, die Hunden mit langen, dünnen Schwänzen ähneln. Auf einem Postament im Innern der Nische sieht man schließlich vorwärts springende, stämmige Pferde, die schwer bewaffnete Reiter tragen: Ihre Helme und Schilde erinnern in den Formen
92
und dem Dekor an die der Soldaten in den Galatomachie-Sarkophagen in Budapest und Dallas. Dagegen finden wir die langen, breiten, nach hinten wehenden Satteldecken nur hier, und die Art, wie der Reitersoldat auf der rechten Nebenseite den Zügel und seinen Schild hält, dabei den mit einem Ärmelhemd bekleideten Körper verdreht, ist bei antiken Darstellungen nicht zu belegen. Die seitlichen Reliefs sind nach Ausweis des Überganges von der Front zur Nebenseite in eine einst glatte Fläche eingetieft worden; für diese erst sekundäre Entstehung der Bilder sprechen schließlich auch die Klammervertiefungen der einstigen Deckelfixierung. Kehren wir zur Sarkophagfront zurück und betrachten das zentrale Relief (Abb. 29). Bei den verglichenen, typologisch verwandten Sarkophagen sind dort in den Architekturrahmungen bisweilen die Verstorbenen, als Togati oder im ,Philosophengewand‘, stehend oder sitzend, dargestellt; in anderen Fällen werden berühmte Skulpturen zitiert, die auf ihren Basen wie Statuen auftreten.40 Eine bekannte Statuengruppe erscheint auch im Mittelfeld des Riefelsarkophags in Santa Barbara: Es handelt sich um die berühmte ,Ildefonso-Gruppe‘.41 Im Vergleich zu jenem Vorbild sind hier aber einige Details variiert: Der links stehende Knabe wendet seinen Kopf vom Freund ab und hat ihn in süßlicher Pose stark zu seiner rechten Schulter geneigt; beide Knaben zeigen rundlichere Körperformen in weniger starkem Schwung als beim Vorbild und sind mit sehr jungen Zügen und einer an iulisch-claudische Motive erinnernden Frisur wiedergegeben. Die beim Vorbild als Stütze rechts stehende archaistische Göttin fehlt in diesem Reliefbild, dafür ist links ein knorriger Baum mit langen (Lorbeer-?) Blättern dargestellt. Im Übrigen aber ist die vorbildhafte, hoch berühmte und seit dem späten 17. Jh. in Europa oft nachgeahmte und kopierte Gruppe recht getreu wiedergegeben: Selbst die bei der Statue in Madrid ergänzten Hände mit ihren spezifischen Haltungen und Objekten (besonders der Schale in der Rechten des Gefährten), die Unterschenkel in ihren unterschiedlichen Positionen ebenso wie die Form und Verzierung des Altares. Dies alles wurde in flachem Relief, mit deutlich geringerer Tiefe als an den Seiten gemeißelt, so daß die Architekturrahmung, die vor die Riefelflächen auf beiden Seiten heraustritt, weit vorragt. Dies läßt darauf schließen, daß im ursprünglichen, also antiken Zustand der Sarkophagfront die Detailmotive der Mitte noch nicht ausgearbeitet waren, vielleicht in einer Bosse standen, wie sie noch an der Vorderseite der ,Statuenbasis‘ unter der Knabengruppe stehen geblieben ist. Dies muß auch für die ungewöhnlichen ,Hunde‘ an den Arkadenecken gelten, die bei antiken Sarkophagen keine Parallelen haben und in nur sehr flacher Ausarbeitung vor ihrem Reliefgrund ,kleben‘ sowie dieselben Formen zeigen, wie ihre Artgenossen auf den Nebenseiten.
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Die Befunde der Seitenreliefs und der Darstellung im Zentrum der Sarkophagfront, die z. T. ergänzte Motive der berühmten und beliebten ,Ildefonso-Gruppe‘ (Abb. 30) wiedergibt, belegen, daß es sich auch beim Riefelsarkophag im Museum of Art in Santa Barbara um ein nachantik überarbeitetes Stück handelt. Die Technik, einen nur einfach dekorierten Sarkophag für Veränderungen zu nutzen, ihn in einigen Bereichen mit neuen Reliefs zu ,ergänzen‘ sowie die Übereinstimmung von einigen ikonographischen Details 29
.
zentrales relief Der frontseite
der Nebenseiten-Reliefs (Schilde und Helme mit ,Ringöse‘) lassen sich mit Beobachtungen an zuvor behandelten Grablegen mit Schlachtszenen verbinden. Somit kann ein Werkstatt-Zusammenhang dieser nachantik verfälschten Sarkophage nicht ausgeschlossen werden. Hans Rupprecht Goette ist klassischer Archäologe am Deutschen Archäologischen Institut, Berlin. Árpád M. Nagy ist klassischer Archäologe in der Antikensammlung des Museums der Bildenden Künste, Budapest.
30
.
ilDefonso-gruppe. MaDriD, Museo Del praDo, inv. 28e
94
anMerkungen 1
Die verwickelte Herkunftgeschichte des Stückes vor 1972 benötigt eine eigene Studie, die in diesem Rahmen nicht geleistet werden kann. – Kurz erwähnt und als nachantikes Werk erkannt wurde der Sarkophag schon von J. Gy. Szilágyi, Ancient Art. Department of Antiquities. Handbook of the Permanent Exhibition, Budapest 2003, 161–162.
2
Die Analyse wurde von Danielle Decrouez (Genf, Muséum d’histoire naturelle) durchgeführt. Die maximale Kristallgröße konnte mit 1,23 mm bestimmt werden. Wir danken D. Decrouez auch an dieser Stelle herzlich für Ihre vielfache Unterstützung.
3
Länge: 177 cm (unten), 175,5 cm (oben); Höhe: 39 cm; Breite: 63 cm; die Wandstärke schwankt zwischen 6,3 cm (die glatte Rückseite) und 6,5 cm; die größte Relieftiefe beträgt ca. 3 cm; der Durchmesser des im Innern im ,Kissen‘ eingetieften Kreises ist 18,5 cm.
4
G. Koch – H. Sichtermann, Römische Sarkophage, Handbuch der Archäologie, München 1982, 37 f. mit Anm. 18–36, Abb. 4–7; s. zuletzt einige weitere Exemplare, die publiziert wurden von A. Palmentieri, Addenda ai sarcofagi romani della prima età imperiale, Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts, RM 119 (2013), 169–199 (mit älterer Literatur).
5
s. z. B. den nach Marmor, Maßen und Innengestaltung eng verwandten, glatten Sarkophag des Vergilius Hetyces in Rom, Mus. Naz. delle Terme Inv. 124621: M. Sapelli, in A. Giuliano (Hrsg.), Museo Nazionale Romano. Le sculture I 3, Rom 1982, 81 f. Nr. III 13 mit Abb. – Sehr ähnlich auch ein Sarkophag in Pisa, Camposanto C 1 int. (P. E. Arias – E. Cristani – E. Gabba, Camposanto monumentale di Pisa: Le Antichità, I., Pisa 1977, 156 Taf. 102 Abb. 214). s. auch Palmentieri a. O. (Anm. 4) 190 Abb. 25.
6
s. dazu die Schilde an den Tropaia des Ammendola-Sarkophages (Abb. 9), zu diesem s. u. S. 84.
7
Auf den Metopen des Rundmausoleums des L. Munatius Plancus in Gaeta findet man z. B. sehr ähnliche Rundschilde vor gekreuzten Waffen wie auf der rechten Sarkophagnebenseite: R. Fellmann, Das Grab des Lucius Munatius Plancus bei Gaëta, Basel 1957, 32–62, Abb. 15 Taf. 5 (Parallelen: Taf. 7); M. Eisner, Zur Typologie der Grabbauten im Suburbium Roms, Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts, RM Ergh. 26, Mainz 1986, 213 f.; H. von Hesberg, Römische Grabbauten, Darmstadt 1992, 97 Abb. 50; J. Ch. Balty, Des tombeaux et des hommes: à propos de quelques mausolées circulaires du monde romain, in J.-Ch. Moretti – D. Tardy (Hrsg.), L’architecture funéraire monumentale: la Gaule dans l’empire romain. Actes du colloque organisé par l’IRAA du CNRS et le musée archéologique Henri-Prades, Lattes, 11–13 octobre 2001, Paris 2006, 42–45 Abb. 2; E. Polito, Fregi dorici e monumenti funerari, in M. Valenti (Hrsg.), Monumenta. I mausolei romani, tra commemorazione funebre e propaganda celebritiva, Atti del convegno di studi Monte Porzio Catone, Tuscolana 3 (Rom 2010), 23–34 mit Abb. 1.
8
Koch–Sichtermann a. O. (Anm. 4) 90–92; B. Andreae, Motivgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zu den römischen Schlachtsarkophagen, Berlin 1956; St. Faust, Schlachtenbilder der römischen Kaiserzeit, Tübinger Archäologische Forschungen 8 (Rahden 2012), 177–196 mit älterer Literatur.
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9
Rom, Mus. Cap. Inv. 213, 1830 in einer Grabkammer in der Vigna Ammendola (Via Appia) gefunden: H. Stuart Jones, The Sculptures of the Museo Capitolino, Oxford 1912, 74 Nr. 5 Taf. 14; Andreae a. O. (Anm. 8) bes. 14 Nr. 3 Taf. 1; W. Helbig, Führer durch die öffentlichen Sammlungen klassischer Altertümer in Rom, Tübingen 1966,4 II 1215; Koch–Sichtermann a. O. (Anm. 4) 91 Abb. 74; K. R. Krierer, Sieg und Niederlage. Untersuchungen physiognomischer und mimischer Phänomene in den Kampfdarstellungen der römischen Plastik, Wiener Forschungen zur Archäologie 1 (Wien 1995), 87 f. Taf. 24, 84; E. Kistler, Funktionalisierte Keltenbilder. Die Indienstnahme der Kelten zur Vermittlung von Normen und Werten in der hellenistischen Welt, Berlin 2009, 243 Anm. 249; Faust a. O. (Anm. 9) 177–189 (mit Lit. in Anm. 980) Taf. 69 f.; E. La Rocca – C. Parisi Presicce, Musei Capitolini 1. Le sculture del Palazzo Nuovo, Mailand 2010, 310–323 Nr. 13 mit 6 Abb.
10
Die Reliefszene am Ammendola-Sarkophag hat mit 78 cm die doppelte Höhe des Budapester Sarkophages.
11
Zu den hier zitierten Rufnamen der Motive s. Andreae a. O. (Anm. 8).
12
Ammendola: 211 cm Länge bei 78 cm Höhe (Verhältnis ca. 1:2,7); Budapester Sarkophag: 177 cm Länge bei 39 cm Höhe (Verhältnis ca. 1:4,5).
13
Inv. 726, 1744 an der Via Collatina gefunden: Stuart Jones a. O. (Anm. 9) 323 Nr. 18 Taf. 81; C. Robert, Die antiken Sarkophag-Reliefs, II, Berlin 1890, Nr. 77 Taf. 32; Helbig4 a. O (Anm. 9) II 1228; G. Koch – H. Sichtermann, Griechische Mythen auf römischen Sarkophagen, Tübingen 1975, 22 f. Nr. 11 Taf. 21, 2. 22–25; D. Grassinger, Die mythologischen Sarkophage, ASR XII 1 (Berlin 1999), 237 Nr. 94 Taf. 90, 5; 91–93; 94, 3–7; 95, 5. 6 (mit weiterer Lit.); K. Meinecke, Sarcophagum posuit, SarkSt 7 (Ruhpolding – Wiesbaden 2014), 358 Kat.-Nr. B 94.
14
Toronto, Royal Ontario Museum Inv. 947.26, 1831/4 in Ostia gefunden, dann bis 1882 in Vigna Pacca aufbewahrt: Grassinger a. O. (Anm. 13) 245 Nr. 114 Taf. 103, 2; 106, 2 (mit weiterer Lit.).
15
s. besonders Grassinger a. O. (Anm. 13) 140 „Gefallene P“; 237 Nr. 94 Taf. 93, 2.
16
Vatikan, Belvedere, Inv. 896, seit dem 15. Jh. bekannt: Robert, a. O. (Anm. 13) II 99–101 Nr. 80 Taf. 34 f.; III 3, 552 Nr. 80; Helbig4 a. O. (Anm. 9) I (1963) 217; Grassinger a. O. (Anm. 13) 140 „Gefallene P“; 240 Nr. 101 Taf. 97; 98, 1. 2; 99 (mit älterer Lit.).
17
Grassinger a. O. (Anm. 13) 140: Axtschwingerin aus der „Gruppe C 1“.
18
Dazu s. Andreae a. O. (Anm. 8). In Frage kommen in Rom etwa Reliefs wie der Große Trajanische Fries am Konstantinsbogen, der einige der ikonographischen Schemata wie auch entsprechende Details zeigt: s. A.-M. Leander Touati, The Great Trajanic Frieze. The Study of a Monument and of the Mechanisms of Message Transmission in Roman Art, Göteborg 1987.
19
Dazu s. C. Fea, Bolletino dell’Istituto 1830, 122 f.; D. Raoul-Rochette, Nouvelles observations sur la statue du prétendu Gladiateur mourant, du Capitole, et sur le groupe dit d’Arria et Paetus. De la villa Ludovisi, Bulletin des sciences historiques de Champollion et Férussac 15 (264), (1830), 368–371; D. Blackie, Combattimento di Romani e Barbari. Sarcofago rinvenuto nella vigna Ammendola, Annali dell’Istituto 1831, 287–311; MonInst 1, 1831, Taf. 30–31 (hier Abb. 9).
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20
Wir danken Jacqueline Allen, Ebony McFarland und Anne Bromberg, Mitarbeiter des Museums, für Auskünfte, Arbeitsphotos und die Zurverfügungstellung von Gutachten über den Sarkophag, die N. Ramage (Ithaca; 23. 9. 1999) und D. Atnally Conlin (Boulder; 18. 12. 1999) vorgenommen haben. Wir verwenden hier eine Aufnahme des Kunsthändlers, da Museumsaufnahmen noch nicht vorliegen. – Der Sarkophag ist 2,08 m lang, 0,635 m hoch und ebenso breit.
21
So D. Atnally Conlin in ihrem Gutachten, das diese drei Seiten als unfertig charakterisiert. – Die linke Nebenseite zeigt zwei Ovalschilde; in einem sieht man am unteren Rand ein kaum erklärbares tiefes Dübelloch. Die rechte Nebenseite ist mit einem Rundschild über einem nur im Bereich des oberen Randes dargestellten trapeziodalen Schild dekoriert. Dicht am oberen Rand führt zentral eine Klammervertiefung zu einem schmalen Loch, daneben sieht man noch drei weitere Dübellöcher unbestimmter Funktion. Diese Löcher wie auch der Übergang zum Frontrelief zeigen deutlich, daß zumindest die rechte Nebenseite nachantik abgearbeitet wurde, um den Bildschmuck in sehr unausgeprägter Arbeit einzutragen.
22
Bei 208 cm Länge und 63,5 cm Höhe beträgt das Verhältnis ca. 1:3, ist also dem des Ammendola-Sarkophages viel näher als das des Budapester Sarkophages, s. o. Anm. 12.
23
So N. Ramage in ihrem Gutachten: Sie erwähnt, daß sie solche „oddities“ noch nie gesehen habe, sie deshalb als ungewöhnlich betrachte, aber für erklärbare Fehler bzw. (in Bezug auf die Ausarbeitung der Füße) für Unfertigkeiten halte. – A. Bromberg teilt uns brieflich (3. 7. 2014) mit, daß Susan Walker (Oxford) bei einer Begutachtung zu ähnlichen Ergebnissen wie hier vorgetragen gekommen sei.
24
J. Pijoan, Antique Marbles in Los Angeles, California Arts and Architecture 27 (Dec. 1931), 49 mit Abb.; G. Koch, Ein dekorativer Sarkophag mit Scherengitter in der Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino, Roman Funerary Monuments in the J. Paul Getty Museum 1, Occasional Papers on Antiquities, 6 (Malibu 1990), 59–70.
25
Inv. 10.151, im Westen des Südeinganges, aus dem Kunsthandel (Eugene Glaenzer & Co. sowie P. W. French & Co. in New York) erworben, unpubliziert. – Länge: 2,21 m, Höhe: 0,585 m; Breite: 0,785 m. – Für Studien- und Photographiererlaubnis in Bezug auf dieses wie auch auf das unter D vorgestellte zweite Stück danken wir den Kuratoren der Sammlung der Skulpturen, Catherine Hess, Susan Colletta und James Glisson.
26
H. Gabelmann, Zur Tektonik oberitalischer Sarkophage, Altäre und Stelen, Bonner Jahrbücher 177, 1977, 220–225 („profilgerahmte oder Truhen-Sarkophage“); Koch–Sichtermann a. O. (Anm. 4) 72 f.
27
Dazu s. Grassinger a. O. (s. Anm. 13) 140 f. mit Text Abb. 1.
28
Im Osten des Südeinganges, aus dem Kunsthandel (Eugene Glaenzer & Co. in New York) erworben, unpubliziert. – Länge: 2,17 m, Höhe: 0,432 m; Breite: 0,67 m. – s. auch Anm. 23 f.
29
Zur Beschreibung der Typen s. Grassinger a. O. (Anm. 13) 240 Nr. 101 Taf. 97, 1.
30
Nur ein, wenn auch charakteristisches, Beispiel ist die Haltung des linken Armes der rücklings vom Pferd fallenden Figur: sie (ergänzt beim antiken Vorbild) greift nicht in den herabgezogenen Zügel, sondern in die (ebenfalls beim vatikanischen Muster ergänzte) Beuge des Pferdebeines, was dann bei den nachantiken Arbeiten (hier D und E) mißverstanden und so kopiert wurde.
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31
Der Sarkophag im Belvedere des Vatikan besitzt ein Maßverhältnis von Höhe zu Länge wie 1:3,4, während der kleinere Sarkophag in der Huntington-Sammlung eines von 1:5 aufweist.
32
Die Norm sind antithetische Greifen, die mit verschiedenen Gegenständen (Räder, Kandelaber, Fackeln u. a.) zwischen ihnen dargestellt sind, s. etwa Pisa, Camposanto A 16 est: Arias – Cristiani – Gabba a. o. (Anm. 5) 68 f. Taf. 18 Abb. 36. Zum Motiv des Greifen auf antiken Sarkophagen s. E. Simon, Zur Bedeutung des Greifen in der Kunst der Kaiserzeit, Latomus 21 (1962), 764–766 Abb. 1; I. Flagge, Untersuchungen zur Bedeutung des Greifen, Sankt Augustin 1975, passim; Chr. Delplace, Le griffon de l’archaïsme à l’époque impériale : Etude iconographique et essai d’interpretation symbolique, Brüssel 1980, 284–314, 414–426; zum imperialen Aspekt des Greifen in der Sepulkralsymbolik s. auch J. Engemann, Der Greif als Apotheosetier, Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 25, 1982, 172–176.
33
Koch–Sichtermann a. O. (Anm. 4) 75 mit Anm. 6 und Abb. 2, 5.
34
Einen ersten Hinweis auf den Sarkophag gab dankenswerterweise John Pollini; er vermittelte auch den Kontakt zu Roger von Dippe, der dann in liberaler Weise Informationen über das Stück sowie Photographien zur Verfügung stellte und mit uns seine Überlegungen über den nachantiken Ursprung diskutierte. Dafür danken wir ihm herzlich. – Länge: 1,29 m; Höhe: 0,32 m; Breite: 0,38 m. Diese geringen Maße veranlassen R. von Dippe, in dem Stück die Grablege eines Kindes zu erkennen. – Der Sarkophag gelangte im Oktober 1937 in die von Edward L. Doheny (zur Person s. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_L._Doheny>) der USC gestifteten Bibliothek.
35
Schon im 17. Jh. wurde bei einem Friessarkophag aus spätseverischer Zeit (mit dem Frontbild des Wettstreites zwischen Musen und Sirenen) auf den dazu abgearbeiteten Nebenseiten das Wappen der Familie del Nero eingearbeitet: New York City, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Inv. 10.104: M. Wegner, Die Musensarkophage, ASR V 3 Berlin 1966, Nr. 61 Taf. 32; Th. Kraus, Das römische Weltreich, Propyläen Kunstgeschichte 2, Berlin 1967, 242 Taf. 246 a; K. Fittschen, Gnomon 44 (1972), 490. 502; A. M. McCann, Roman Sarcophagi in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 1978, 46–49 Nr. 5; Koch–Sichtermann a. O. (Anm. 4) 199 Anm. 37; C. Picón – J. R. Mertens – E. J. Milleker – C. S. Lightfoot – S. Hemingway, Art of the Classical World in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New Haven – London 2007, 399. 497 Abb. 469.
36
Selbstverständlich wurde im Rahmen von Umplanungen oder von Verwendung vorgefertigter und dann auf den jeweiligen aktuellen Fall umgestalteter Sarkophagnutzung auch in der Antike ähnliche Veränderungen vorgenommen. Als nur ein Beispiel eines Sarkophages mit einst als Rückseite geplanten und dann zu einer Front ausgestalteten Reliefs kann der sog. Brüdersarkophag in Pisa (Camposanto) dienen, der zunächst als Wannensarkophag mit Löwenköpfen vorbereitet wurde: zuletzt mit der älteren Literatur J. Stroszeck, Die dekorativen stadtrömischen Sarkophage, ASR VI 1, Berlin 1998, 110 Nr. 50 Taf. 143; C. Reinsberg, Sarkophage mit Darstellungen aus dem Menschenleben, ASR I 3, Berlin 2006, 208 Nr. 54 Taf. 31,3; 37.
98
37
Wir danken den Museumskuratoren Dr. Eik Kahng und Dr. Jessica Ambler für die freundliche Betreuung vor Ort und die großzügig erteilte Genehmigung, das Stück studieren und photographieren zu dürfen.
38
Koch–Sichtermann a. O. (Anm. 4) 75 Nr. 13 Abb. 2, 13.
39
Die Oberflächen der Figuren, insbesondere der Köpfe, scheinen nachgearbeitet, zumindest tiefgehend gereinigt zu sein. Vgl. zu den Genien den ähnlichen Sarkophag – zum Mittelfeld mit Amor und Psyche s. u. Anm. 40 – in Rom: R. Calza (Hrsg.), Antichità di Villa Doria Pamphilj, Rom 1977, 225 f. Nr. 264 Taf. 150.
40
z. B. Amor und Psyche: Calza a. O. (Anm. 39) mit drei weiteren Beispielen in Anm. 4–5, u. a. in Pisa, Camposanto A 6 int. (Arias – Cristani – Gabba a. O. [Anm. 5] 100 f. Taf. 38 Abb. 78 f.). – Mars und Venus: Calza a. O. (Anm. 39) 224 f. Nr. 263 Taf. 150 mit drei weiteren Beispielen (u. a. in Pisa, Camposanto B 1 int. [Arias – Cristani – Gabba a. O. 119 Taf. 61 Abb. 126 f.]). – Aphrodite/Victoria: Pisa, Camposanto A 17 est.: Arias – Cristani – Gabba a. O. 68 f. Taf. 19 Abb. 37 f. – Dionysos und Satyr (mit Mänade): Pisa, Camposanto C 7 est.: Arias – Cristani – Gabba a. O. 132 f. Taf. 72 Abb. 151 f.). – Meleager (dazu links Atalante, rechts ein junger Jäger): Rom, Mus. Naz. delle Terme Inv. 56138: L. Musso in: Giuliano a. O. (Anm. 5) I 2, 115–117 Nr. 22 mit Abb. und Parallelen. – Drei Grazien: Potsdam, Schloß Sanssouci (mit Narkissos an beiden Front-Enden): P. Zanker – B. C. Ewald, Mit Mythen leben. Die Bilderwelt der römischen Sarkophage, München 2004, 236 Abb. 212; S. Hüneke u. a., Antiken I. Kurfürstliche und königliche Erwerbungen für die Schlösser und Gärten Brandenburg-Preussens vom 17. bis zum 19. Jahrhundert, Berlin 2009, 173–176 Nr. 68 Abb. (weitere Literatur zum Motiv: a. O. Anm. 3–4).
41
Heute in Madrid, Prado, Inv. 28E, seit 1623 sicher bekannt; die linke Figur mit einem Portrait des Antinoos ergänzt. Ausführlich mit der älteren Literatur: St. F. Schröder, Katalog der antiken Skulpturen des Museo del Prado in Madrid, Mainz 2004, 370–379 Nr. 181 mit Abb.; zuletzt: A. Rügler, Die Ildefonso-Gruppe in Winckelmanns „Monumenti Antichi Inediti“, in M. Kunze – J. Maier Allende (Hrsg.), El legado de Johann Joachim Winckelmann en España. Das Vermächtnis von Johann Joachim Winckelmann in Spanien, Akten des internationalen Kongresses, Madrid 20.–21. 10. 2011 (Ruhpolding 2014), 193–206.
99
100
an unDescriBeD version of lanDscape with
a horseM an anD his gr ooM after titian
z o ltá n k á r pát i
Among the small group of prints ascribed to Titian by Adam Bartsch, Landscape with a Horseman and his Groom has been the focus of interest for several decades (fig. 2).1 Although it has been generally accepted that the etching was not executed by the Venetian master himself, identification of the printmaker still remains uncertain. Refuting the unconvincing attribution to Marco Angolo del Moro proposed by Maria Catelli Isola,2 Gianvittorio Dillon associated the work with the manner of Battista Franco on the basis of its similarity to the background landscape elements of his Moses Drawing Water from the Rock (fig. 3).3 On the other hand, Dillon also noted that the landscape is uncharacteristic of Franco and must be a later addition to the composition. David Landau agreed with Dillon’s conclusion but stressed that the attribution to Franco should only be accepted with reservations.4 The Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest preserves a unique version of Landscape with a Horseman and his Groom (fig. 1).5 Corresponding in almost all details to the print reproduced in The Illustrated Bartsch, the reverse direction and nearly identical dimensions suggest that one etching must be a copy of the other.6 The most significant difference that can be recognised at first glance is the handling of the sky: while it is represented in the Bartsch version as dark and stormy, and is executed with densely running parallel strokes completely filling the lower part of the sky, the upper part of the Budapest etching is much more open, and the unmarked areas result in an airy and light atmosphere. In fact, the overall effect of the Budapest print is more virtuoso; its lines are free and delicate, and the forms are articulated in a sketchy and spontaneous manner. In contrast to the springy vitality of the Budapest impression, the etched lines of the Bartsch version are more restrained, generally uniform in width and value, the hatching is more regular, the handling of the needle less skilled, and, last but not least, several details are confusing. These defects become plainly evident if one observes the small boat on the horizon, between the two tree trunks on the left of the Budapest print, which vanishes among the less defined lines of the Bartsch version.
101
1
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venetian etcher, l anDscape with a horseM an anD his gr ooM, ca. 1550â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1560, B u D a p e s t, M u s e u M o f f i n e a rt s
In the latter, the folds of the groomâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mantle disappear in the dense shading, and the tail and mane of the horse lose their decorative character. It can generally be said that the Bartsch version is more simple and direct in its technique, which suggests the hand of a less talented printmaker. This is particularly evident in the buildings of the background, the articulation of the foliage and the ripples of the stream. The etcher of the Bartsch version does not make a distinction between the lower part of the sky and the far end of the stream. All these characteristics strongly suggest that the Bartsch version must be the later one, while the Budapest print represents the original invention. The Budapest print, unpublished until today, is the only known impression of this version, and therefore has considerable importance. Although the plateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fate is not known, it was presumably damaged or lost before being printed in high numbers. It is very plausible that the Bartsch version was traced onto
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venetian etcher, l anDscape with a horseM an anD his gr ooM, ca. 1550–1560, n e w yor k , t h e M e t r op ol i ta n M u s e u M of a rt
a new plate directly from an original impression of the Budapest version. This hypothesis is mainly supported by its reverse direction, and also by that its outlines are identical with those of the Budapest version but the execution of the details is notably different. The uniqueness of the etching is further proven by the fact that later printed and drawn copies were made exclusively after the Bartsch version.7 The Titianesque origin of the landscape is evident and supported by the inscription of Ticianus manu propria on the second state of the Bartsch version.8 On the other hand, no existing drawing by the master for the whole composition has survived. Only a small sketch of Alpine farm buildings with a wooden tower, drawn by Titian in two autograph versions around 1512–1515, may be directly linked with the background of Landscape with a Horseman and his Groom (fig. 4).9 The popularity of this motif is proven by three contemporary copies of Titian’s drawing, and the fact that similar landscapes
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g i o va n n i B at t i s t a f r a n c o , M o s e s D r a w i n g wat e r f r o M t h e r o c k , c a . 1 5 5 0 , B u D a p e s t, M u s e u M o f f i n e a rt s
were disseminated by Domenico Campagnola, his most outstanding follower. Campagnola was the most inventive mediator of the Venetian pastoral landscape, whose variations in drawings and woodcuts strongly influenced the next generation of printmakers in mid-sixteenth-century Veneto. Battista Franco, for instance, regularly inserted Venetian landscape elements in his prints during his final years in Venice, ca. 1552–1561.10 A good example is his Madonna and Child with the Infant John the Baptist,11 which includes a close variant of the Alpine buildings recorded in Titian’s above-mentioned drawings. The appearance of Titianesque motifs in Landscape with a Horseman and his Groom is not the only reason for its attribution to Franco, which is based primarily on the similarity of the group of trees dominating the right side of the Bartsch version to Franco’s Moses Drawing Water from the Rock.12 A close variant of this motif also appears in Franco’s Adoration of the Magi.13 The compositional differences between genuine prints by Franco and the landscape etching under discussion, however,
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at t r i B u t e D t o t i t i a n , a l p i n e v i l l a g e w i t h l o v e r s , c a . 1 5 1 2 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 1 5 1 5 , c h at s w o rt h , c o u rt e s y o f t h e t r u s t e e s o f t h e c h at s w o r t h s e t t l e M e n t
do not allow a secure attribution of Landscape with a Horseman and his Groom. The arrangement of Francoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s prints is generally relief-like, built up from two distinct layers, a foreground with figures and a background, resulting in a less sophisticated overall image. Franco was primarily an engraver, but late in his career he preferred to use a mixed technique, combining the advantages of both etching and engraving, like many of his colleagues in the Veneto: Battista Pittoni, Angiolo Falconetto, Giovanni Battista Fontana, as well as Battista Angolo del Moro and his son Marco. The refined use of freely etched lines together with tightly hatched burin lines is characteristic of Francoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s working method. First, he etched the composition broadly onto the plate, carefully completing the figures and other important elements with a burin afterwards, but leaving the landscape in pure etching. It is also convincingly suggested that many of his few pure etchings are intermediary proofs which remained unfinished.14
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Another reason for the attribution of Landscape with a Horseman and his Groom to Franco was David Landau’s identification of two small reversed letters in its lower right corner, which he identified as “FV”.15 Landau suggested this may be a signature, which, taken together with the stylistic comparisons to landscape backgrounds, as well as to pure etchings by Franco, argued for the possibility of the print being made by the master himself. On the other hand, Landau also noted that it differs from Franco’s usual initials. In fact, there is no print by Franco which bears this signature; he alternately used “BFVF” and “FPF” instead.16 Considering all these facts, we have no reason to attribute either version of Landscape with a Horseman and his Groom to Battista Franco. The flowing character of the Budapest version explicitly suggests a work by an experienced etcher, and does not fit credibly in Franco’s printed œuvre, while the Bartsch version seems to be a contemporary copy. In the mid-1550s anonymous etchers, often unconvincingly identified as either Battista Angolo del Moro or his son Marco, eagerly reproduced drawings by Titian.17 Although Landscape with a Horseman and his Groom does not resemble any of these prints, it must be a product from the same circle. Zoltán Kárpáti is curator of Italian drawings and prints, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest. author’s note
I am indebted to Wendy Thompson and Matthias Wivel for their suggestions, as well as to Catherine Jenkins for the information on the impression at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. I am also grateful to Eszter Seres and Eszter Szász for proofreading my English.
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notes 1
A. Bartsch, Le peintre-graveur, Vienna 1803–1821, XVI.101.8.
2
M. Catelli Isola ed., Immagini da Tiziano: Stampe dal sec. XVI al sec. XIX dalle collezioni del Gabinetto Nazionale delle Stampe, Rome 1976, no. 49.
3
Bartsch XVI.118.2; S. Mason Rinaldi ed., Da Tiziano a El Greco: Per la storia del Manierismo a Venezia 1540–1590, Milan 1981, under no. 151; see www.printsanddrawings.hu /search/prints/7978/.
4
J. Martineau and C. Hope eds., The Genius of Venice 1500–1600, London 1984, no. P44.
5
Etching, 330 × 450 mm (sheet, trimmed close to platemark); watermark: arrow crossed under star (fig. 5); provenance: Nikolaus Esterházy (Lugt 1966), Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, inv. no. 7978; see www.printsand drawings.hu /search/prints/7033/.
6
H. Zerner ed., The Illustrated Bartsch 32, New York 1979, 152, no. 8. A fine impression of this rare print is preserved at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (fig. 2): etching, first state of two, 330 × 440 mm (sheet, trimmed close to platemark); watermark: anchor in double outline in circle (fig. 6); inv. no. 62.602.419.
7
Valentin Lefèvre’s etching (U. Ruggeri, Valentin Lefèvre: Dipinti, disegni, incisioni, Manerba 2001, 219, no. I.28), an unpublished drawing in the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen (inv. no. KKS6741), and another drawing sold at the Galerie Bessenge (Berlin Auction, 25 November 2011, lot 5868) seem to be copies after the Bartsch version. A pen-and-ink drawing in the British Museum, London (inv. no. 1895,0915.831), related also to the engraving but differing in several details, is probably a later imitation inspired by the print (www.britishmuseum.org/ collection; accessed 8 January 2014).
8
It is also supported by the inscription of an etching in reverse by Claude Macé in the Recueil de 283 estampes gravées à l’eau forte d’après les dessins originaux […] que Mons. Evrard Jabach de Cologne […] possédait, reproducing Titian’s original drawing or most likely a later copy of the Bartsch version; see A. P. Robert-Dumesnil, Le PeintreGraveur Français, Paris 1842, vol. 6, 257, no. 4.
9
Pen and brown ink, 149×210 mm, Courtesy of the Trustees of the Chatsworth Settlement, Chatsworth, inv. no. 749A; see H. E. Wethey, Titian and His Drawings: With Reference to Giorgione and Some Close Contemporaries, Princeton (NJ) 1987, nos. 34 and 34a, figs. 70–73.
10
For a good summary on Franco’s printmaking activity with recent literature, see G. J. Van Der Sman, Le Siècle de Titien: Gravures vénitiennes de la Renaissance, Zwolle 2002, 136–41.
11
Bartsch XVI.129.29.
12
Bartsch XVI.118.2.
13
Bartsch XVI.154.2.
14
S. W. Reed and R. Wallace, Italian Etchers of the Renaissance and Baroque, Boston, 1989, 57.
15
See note 4. It is important to note, however, that the impression at The Metropolitan Museum does not bear these letters.
16
Franco used the initials “BFVF” on Bartsch XVI.118.2; XVI.119.4; XVI.120.6; XVI.121.8; XVI.123.11; XVI.125.17, while the “FPF” monogram appears on Bartsch XVI.125.22; XVI.127.23 and 25; XVI.130.33; XVI.133, 42; XVI.134.44.
17
Bartsch XVI.99.5 – 100.7; for the related drawings, see Wethey 1987, nos. 45–47.
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e i g h t e e n t h - c e n t u r y i ta l i a n D r aw i n g s i n t h e M u s e uM of f i n e a rt s , B u D a pe s t n e a p ol i ta n r a r i t i e s
anDrea czére
resear ch on 18th-century italian Dr awings
In regard to both its quantity and quality, the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts’ 18th-century Italian drawings, comprising some four hundred and fifty sheets, can be considered as one of the most important collections in Central Europe. Some works have already been displayed at exhibitions in Hungary as well as abroad;1 however, they have never been shown as a unit. When preparing the catalogue of 17th-century Italian drawings,2 the links and overlaps prompted the author of these lines to simultaneously begin her study on 18th-century Italian sheets,3 and this research-work has continued with yet greater intensity since 2013, in the hope of completing the catalogue raisonné within one or two years. the pr ovenance of the Dr awings
Of the sheets constituting the collection of 18th-century Italian drawings, almost forty percent, namely one hundred and seventy-four works originate from the collection of Prince Esterházy, preserved in Vienna until the middle of the 19th century and regarded as the most important Hungarian noble collection. As it is well-known, in 1870 the Hungarian state purchased the collection from the family, hence founding the Museum’s collection of old master paintings and drawings alike.4 The second largest group with nearly one third of the 18th-century Italian drawings, namely one hundred and thirty-five sheets entered the Museum in 1901 from the bequest of Stephan Delhaes (Pest, 1843 – Vienna, 1901), a painter and restorer active in Vienna.5 Another forty-seven sheets bear the collector’s mark of the National Picture Gallery (Országos Képtár), the predecessor of the Museum of Fine Arts, these being new acquisitions for the national art collection by its curators and directors in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Later purchases added another fifty-four 18th-century Italian drawings to the collection, augmented by further twenty-three sheets from bequests and donations. This total of seventy-seven 109
works shall not be considered as a modest increase under contemporary circumstances, since there had never been a great tradition of collecting drawings in Hungary, and this deficiency provided the opportunity only for sporadic acquisitions. Moreover, for financial and political reasons it was impossible to purchase from foreign art dealers for about half a century, following World War II. In light of the above, the purchase from the London art market in 2001, adding four important sheets to the 18th-century Italian collection, can be regarded as ground-breaking. The Museum thus acquired a drawing by the Roman Agostino Masucci (1692–1758), a pupil of Carlo Maratta (1625–1713), which, being sold as an anonymous work, came at a modest price but complemented the sketches for the same composition, already in the Museum’s possession, with the final compositional study (fig. 1).6 This group of works can be linked to a significant commission of the artist: the tapestry series depicting the life of Saint Ignatius, still in the Church of Il Gesù, Rome. On the same occasion, the Museum purchased three Bolognese drawings: a beautiful compositional sketch by Gaetano Gandolfi (1734–1802) and another by his brother Ubaldo Gandolfi (1728– 1781),7 as well as a compositional drawing with Susanna and the Elders8 by Antonio Gionima (1697– 1732); all of them have filled a gap in the collection. One of the Hungarian owners of drawings from whom the Museum purchased 18th-century Italian drawings or received such as donations9 during the 20th century is Simon Meller, a former museum expert.10 He donated one drawing by Domenico Tiepolo (1727–1804) and two by Giambattista Tiepolo (1696–1770) in 1929 and 1932 respectively.11 The BÁV (Commission Trading and Pawn Credit Company) played a significant 1
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agostino M a succi, the Meeting of saints ignatius of loyola anD philip neri,
role in the acquisition of drawings in the second
B u D a p e s t, M u s e u M o f f i n e a rt s
half of the 20th century. This state-owned firm
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was for a long time the only source in Hungary where the Museum could make purchases on a relatively regular basis. Seven 18th-century Italian drawings were acquired from the BÁV, including an attractive oil sketch by Donato Creti (1671–1749) representing the Head of a Putto (fig. 2),12 a pen and ink drawing of a landscape by Francesco Bosio (active 1725–1756), a newly discovered artist also of Bologna, excelling with his wide range of handling the lines (fig. 3),13 as well as three Neo-classical drawings. A compositional sketch in pen by Luigi Sabatelli
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(1772–1850), mainly active in Milan, shows the biblical theme of Let the Little Children Come to Me,14 while two pen drawings coloured with aquarelle by Felice Giani (1758–1823), an artist popular throughout Italy, illustrate Dante’s Divine Comedy.15
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f r a n c e s c o B o s i o , r i v e r l a n D s c a p e w i t h a n i s l e , B u D a p e s t, M u s e u M o f f i n e a r t s
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c l a s s i f i c at i on of t h e D r aw i n g s By r e g i on a l i ta l i a n s c h o ol s
Most of our 18th-century Italian drawings, namely some one hundred and twenty sheets, are by Venetian artists, while the second largest unit comprises one hundred and fifteen works by Roman masters. It is to the credit of the collectors that this proportion well reflects the importance and role of these two art centres in 18th-century Italy. A smaller group, with fewer than fifty sheets, consists of works from Bologna, whose leading role in the Seicento somewhat faded during the Settecento. We have thirty-five Neapolitan drawings, while sixteen works can be regarded as Northern Italian, and thirteen as Tuscan. Almost twenty sheets will probably have to be reclassified under German or Austrian schools. In addition, more than seventy drawings are awaiting closer identification and for the time being are kept with anonymous works.
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alessanDr o Dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;anna, vie w of naples anD the vesuvius fr oM the Molo, B u D a p e s t, M u s e u M o f f i n e a rt s
the chief characteristics of the DiscusseD group
The proportions of this section of the collection in respect to typical subject-matter confirm that new themes appeared in this period as compared to the 17th century. The number of townscapes, architectural capriccios and stage designs increased, and allegories and literary illustrations also occur in greater numbers. Works with biblical and mythological subjects continued to be popular, and studies of heads and figures, as well as landscapes are also frequently found.
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Similarly to the Italian drawings of the 17th century, a point of interest pertaining to the 18th-century Italian collection is the presence of series and large ensembles of works by one artist. A notable, recently-discovered artist is Giuseppe Cades (1750–1799), a master of Roman Neo-Classicism, by whom we identified a series of thirteen sheets. They were prepared for the wall paintings of the Chigi Palace in Ariccia, a small town in the vicinity of Rome, illustrating episodes of Ariosto’s famous epic poem Orlando Furioso (1516).16 The large-size watercolour ensemble of eighteen sheets by Filippo Giuntotardi (1767–1831), a characteristic representative of late 18th-century Roman veduta painting, likewise originates from the Esterházy collection. Giuntotardi produced attractive mementos of ancient Roman
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a l e s s a n D r o D ’ a n n a , t h e a r r i va l o f t h e f r e n c h n av y i n t o t h e B a y o f n a p l e s , B u D a p e s t, M u s e u M o f f i n e a rt s
monuments as well as townscapes appreciated by travellers.17 These works indicate a revived interest in archaeological excavations and Antique monuments, which were considered as models in Neo-Classical art. An even larger unit is formed in the collection by Agostino Masucci’s drawings. As one of the most prominent early 18th-century members of the Maratta circle in Rome, Masucci combined Late Baroque Classicism with Rococo elements. The Museum of Fine Arts preserves thirty-six of his works, originating from the Esterházy collection, where they had been attributed to Carlo Maratta. A great many
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of these drawings can be connected to the artist’s still extant wall decorations and oil paintings.18 Since our collection preserves several sketches for more than one of Masucci’s compositions, the Budapest group provides an excellent opportunity to observe and analyse his creative process. From among the Venetian drawings a large ensemble of sixteen sheets are attributed to Gaspare Diziani (1689–1767), a brilliant draughtsman, and thirteen pieces can be regarded as the works of the noted graphic artists Pietro Antonio Novelli (1729–1804) and his son Francesco Novelli (1764–1836). Thirteen sheets by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and his son Domenico Tiepolo, counted among the greatest painters and draughtsmen of 18th-century Venice, are held as the proudest possessions of the collection. Another outstanding group is constituted by the fifteen theatre sets by the members of the Bibiena family and their workshop, internationally active as stage designers and theatre architects. A larger unit of Neapolitan works is formed by the eighteen gouache paintings by Alessandro d’Anna (1746–1810); some of them immortalize various attractive views of Naples to the delight of ever growing numbers of tourists (fig. 4),19 while others give an account of actual events through the eye of an accurate chronicler—representing the eruptions of Vesuvius and some local events of the French Revolution, such as the arrival of the French Navy in the Bay of Naples (fig. 5).20 These works also attest to a greater degree of self-awareness among artists at the end of the 18th century, as indicated by the precise signatures and dating of the drawings. Some further Neapolitan drawings stand out as interesting rarities for certain aspects. neapolitan rarities
A drawing by Giuseppe Sanmartino The Budapest collection preserves a remarkable sketch for a sculpture (fig. 6)21 attributable to Giuseppe Sanmartino (Naples, 1720 – Naples, 1793). Although it entered the collection as a work by Lodovico Mazzanti,22 it can unambiguously be linked to Giuseppe Sanmartino’s sculpture of Saint Paul decorating the pediment of the Chiesa dei Gerolamini in Naples (fig. 7). The artist’ terracotta bozzetti23 made in 1775–1776 have also survived, in which the position of the Saint’s head and sword were developed and applied jointly in the final marble sculpture.24 All in all, the Budapest drawing is closer to the supposedly earlier Neapolitan bozzetto, than to the Roman one. The figure’s pose and drapery in the drawing generally correspond to the executed sculpture with only minor differences: the saint’s head is leaning down lower than on the marble, and his gaze is directed downwards rather than straight ahead. The robe in the drawing is simpler than the richly folded drapery of the sculpted work. Some pentimento is visible at the figure’s left foot in the Budapest sheet. A significant difference is that the drawing represents the sculpture in a niche, while the finished work is placed freely on the right of the
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g i u s e ppe s a n M a rt i no , saint paul, B u D a p e s t, M u s e u M o f f i n e a rt s
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giuseppe sanMartino, saint paul, naples, chur ch of ger ol a Mini
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church’s pediment. From the surviving sources it is clear that together with its companion piece, Saint Peter, it was always intended for the façade under reconstruction by Ferdinando Fuga,25 but it was possibly initially undecided, which part it would adorn. The Budapest drawing, documenting a phase in the development of the sculpture’s concept, can be dated to 1775. Elio Catello has recently regarded the Saint Paul as a work jointly executed by Cosimo Fanzago and Giuseppe Sanmartino, based on the document quoted in note 25.26 Accordingly, Fanzago’s unfinished Saint Peter and Saint Paul, planned in the previous century for the façade of Santa Maria degli Angeli alle Croci, Naples, were commissioned in 1775 for completion by Padre Telosforo Boninfante, prefect of the Gerolamini, to Sanmartino, the most famous Neapolitan marble sculptor of the period. It is unknown to what extent Sanmartino altered the design of the abandoned sculpture; additional information may be gained from the Budapest sketch in which the light effects are subtly rendered. The inscription “G. Sammartino”, although not calligraphic,27 may yet be the artist’s signature, as it was applied with the same black chalk as the drawing. The high quality of the execution and the idea of placing the sculpture in a niche also support the hypothesis that our drawing is not a copy after the finished sculpture.28 Drawings by Livio Schepers The Budapest sheet consisting of two drawings glued together on their back shows the designs for three decorative objects. It bears multiple signatures by the artist and is dated 1755 (figs. 8–9).29 Livio Schepers (active in Naples, 1740–1757) is not known as a draughtsman; thus his Budapest drawings could be useful for researchers in identifying his other works. These drawings by Schepers, hailing from the Netherlands, document his activity as a decorative artist and designer. They were donated to the Museum of Fine Arts by Endre Csatkai, curator of the Museum of Sopron in 1938, and have not yet been published. According to the scant information we have on Schepers,30 he was originally a chemist and initially worked as a goldsmith in the Neapolitan royal mint. Later he was involved in the establishment of the famous Capodimonte porcelain factory. Charles de Bourbon, also known as Charles VII, king of Naples (1738–1758), set up the porcelain factory in the Neapolitan Royal Palace and later in the Capodimonte royal park together with his wife, Maria Amalia, daughter of the princeelector of Saxony and king of Poland. The queen’s grandfather had founded in 1710 the first European porcelain factory in Meissen, and his example must have served as inspiration to the Neapolitan royal couple. Schepers’ son, Gaetano, helped to perfect and manufacture hard-paste porcelain.31 The manufactory started producing porcelain objects mainly to royal and aristocratic commissions
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l i v i o s c h e p e r s , c h o c o l at e c u p a n D B o w l , B u D a p e s t, M u s e u M o f f i n e a rt s
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l i v io s c h e pe rs , Di a n a a n D a c ta e on , p l at e o r l i D, v e r s o o f t h e f o r M e r
from the middle of the century onwards (1740â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1759). These included plates, vases, small and large bowls, tea and coffee cups, jugs, teapots, and porcelain figurines which were adorned with flowers, fruit, landscapes, animals as well as mythological, battle and genre scenes painted by specialists. Livio Schepers worked in the factory in the first years of its operation, and according to the evidence of their dating it is from this period that the Budapest drawings originate. This also proves that at this time Livio was no longer engaged in composing the hard-paste, which officially had been entrusted to his son Gaetano,32 but rather in design. The composition with Diana and Actaeon set in an octagonal frame was planned for a silver tray or a porcelain lid, while the other drawing of two objects was clearly made for porcelain items. The stand of the chocolate cup33 is richly decorated with Rococo leaves, as well as with human and animal heads, while the bowl is adorned by oriental fish scale patterns inside. The significance of Scheperâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Budapest sheets is enhanced by the fact, that his drawings must be very rare; we know of no other authentic drawing by his hand. Information on his life is sorely lacking too; we are not even aware of his birth place and date, only the particulars of his death: he died in Naples on 16 August 1757.
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A drawing by Francesco Sicuro A large-size drawing exceeding one metre, by the noted Neapolitan architect Francesco Sicuro (Messina, 1746 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Naples, 1827) shows the new design for the Neapolitan market square, Piazza del Mercato.34 Its inscription on a stone at the bottom right of the composition reveals that Sicuro was both the inventor and draughtsman, and that the design was made in 1782, one year after the squareâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s former buildings were destroyed in fire (fig. 10). The thus far unpublished design originates from the bequest of the Viennese painter and restorer, Stephan Delhaes, referred to in the introduction. Sicuro began his career as an engraver. In 1768, he produced a series of twenty-one veduta prints of Messina,35 which proved to be important visual documents since soon after their execution the city was almost completely destroyed by an earthquake. Thanks to his knowledge of chemistry, the architect, who also followed a military career, served as sottodirettore in the Neapolitan royal porcelain manufactory
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f r a n c e s c o s i c u r o , D e s i g n f o r t h e p i a z z a D e l M e r c at o i n n a p l e s , B u D a p e s t, M u s e u M o f f i n e a rt s
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from 1772. The Capodimonte Museum and private collections preserve some Empire style vessels by him.36 In 1777 he designed the Teatro del Fondo in Naples, a theatre commissioned by a military foundation; the related architectural drawings are preserved at the Società Napoletana di Storia Patria.37 He was also commissioned to redesign the Piazza del Mercato, regarded as his chef-d’œuvre, which is documented by the Budapest sheet. The exedra was lined by bottegas, a row of shops, and the second pair of wings widening out on both sides housed flats. The square was divided by the street called Vicolo de’ Maccaronari. Two façades decorated with columns and sculptures are visible by the edges of the sheet, with the royal crown on top, to emphasise the entrance from the direction of the sea. According to the inscription,38 this was the first version of the design made for the king of Naples, which was later slightly modified. Some years later, in 1786, the Church of Santa Croce was built in the centre, also according to Sicuro’s designs, just like the obelisks for the fountains. The Piazza del Mercato, opened onto the sea, was one of Naples’s largest market squares and historical sites. From the 13th century until the fall of the Neapolitan Republic in 1799, executions were carried out on this square. It was also the place where the Revolt of Masaniello (Tommaso Aniello D’Amalfi) against Habsburg rule broke out in 1647.39 In 1781 the wooden bodegas were destroyed in a firework display, upon which the king of Naples, Ferdinand IV of Bourbon (ruled intermittently from 1759 to 1816), decided on the reconstruction of the square to provide a proper place for the business activities pursued here.40 The square was hit hard by the bombings during World War II and its original condition is yet to be fully restored; the market has been relocated to another part of the town. All that remains of the Settecento rebuilding are the two fountain-obelisks and the Church of Santa Croce. The influence of Gianlorenzo Bernini’s Saint Peter’s Square in Rome is evident in the spatial structure of Sicuro’s design. The fine execution of the drawing demonstrates the architect’s experiences as a graphic artist: the precisely washed details and delicate contours provide an accurate view of the planned square and its surroundings. The spectacularly spacious effect attests the influence of etchings by Giambattista Piranesi that made a deep impact on many other late 18th-century architectural designs. This inspiration is manifest in the application of the exaggerated perspective providing monumentality to the square. To enliven the scene, Sicuro peopled it with large crowds; coaches, traders and bystanders, and these smallscale figures also served to emphasize the large proportions of the square.
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A drawing by Domenico Guarino A sheet kept with 18th-century anonymous Italian drawings is attributed here to Domenico Guarino (Naples, 1683 – Naples, 1750), and deserves attention also because of its special iconography (fig. 11).41 This representation of the Holy Family can be interpreted as Trinitas Terrestris, i.e. the Earthly Trinity, which accords an accentuated role to Saint Joseph in order to create his cult; a picture type proliferated by the Jesuit Order after the Counter-Reformation and popular also in the 18th century. According to traditional iconography, a composition including Mary and Joseph with the twelveyear old Jesus can illustrate two episodes: either the Holy Family returning from Egypt,42 or the Holy Family returning from Jerusalem to Nazareth after Jesus’ parents had lost sight of him in Jerusalem only to find him “in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions”.43 Whichever of these our drawing is linked to, it was most likely intended to represent the Earthly Trinity as a companion piece to the Heavenly Trinity. Many similar depictions can be found in Neapolitan 17th-century art; for example a drawing by Belisario Corenzio (1558– after 1646) in the collection of drawings at the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen,
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h i e r on y M u s w i e r i x , t r i n i ta s t e r r e s t r i s , lonDon, British MuseuM
which can be connected to the church frescos of San Gregorio Armano in Naples and was executed in 1610–1612.44 The same theme was also treated by Girolamo Imparato (active 1571/73–1607) and Battistello Caracciolo (1578–1634).45 A common source for these depictions may have been the engravings by Antonius and Hieronymus Wierix, commissioned by the Jesuit Order in the early 1600s, and widely spread throughout Europe (fig. 12).46 The name of Domenico Guarino appears in a fragmentary letter or certificate on the verso of the Budapest drawing (fig. 13); this raised the possi13
.
D o M e n ic o g ua r i no , verso of fig. 11.
bility of Guarino’s authorship. Domenico Guarino is a lesser-known, minor painter of 18th-century
Naples, mentioned in sources as a pupil of Paolo de Matteis and Luca Giordano.47 He mainly fulfilled commissions for devotional paintings of churches in the environs of Naples. Of his few surviving works, two signed and dated oil paintings are today in a private collection; they were put up for auction by Finarte in Milan in 1973.48 The one depicting Archangel Michael and a Guardian Angel (fig. 14) closely resembles the Budapest drawing not only in its composition—in both of them most of the picture field is occupied by a child set in-between two adults— but also in regard to the figure types and their proportions. The Trinitas Terrestris theme does not appear in any of the surviving paintings by the artist, however, it cannot be ruled out that the Budapest sketch was made for a painting mentioned in sources as a Holy Family, once adorning the later destroyed Church of San Nicola alla Dogana in Naples. In any case, the Budapest drawing may have been executed around the time of the dated paintings auctioned at Finarte; around 1723. Andrea Czére is former Director of Research, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.
14
.
DoMenico guarino, saint Michael anD a guarDian angel, n a p l e s , p r i vat e c o l l e c t i o n
121
appenDix
Earlier publications by Andrea Czére on 18th-century Italian drawings in the Museum of Fine Arts 1. “Esquisse de Niccolò Bambini dans la collection de Budapest” = “Niccolò Bambini rajzvázlata a budapesti gyűjteményben”, Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts. A Szépművészeti Múzeum Közleményei 48–49 (1977), 157– 64, 241–45. (Identification of an anonymous sketch as Bambini’s compositional study for his painting in a Venetian church, and a study about its models.) 2. “L’arte del settecento emiliano”, Művészettörténeti Értesítő [Hungarian Review of the History of Art] 30, no. 2 (1981), 159–61. (Review about the 1979 Bologna exhibition and the identification of the preparatory drawing executed for one of the exhibited paintings.) 3. “Esquisses nouvellement decouvertes de Giuseppe Cades aux peintures murales à Ariccia” = “Giuseppe Cades újonnan felfedezett vázlatai az aricciai falképekhez”, Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts. A Szépművészeti Múzeum Közleményei 56–57 (1981), 153–75, 275–83. (Analysis of the theme and artistic execution of 13 newly identified preparatory drawings for Cades’ wall paintings in the Palazzo Chigi of Aricca, illustrating Ariosto’s Orlando furioso.) 4. Leonardo to Van Gogh. Master Drawings from Budapest, ed. T. Gerszi, exh. cat., Washington, National Gallery – Chicago, Art Institute – Los Angeles, County Museum of Art 1985, cat. nos. 28–31. (Author of the Italian Baroque entries. The catalogue was published in a supplemented new edition by Corvina Publisher in 1988 in English, and by Karinthy Publisher in Hungarian and in English, n. d.) 5. “Zur Zeichenkunst von Agostino Masucci”, Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen 27 (1985), 77–100. (Study on Masucci’s drawing style and creative methods; new attribution of 23 Budapest drawings, previously attributed to his master, Carlo Maratti. The drawings are linked to the artist’s paintings that survived in Rome, Lisbon, etc.) 6. “Drawings by Sebastiano Galeotti in Chicago and Budapest” = “Sebastiano Galeotti-rajzok Chicagóban és Budapesten”, Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts. A Szépművészeti Múzeum Közleményei 70–71 (1989), 101–8, 181–85. (New attributions, and the analysis of the career of this previously lesser known artist.) 7. Disegni di artisti bolognesi nel Museo delle Belle Arti di Budapest, exh. cat., Bologna, Collezioni d’Arte e di Storia San Giorgio in Poggiale – Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie, Bologna 1989; Bolognai művészek rajzai a Szépművészeti Múzeumban, Budapest, Szépművészeti Múzeum, Bologna 1990. (The history of the Budapest drawings by Bolognese artists, and the discussion of 83 drawings in the catalogue entries, with new attributions.)
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8. Italienische Barockzeichnungen, Budapest and Hanau o. J. (1990). (Book about selected Italian Baroque drawings of the Museum of Fine Arts, with an introduction relating to the history of the drawings and the 17th–18th-century Italian regional schools, as well as an analysis of 64 examples.) 9. “Francesco Bosio, Ludovico Mattioli and Antonio Maria Monti: Eighteenth-Century Bolognese Landscape Drawings”, Master Drawings 29, no. 4 (1991), 385–409. (Study on 18th-century Bolognese landscape drawing and print in relation to three newly discovered landscape artists. New attributions of 16 drawings, preserved in various collections.) 10. Itinerario veneto. Dipinti e disegni del ’600 e ’700 veneziano del Museo di Belle Arti di Budapest, ed. M. Natale, exh. cat., K. Garas, Zs. Dobos, A. Czére, Milan, Finarte 1991, schede 6, 9–10, 12–13, 16, 19, 22–23, 25–30. (Author of the catalogue entries of the drawings, with new attributions.) 11. Disegni del barocco italiano. Olasz barokk rajzok, museum magazine for the exhibition, Budapest, Szépművészeti Múzeum 1992. (Introduction about Italian Baroque drawing and list of exhibited works, including new attributions.) 12. “Four Drawings by the Gandolfi Brothers and the Scuola del Nudo in Bologna”, Essays in memory of Jacob Bean (1923–1993). Master Drawings 31, no. 4 (1993), 463–69. (New attributions of three drawings by Ubaldo and one by Gaetano Gandolfi.) 13. Von Raffael bis Tiepolo. Italienische Kunst aus der Sammlung des Fürstenhauses Esterházy, ed. I. Barkóczi, exh. cat., Frankfurt, Schirn Kunsthalle 1999, cat. nos. 126, 150–154, 156–157, 159, 166–168. (39 catalogue entries about Italian Baroque drawings, with new findings, including twelve 18th-century Italian works in the above indicated entries.) 14. “Nuovi disegni di veduta di Luca Carlevarijs”, in L’Arte nella Storia. Contributi di Critica e Storia dell’Arte per Gianni Carlo Sciolla, Milan 2000, 329–33. (Attribution of two previously anonymous drawings made for a painting and an etching by Carlevarijs.) 15. I Bibiena. Una famiglia europea, exh. cat., D. Lenzi and J. Bentini, Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale 2000, nos. 62, 67, 132, 133. (Catalogue entries on the Budapest loans.) 16. A századforduló világa 1800. Európai rajzok és grafikák. The Turn of the Century 1800. European Prints and Drawings, ed. A. Czére (authors A. Czére, J. Geskó and Zs. Gonda), exh. cat., Budapest, Szépművészeti Múzeum 2003, 7–31, 77–88, 89–98, 115–17, 123–26, 134–37. (Introductory essays and list of exhibited works.) 17. “‘Magnificavit eum in timore inimicorum.’ Episodi della vita di Sant’Ignazio nell interpretazione di Agostino Masucci. Magnificavit eum in timore inimicorum” = “Epizódok Szt. Ignác életéből Agostino Masucci interpretálásában”, Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts. A Szépművészeti Múzeum Közleményei 96 (2003), 103–14, 177–82. (Attribution of five drawings to Masucci in connection with his wall tapestry series in the church Il Gesù in Rome.)
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18. “Le quattro parti del mondo per il Portogallo, un’allegoria di Agostino Masucci”, in Arte, Collezionismo, Conservazione. Scritti in onore di Marco Chiarini, M. L. Chappell and M. Di Giampaolo and S. Padovani, Florence 2004, 346–51. (Identification of the master and theme of a previously anonymous drawing in Budapest.) 19. Capriccio in Time and Space. Giandomenico Tiepolo. Capriccio térben és időben, exh. cat. by A. Czére with contributions by J. Sebő, Budapest, Szépművészeti Múzeum 2004. (Introductory essay and list of 86 works: drawings, etchings and paintings from the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, and one picture from a private collection.) 20. “Antonio Zucchi pannótervei a Szépművészeti Múzeumban. A londoni Home House dekorációjának ikonográfiai programja” [Panneau Designs by Antonio Zucchi in the Museum of Fine Arts. The iconographic Programme of the Decoration of the London Home House], in Maradandóság és változás—Művészettörténeti konferencia [Permanence and Change—Art History Conference], Ráckeve, 11–13 October 2000, ed. Sz. Bodnár, A. Jávor, et al. Budapest 2004, 227–40. (About the theme of Zucchi’s seven drawings and their links with the London paintings.) 21. “Donato Creti: Study for the Figure of Attalus”, in In arte venustas. Studies in Honour of Teréz Gerszi, Presented on Her Eightieth Birthday, ed. A. Czére, Budapest 2007, no. 63, 201–3. (A newly attributed drawing by Creti, in connection with his painting.) 22. Nicolas II. Esterházy 1765–1833. Un prince hongrois collectionneur, ed. L. Starcky, exh. cat. E. Starcky et al., Compiégne, Musée national du château de Compiègne 2007, cat. nos. 15, 16, 17, 18, 30, 31, 43, 44, 49. (Catalogue entries on the Italian drawings.) 23. “Giambettino Cignaroli’s Drawing of the Virgin and Child in the Budapest Collection. On the Third Centenary of the Artist’s Birth” = “Giambettino Cignaroli Madonna-rajza a budapesti gyűjteményben. A művész születésének 300. évfordulójára”, Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts. A Szépművészeti Múzeum Közleményei 2006/105 (2008), 109–19, 271–76. (New attribution of a previously anonymous drawing in Budapest.) 24. “The Legend of Pyramus and Thisbe as Interpreted by Pietro Bianchi”, in In honour of Klára Garas, Acta Historiae Artium 50 (2009), 19–27. (Identifying the master and theme of a Budapest drawing and the analysis of the impact exerted by theatrical performances.) 25. “Why Did All the Artistocrats Disappear? Town-scapes by Filippo Giuntotardi in the Budapest Collection” = “Hová tűntek az arisztokraták? Filippo Giuntotardi látképei a budapesti gyűjteményben”, Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts. A Szépművészeti Múzeum Közleményei 2009/110–111 (2010), 121–46, 297–312. (About Giuntotardi’s 18 hitherto unpublished Budapest watercolours.) 26. Treasures from Budapest. European Masterpieces from Leonardo to Schiele, ed. D. Ekserdjian, exh. cat. London, Royal Academy of Arts 2010, cat. nos. 135, 137, 138, 155. 1–2, 166. (Discussion of six 18th-century Italian drawings.)
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notes 1
A larger number of 18th-century Italian drawings were displayed at the following exhibitions in Hungary and abroad: Miniatúrák és olasz rajzok [Miniatures and Italian Drawings], exh. cat. E. Hoffmann, Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts 1930; Velencei és egyéb északitáliai rajzok [Venetian and Other Northern Italian Drawings], exh. cat. I. Fenyő, Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts 1960; Disegni veneti del Museo di Budapest, exh. cat. I. Fenyő, Venice, Fondazione Giorgio Cini 1965; Appendix / 7; Appendix / 11; Appendix / 13.
2
A. Czére, 17th-century Italian Drawings in the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts. A Complete Catalogue, Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts, 2004.
3
For my publications on this subject, see the Appendix.
4
Numerous exhibition catalogues and books provide information about the Esterházy collection, such as: S. Meller, Az Esterházy Képtár története [The History of the Esterházy Picture Gallery], Budapest 1915; Appendix / 13; Von Bildern und anderen Schätzen. Die Sammlung der Fürsten Esterházy, eds. G. Mraz and G. Galavics, Vienna, Cologne, and Weimar 1999; L’eredità Esterházy. Disegni italiani del Seicento dal Museo di Belle Arti di Budapest, exh. cat. A. Czére, Rome 2002; Az Esterházy-örökség. A Szépművészeti Múzeum 17. századi olasz rajzai [The Esterházy Legacy. 17th-century Italian Drawings in the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts], exh. cat. A. Czére, Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts 2004; Appendix / 22.
5
On Delhaes’s collection, see Delhaes István emlékkiállítás. XIX. századbeli külföldi művészek rajzai, vízfestményei és olajvázlatai a Delhaes-hagyatékból [István Delhaes Memorial Exhibition. Drawings, Watercolours and Oil Sketches by 19th-century Foreign Artists], exh. cat. S. Meller, Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts 1910; F. Lugt, Marques de collections de Dessins & Estampes, Amsterdam 1921, 137, no. 761; Magyar múzeumi arcképcsarnok. Életrajzok a magyar múzeumügy történetéből [Hungarian Museum Portraits. Biographies from the History of Hungarian Museum Affairs], eds. S. Bodó and Gy. Viga, et al., Budapest 2002, 190–91.
6
Agostino Masucci, The Meeting of Saints Ignatius of Loyola and Philip Neri, pen and brown ink, grey wash, squared in black chalk, 388 × 215 mm. Purchased at a Philips auction in London, on 9 June 2001, lot 109, as a work by an unknown Italian painter. Provenance: Sachsen collection, Weimar. Museum of Fine Arts, inv. no. K.2001.1. Literature: Appendix / 17, 103–14, 177– 82, fig. 59.
7
Gaetano Gandolfi, The Descent of the Holy Spirit, pen and brown ink, grey wash, 184×149 mm. Purchased from Colnaghi in London in 2001, Museum of Fine Arts inv. no. K.2001.3; Ubaldo Gandolfi, The Allegory of Time, pen and brown ink, brown wash, on preliminary black chalk, 310 ×206 mm. Purchased from Didier Aaron in London in 2001, Museum of Fine Arts inv. no. K.2001.2.
8
Antonio Gionima, Susanna and the Elders, red chalk, 300×212 mm. Purchased from Christie’s, London, 10. July 2001, lot 15, Museum of Fine Arts inv. no. K.2001.4.
9
The sources for the following information are the inventory books, catalogue cards and archives of the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.
10
Simon Meller was the Keeper of the Museum of Fine Arts’ Collection of Prints and Drawings, and Sculptures from 1901 to 1924.
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11
Domenico Tiepolo, The Head of Saint James of Compostela, red and white chalk on blue paper, 322×253 mm, inv. no. 1929-2164; Appendix / 19, fig. 14, no. 9; Giambattista Tiepolo, Study for a Figure of the Ceiling Fresco of the Throne Hall of the Madrid Royal Palace, pen and brown ink, brown wash, 192×138 mm, inv. no. 1932-2341; id., Study for the Figure of Thetis, pen and brown ink, brown wash, 195×140 mm, inv. no. 1932-2342. Literature: Appendix / 10, 74–76, no. 23.
12
Donato Creti, Head of a Putto, white oil with brown wash on brown paper, 104 ×135 mm, inv. no. K.71.14. Literature: Appendix / 7, no. 70; and Appendix / 8, no. 20.
13
Francesco Bosio, River Landscape with an Isle, pen and brown ink, 317 ×522 mm. Purchased at BÁV’s 37th auction in 1975; inv. no. K.75.11. Literature: V. Kaposy, “Dessins italiens du XVIIIe siècle” = “XVIII. századi olasz rajzok”, Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Art. A Szépművészeti Múzeum Közleményei 55 (1980), 67–82, 139–47, 75, 143–45, fig. 45 (Giuseppe Palmieri); C. Thiem, “A Forgotten Landscape Artist Francesco Bosio”, Master Drawings XXV, no. 3 (1987), no. 14, pl. 39 (Francesco Bosio); Appendix / 7: no. 79; and Appendix / 9: 385.
14
Luigi Sabatelli, Let the Little Children Come to Me, pen and brown ink, 165×289 mm, inv. no. K.68.14. Unpublished.
15
Felice Giani, Ugolino and His Children in Prison, pen and brown ink, watercolour, 333 ×399 mm, inv. no. K.68.3; id., Dante and Virgil Discovering Ugolino and Ruggero, (Dante, Divine Comedy, Inferno), pen and brown ink, watercolour, inv. no. K.68.4. Literature: Appendix / 16: 20, 124, no. 59, fig. 11.
16
See Appendix / 3.
17
See Appendix / 25.
18
See Appendix / 5; Appendix / 8: nos. 34, 35, 36; Appendix / 17; Appendix / 18.
19
Alessandro d’Anna, View of Naples and the Vesuvius from the Molo, gouache, 298×593 mm. Signed and dated below: “Alessandro d’Anna dip. dal vero, p.A.136., Napoli 1795”; titled below: “Veduta di Napoli e del Vesuvio presa sopra il Molo”. Provenance: Nikolaus Esterházy, inv. no. 2556. Literature: Olasz tájak [Italian Landscapes], exh. cat. E. Hoffmann, Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts 1943, no. 160, without illustration.
20
Alessandro d’Anna, The Arrival of the French Navy into the Bay of Naples, gouache, 316×590 mm. Signed and dated below: “Alessandro d’Anna dipin. dal vero. p.A.13, Napoli 1795”; titled below: “Veduta della Squadra Francese pervenuta nella rada di Napoli il giorno 16. Decembre dell’Anno 1793”. Provenance: Nikolaus Esterházy, inv. no. 2557. Literature: Budapest 1943, no. 162, without illustration.
21
Giuseppe Sanmartino, Saint Paul, black chalk, heightened with white, blue paper, 268 × 119 mm. Signed (?) at bottom left: “G. Sammartino”. No watermark. Provenance: unknown, inv. no. K.58.99. Literature: Appendix / 11: no. 77, without illustration.
22
Registered in the Museum of Fine Arts’ inventory book as a work by Mazzanti, with a question mark.
23
Gilded terracotta, height 55 cm, Museo Nazionale di San Martino, Naples, inv. no. 12150; terracotta, height 70 cm, Galleria Nazionale di Palazzo Barberini, Rome. Literature: Civiltà del ’700 a Napoli 1734–1799, exh. cat., ed. N. Spinosa et al., Naples 1980, nos. 310, 311.
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24
E. Catello, Giuseppe Sanmartino 1720–1793, Napoli 2004, 143, 146–48.
25
“Tenendo detta Venerabile Congregazione due statue di marmo delli gloriosi Apostoli Santi Pietro e Paolo sbozzate solamente dal fu Cavalier Cosmo Fanzago ed avendo voluto far quelle perfezionare per farne uso nella nuova facciata che sta facendo nella chiesa di essa Venerabile Congregazione venne perciò a convenzione col detto Sig. Giuseppe, il quale si offerì di quelle compirle per il prezzo di ducati Settecento.” (Archivio notarile distrettuale di Napoli, Notar Gaetano Conti, atto del 2 gennaio 1775, cit. Catello 2004, 143.)
26
E. Catello, “Fuga, Sanmartino, e la facciata dei Gerolamini”, Napoli Nobilissima I–II, 1983, 3; Catello 2004, 194.
27
We do not know Sanmartino’s handwriting.
28
In any case, the new attribution should still be confirmed by stylistic comparison, for which we shall see other preparatory drawings for sculptures by the artist—for which we have not had the opportunity yet. Unfortunately, the recent monograph (see note 24) on the artist reproduces only a single detail of a drawing preserved in a private collection (p. 143), in an extremely poor quality (photocopy?). It was executed in 1788, i.e. much later than the Budapest piece, and is thus unsuitable for stylistic comparison. This drawing is also difficult to reproduce as the writing on the verso shows through, see: A. Carducci, “Le sculture ignorate del Sammartino nella cattedrale di Taranto”, Studi in memoria di P. Adiuto Putignani, Taranto 1975, 149, note 50.
29
Livio Schepers, (r.) Design for two porcelain objects: a chocolate cup and a bowl, (v.) Design for an octagonal plate or lid: Diana and Acteon, (r.) pen and brown ink, grey wash, 177×144 mm. (v.) pen and brown ink, brown wash, 120 ×142 mm. No watermark. The artist pasted the cut-out octagonal composition on the verso of the design of the two objects and signed it again below, so this work is signed and dated on both sides: “Livio Schepers inv=e f: 1755”, and inscribed under the design for the silver tray: “Ateone mutato in cerbia da Diana”. Provenance: donated in 1938 by Endre Csatkai, curator of the Museum of Sopron; inv. no. 1938-3288. Unpublished.
30
U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, vol. XXX, Leipzig 1936, 31; Napoli nobilissima 3 (1894), 132; Civiltà del ’700 a Napoli 1734–1799, 107. Even his name is controversial; he is mentioned either as Livio Ottavio or Livio Vittorio Schepers.
31
In 1755, at the time of the execution of our drawing, Gaetano Schepers was already one of the two “compositori delle paste”; i.e. the composers of hard-paste porcelain. See S. Musella Guida, “The Business Organization of the Bourbon Factories. Mastercraftsmen, Crafts and Families in the Capodimonte Porcelain Works and the Royal Factory at San Leucio”, California Italian Studies 3, no. 1 (2012), 8, fig. 5.
32
Ibid.
33
In the opinion of Gabriella Balla, head of the Department of Ceramic and Glass works of the Budapest Museum of Decorative Arts, it is a design for a chocolate cup, while the composition of Diana and Actaeon was probably intended for a lid. I would like to express my gratitude for her help.
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34
Francesco Sicuro, Design for the Rebuilding of the Piazza del Mercato in Naples after the Great Fire of 1781, pen and black ink, grey wash, 523 ×1088 mm. Watermark: coat of arms with a crown and fleur-de-lys, with a beehive under it, and an inscription reading C & I Honig. Signed and dated bottom right: “Francesco Sicuro designo ed invento, 1782”. Provenance: Stephan Delhaes (Lugt 761, see note 5), inv. no. 2723. Unpublished.
35
Vedute e prospetti della città di Messina.
36
G. Molonia, “Francesco Sicuro ingegnere militare tra Messina e Napoli”, Messenion d’oro, N.S. 13 (2007), 16–31.
37
Reproduced: ibid., 26.
38
“Elevazione in prospettiva della Piazza del Mercato progettata, e disegnata dall’Ingegniere Francesco Sicuro; Ben inteso, che nel primo Disegno presentato alla M. del Rè, v’è espresso / un Portico, che guarda la Piazza, per uso, e commodo della negoziazione delle Botteghe, ed in questo L’istesso Portico è convertito in Botteghe per maggior comodo, e lucro. / Avvertendo in oltre che nelle due estremità, s’osserva un secondo ordine per uso d’alloggio, ed insiememente per Adorno della descritta Piazza. / S’avverte parimente che li due frontispizij nell’estremità del disegno adornati con colonne, e statue, La Sua situazione è propriamente nell’ingresso di detta Piazza verso il Mare / al principio ed all’ingresso del Vicolo detto de’Maccaronari; poichè detto Vicolo divide per metà la descritta Piazza, mentre per nobilitare tal ingresso, ho stimato progettare / li descritti frontispizij.”
39
In 1997 a memorial plaque was placed on the wall of the house, on the square, where he was born.
40
G. Alisio, Urbanistica napoletana del Settecento, 2a ed., Bari 1993, 38.
41
Domenico Guarino, (r.) Trinitas terrestris: The Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph with the Infant Jesus, (v.) Fragment of a sketch and a fragment of writing, (r.) pen and brown ink, on preliminary black chalk, (v.) pen and brown ink; 119×120 mm. The fragment of writing on the verso in pen and brown ink: “Dom.co Guarino …VS. conseg… fiori, et in segno …il medesimo, “che pago questo vastato. a lo tabaccaio D. Guar. Sac”. No watermark. Provenance: IGS (Lugt, 1468, see note 5); Stephan Delhaes (Lugt 761), inv. no. K.58.255. Unpublished.
42
Matthew 2:21.
43
Luke 2:41–51.
44
Neapolitan Drawings, exh. cat. C. Fisher and J. Meyer, Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kunst 2006, no. 5.
45
Girolamo Imparato’s drawing can be found in the Copenhagen museum (Copenhagen 2006, no. 8), the picture connected with it is the altar painting of the San Giuseppe dei Ruffi church in Naples. Battistello Caracciolo’s altarpiece adorns the Pietà dei Turchini church in Naples.
46
The New Hollstein, Dutch & Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts 1450–1700. The Wierix Family. Part IV, ed. J. Van der Stock and M. Leesberg, Rotterdam 2003, nos. 769, 770.
47
B. de Dominici, Vite de’ pittori, scultori ed architetti napoletani, Napoli 1742, 546–47; M. Pavone, Pittori napoletani della prima metà del Settecento. Dal documento all’opera, Napoli 2008, 226.
48
The two paintings were auctioned by Finarte in Milan on 6 June 1973, under number 58, as companion pieces. Both are dated 1723, and measure 75 × 63 cm.
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froM hans reichle t o g u g l i e l M o D e l l a p o rt a
Miria M szőcs
The Collection of Sculpture before 1800 at the Museum of Fine Arts preserves a gilded bronze relief representing the Mount Calvary, a piece that earlier belonged to the Museum of Applied Arts, Budapest. The relief is a richly decorated and carefully executed work, having in the middle the crucified Christ. On each side of the Cross a group appears: on the left side the group centres around the Virgin Mary, on the right side around Saint John the Evangelist. Under the horizontal beam of the cross, on both sides, naked figures are flanking on clouds, symbolizing souls redeemed by Christ; their modelling recalls that of Michelangelo. The relief bears a contemporary frame, made of wood and gilded bronze with volutes, the lower part of which was later complemented with a hammered metal part with acanthus leafs1 (fig. 1). The relief entered the Museum of Fine Arts as a work of an anonymous German or Flemish master. In 1964 Jolán Balogh published it in a special study.2 She suggested that the sculptor was a German or Flemish master from the circle of Giambologna (1529–1608); which hypothesis was based on the shaping of Christ’s figure, the picturesque background and the abundant wrinkled folds of drapery, as well as the representation of the Sun and the Moon with human faces.3 Balogh identified the master as the Bavarian-born Hans Reichle (Schongau, around 1565/70 – Brixen, 1642), a member of Giambologna’s workshop in Florence between 1588 and 1595. Reichle later joined the workshop of Hubert Gerhard (around 1540/1550–1620) in Munich, and worked afterwards in Augsburg and Brixen as an architect and sculptor. During his second stay in Florence in 1601 he participated in the execution of the three Western-side bronze doors for the cathedral at Pisa; a project that was led by Domenico Portigiani (1536–1601), also a collaborator of Giambologna. In this commission Reichle can surely be identified as the sculptor of the relief representing the Nativity.4 Balogh recognized the analogy of the Budapest relief not only with this Nativity but also in Reichle’s Calvary group in the central nave of the Basilica of Saints Ulrich and Afra, Augsburg.5 She concluded that the Budapest piece, although probably not Reichle’s original work, was made in his workshop, according to his composition.6
129
1
.
h e r e at t r i B u t e D t o g u g l i e l M o D e l l a p o rta , M o u n t c a lva ry, B u D a p e s t, M u s e u M of f i n e a rt s
130
Balogh also mentions a lowerquality terracotta version in a private collection in Lugo di Romagna, from which the figure of Christ had been lost by now. In this piece she detected the influence of Reichle’s Budapest relief, and suggested that the sculptor probably made the Mount Calvary during his stay in Italy where this composition became popular and spread from.7 Sometime later, in 1969, in an article that discussed other works from the Collection, Balogh returned to the Mount Calvary relief, because she had found other parallels besides the terracotta of Lugo di Romagna.8 In the Escorial in Madrid, a small altarpiece representing the Mount Calvary in the former bedroom of King Philip II, made of silver and placed into a gilded, ebony frame with profile, differs from the Budapest piece only in the execution of a few details9 (fig. 2). A further parallel in the Boston
2
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g u g l i e l M o D e l l a p o r t a , M o u n t c a l va r y , M a D r i D , p at r i M o n i o n a c i o n a l D e e s p a ñ a , e l e s c o r i a l
Museum of Fine Arts, a bronze relief with dark patina, closely follows both the Budapest and the Madrid pieces, but was executed in a more flat manner and lacks a couple of their details, as well as the figure of Christ from the Cross.10 Beside these versions closely related to the Budapest bronze, Balogh lists some other, more loosely connected works as well. Such is the silver relief decorating the tabernacle door of the Georgskirche in Weggenstein in Bolzano, attributed to Hans IV Pfleger (1563–1614) and Melchior Gelb (1581–1654), silversmiths from Augsburg. This silver relief retained from the original composition only the two groups on the sides of the Cross. There are also substantial differences: behind the two groups Roman soldiers appear on horseback, the background is missing, and the figure of Christ follows an entirely different type.
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3
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g u g l i e l M o D e l l a p o rta , B r o n z e p l a q u e t t e o f t h e g r o u p o f M a r y, M aDriD, funDación l ázar o galDiano
4
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g u g l i e l M o D e l l a p o rt a , B r o n z e p l a q u e t t e o f t h e g r o u p of saint John the e vangelist, M aDriD, fu n Da c ión l á za r o g a l Di a no
A small gilded silver home altar in the Maximilianmuseum (formerly Städtische Kunstsammlung) of Augsburg and attributed to the silversmiths Tobias Zainer (died in 1613) and Jeremias Flicker (died in 1647) originates from Augsburg as well. In this work, also only the two groups resemble to the Budapest relief, and in place of the floating naked figures, angels and angel-heads appear in a characteristically Baroque, circular arrangement.11 After the detailed listing of the closest parallels and further analogies, Balogh still retained that the Budapest relief was connected to Hans Reichle, who started his career in the workshop of Giambologna and later worked in Augsburg and Brixen as well. Closest to the Budapest relief is the piece in the Escorial, yet because Balogh found the latter’s attribution to Reichle problematic, she suggested that the original composition was not necessarily by Reichle. According to her hypothesis,
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a prototype of the composition could have emerged in Italy and spread further, even to German territories, through the relief, which is now in Budapest.12 Balogh regarded the Escorial version as the starting point for the Spanish diffusion. She also supposed that this Escorial relief was the source of inspiration for the two small gilded bronze plaquettes today in the Museum Fundación Lázaro Galdiano, Madrid. Each of these two plaquettes represents one of the two groups under the cross from Mount Calvary; in all likelihood they were cut subsequently from a larger, originally complete composition13 (figs. 3–4). These plaquettes at the time of Jolán Balogh’s study were attributed to Nicolás de Vergara (1540?–1606), a sculptor from Toledo.14 Among the drawings of the Roman sculptor Guglielmo della Porta (Porlezza, 1510/15 – Rome, 1577) Werner Gramberg found the preliminary sketch for the Mount Calvary, which he published in a paper in 1973.15 Guglielmo della Porta started his carrier working with his father, the sculptor and architect Gian Giacomo (ca. 1485–1555), initially in Milan, than in Genoa, until in the late 1530s he settled in Rome. He first cooperated with Perino del Vaga (1501–1547) on stucco decorations, then, to the recommendation of Michelangelo (1475–1564) he received commissions, mainly from the Farnese family, for restoring and completing ancient sculptures. After he made a bust portrait of Pope Paul III (1534–1549) in 1546–1547, he worked primarily for the papal court. In 1547 he was appointed for the illustrious and lucrative papal office of Custode del Piombo, responsible for the making of the papal lead seals. After the death of Pope Paul III in 1549, he was commissioned to prepare the pope’s funerary monument, which was eventually erected in Saint Peter’s in Rome only in 1575. In 1550 the Spanish court ordered the monument of Emperor Charles V on horseback, but this project arrived only at a preparatory stage, and Della Porta made just the models for the reliefs. Beside these works, Della Porta also cast small bronze sculptures after ancient models and also a series of small-scale bronze plaquettes representing scenes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. During the 1560s, as a result of his rivalry with Michelangelo, he obtained less commissions. From the mid1560s, under the influence of the Council of Trent (1545–1563) and of the Counter-Reformation during the papacy of Pope Pius V (1565–1572), he was mainly working on religious themes.16 Although Gramberg was aware of the Budapest relief and also of Balogh’s 1964 paper, he did not read it and did not see the bronze itself, hence he wrote only about the other versions.17 Along with the gilded silver relief of the Escorial and the two plaquettes of the Fundación Lázaro Galdiano, Gramberg listed a further parallel, a small altarpiece in the sacristy of the church of the Escorial monastery. This relief contains only the main figures, Christ on the Cross, and the groups with the Virgin Mary and Saint John the Evangelist, all cast in silver. The cast background is absent, and to the small altarpiece was given a dark slate back instead18 (fig. 5).
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One of the sons of Guglielmo della Porta, Teodoro in 1586, during the lawsuits over the inheritance mentioned that his father’s legacy included several drawings as well. Later, in 1689, the drawings were sold by the descendants to Giuseppe Ghezzi (1634–1721), a painter and art dealer in Rome. Ghezzi classified the drawings according to their size, and bound them into a larger and a smaller volume. Afterwards the sketchbooks were purchased by the German painter and collector Lambert Krahe (1712–1790) from Düsseldorf, from whose possession they came into the Düsseldorf art school and finally ended in the Düsseldorf Museum Kunstpalast.19 The second Düsseldorf sketchbook contains Guglielmo della Porta’s drawing for the Mount Calvary, but without the background that is present on the relief 20 (fig. 6). The Virgin Mary-group on the relief is composed of four figures, while the drawing shows only three, but the missing woman standing on the left edge of the relief appears in another sketch21 (fig. 7). Gramberg adds further details to the history of the gilded silver relief in the Escorial: he quotes the Escorial inventory of the years 1571–1589, where this artwork is already mentioned. He also tells that the coat of arms of Pope Gregory XIII (1572–1585) had once been visible on the frame, which is lost by now. The relief had been a gift of the Grand Duchess of Tuscany Bianca Cappello (1548–1587), the second wife of Francesco I de’ Medici (1541–1587), to the King of Spain, Philip II (1527–1598).22 Gramberg confronted the Mount Calvary of 5
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g u g l i e l M o D e l l a p o r t a , M o u n t c a l va r y, M a D r i D , pat r i M o n i o n a c i o n a l D e e s pa ñ a , e l e s c o r i a l
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the Escorial with the mythological plaquettes of Guglielmo della
Porta: in Mount Calvary’s modelling, in the shaping of the figures, and in the architecture of the background he definitely recognized Guglielmo della Porta’s style. Gramberg also cited contemporary sources, which mention Della Porta’s works representing the Mount Calvary. After the sculptor’s death, in the second inventory of 2 October 1578 appears “Un monte Calvario de metallo.”23 In a letter of 29 April 1575 from Della Porta to the Spanish royal court, most likely to the Spanish Humanist scholar Benito Arias Montano (1527–1598) the sculptor mentioned that at the time he was working on a gilded bronze series representing Christ’s Passion.24 According to Gramberg, the gilded bronzes must have been lost, since only silver versions are known. Yet the two carefully modelled bronze reliefs of the Fundación Lázaro Galdiano conform to Della Porta’s style, hence are surely his
6
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g u g l i e l M o D e l l a p o rta , D ü s s e l D o r f e r skizzenBüche, DüsselDorf, MuseuM kunstpalast
autograph works.25 On the other hand, Gramberg was of the opinion that the gilded silver reliefs were executed by some well-trained silversmith, perhaps Della Porta’s close associate Antonio Gentili da Faenza (1519–1609). After Della Porta’s death, several casts that originated from Della Porta’s workshop and a wax Calvary had been confiscated at Gentili’s house around 1589.26 As between 1575 and 1581 Antonio Gentili had been working also for the Medici family, and according to contemporary sources the Medicis sent various presents to the King of Spain, Gramberg concluded that the relief of the Escorial could have been made by Antonio Gentili, after a model by Guglielmo della Porta. Gramberg dated the first invention of the composition to the period of the drawings in the Düsseldorf sketchbook, that is the years between 1555/56 and 1559/60. He regarded the plaquettes of the Fundación Lazaró Galdiano the closest parallels to Della Porta’s manner, hence he retained these as the earliest pieces, made during the first half of the 1570s. He considered the gilded
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silver relief at the Escorial to be the work of Antonio Gentili, allegedly cast between 1575 and 1581, most likely some time after Della Porta’s death in 1577; according to Gramberg’s hypothesis the latest version in Boston was made between 1575 and 1590.27 Following Gramberg’s publication, in the catalogue of the Collection of Sculpture before 1800 Jolán Balogh accepted Guglielmo della Porta’s sketch to be the basis of the composition. At the same time she regarded the issue of the reliefs as more complex. Balogh pointed out significant differences between the style of the Della Porta drawings and the style of the survived reliefs, and found no trace of the sculptor’s characteristically nervous lines on the plaquettes. According to Balogh, the versions of this extremely popular composition became widely-known 7
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guglielMo Dell a porta, DüsselDorfer
not only in Italy, but also in Spain and in
skizzenBüche, DüsselDorf, MuseuM kunstpalast
German territories. She continued to hold her opinion that in Augsburg Hans Reichle
must have played an important role in the dissemination of the composition, which he knew beyond question, as attested by his sculptures of the Virgin Mary and Saint John the Evangelist (1605) in the Basilica of Saints Ulrich and Afra in Augsburg. She no longer attributed the Budapest relief directly to Reichle, but suggested it to be near to the Italian versions; yet because of the careful execution of the background and details, she regarded it a work of some German master trained in Italy, from Hans Reichle’s circle.28 As the result of Gramberg’s study, the composition became generally associated with Guglielmo della Porta.29 In 2012 at the Spanish art market a further version of the Mount Calvary appeared, along with Della Porta’s other small-scale reliefs representing Christ’s Passion.30 On this occasion, a special volume was dedicated to these bronzes and to the œuvre of Guglielmo della Porta.31 The excellent
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sculptor, working in Rome for several popes, had never received before such a scholarly attention as his famous contemporary Michelangelo. The new publication not only lists his recently discovered bronzes, but addresses extensively the artist’s life and other works. The book describes in detail the new version of the Mount Calvary, and cites as further versions the two reliefs of the Escorial and the two plaquettes of the Fundación Lázaro Galdiano. The Budapest piece is mentioned only in a footnote, as a German work.32 The volume, however, collected more information about the Spanish versions than any other publication before. It also cited the full inscription on the predella of the gilded altarpiece of the Escorial, which attests that Pope Gregory XIII presented this piece to the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, Bianca Cappello, in 1580. From a letter written by Bianca Cappello in 1585 to King Philip II we learn that the altarpiece was sent by her as a gift to the Spanish king, together with the request that the king would recognize as legitimate heir her son born from her husband, the grand duke Francesco I de’ Medici (1541–1587), before their marriage.33 Contemporary sources, among them letters, Giorgio Vasari’s (1511–1574) account, as well as Della Porta’s own notes equally claim that during his life the sculptor had been working several times on some series representing Christ’s Passion, yet by today there is not much trace of these works. In 1550 Della Porta was commissioned to prepare a grand equestrian statue of Charles V, but the plan failed soon. Ten years later, in 1560, the monument became again a current issue. At that time Della Porta elaborated a grandiose concept: he envisaged a small tempietto around the king’s statue, with fourteen scenes from Christ’s Passion on its interior walls. According to his own notes, Della Porta started to make the wax models for the reliefs already in 1555–1556 and they were mostly finished by 1559–1560, ready for the cast.34 On many sheets of the Düsseldorf sketchbook, used between 1555–1556 and 1559–1560, appear several sketches for compositions of Christ’s Passion, and several of these were most likely intended for the monument.35 A further project of Della Porta representing Christ’s Passion was connected to the San Silvestro al Quirinale, Rome: in the church interior, seven scenes from the Passion were designed for each of the two side walls, and the high altar was to represent the Nativity. The design was recorded in a sketch conserved in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, associated with Della Porta and the architect and sculptor Giovanni Antonio Dosio (ca. 1533–1611). There is scarce information about the commission; it is usually dated to the second half of the years 1550’s and related to Pope Paul IV (1555–1559).36 However, the Spanish humanist Benito Arias Montano (1527–1598), in his letter of 1573 to the secretary of Ferdinando Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba, clearly wrote that Della Porta was commissioned by Pope Pius IV (1559–1565) to make reliefs for a church in Rome.37 In my opinion, the mentioned Roman church could well be the San Silvestro al Quirinale, hence, this commission is more likely to be linked to Pope Pius IV.
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8
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h e r e a t t r i B u t e D t o g u g l i e l M o D e l l a p o r t a , M o u n t c a l v a r y, B u D a p e s t, M u s e u M o f f i n e a r t s ( D e t a i l )
138
9
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h e r e a t t r i B u t e D t o g u g l i e l M o D e l l a p o r t a , M o u n t c a l v a r y, B u D a p e s t, M u s e u M o f f i n e a r t s ( D e t a i l )
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In the second edition of his Le vite de più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori (Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects) that appeared in 1568, Giorgio Vasari thoroughly described Della Porta’s relief series within the biography of Leone Leoni. He mentioned fourteen scenes, including the Nativity of Christ, therefore he most possibly referred to the designs for the San Silvestro al Quirinale, figuring also in the Ashmolean Museum’s sketch.38 Because Della Porta’s aims for the realization of the Passion-series repeatedly failed, the artist made several attempts from the second half of the 1560s to find a patron for the works he already modelled in wax. Around 1569 he offered the series to Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (1520–1589), and roughly around the same time, in a letter to Bartolomeo Ammanati (1511–1592), he mentioned his design for a door, bearing fourteen scenes of Christ’s Passion. A draft from 1574 for a letter to Giovanni Antonio Dosio reveals that he included fourteen Passion-scenes in the design for the main altar of Saint Peter’s in Rome.39 Della Porta, probably leaning on his earlier Spanish connections, tried to sell the relief-series at the Spanish royal court as well. In 1572 the Spanish humanist Benito Arias Montano had been to Rome, sent by King Philip II, and in a letter to Ferdinando Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba he made an account of his visit to Della Porta’s workshop. Praising the wax models of the reliefs, he claimed that they would greatly contribute to the decoration of the Escorial.40 A few years later Della Porta planned to write himself to the Spanish court, most likely to Benito Arias Montano; in the two letter-drafts dated 29 April, 1575, he mentioned again that he was preparing a gilded bronze Passion-series and expressed his hopes to be allowed to send it to the Spanish court.41 Eventually, around 1575 he offered the series, together with several other artworks, to his native town Porlezza. This last attempt also failed, as is obvious from the fact that the fourteen wax models of the reliefs are found among the items of the first inventory made after the sculptor’s death.42 There are hardly any traces of the unfortunate series by now, but the Mount Calvary reliefs known today can be related to these plans.43 From the sculptor’s accounts we can clearly follow his repeated efforts to find a patron to his half-ready pieces. That he only executed the reliefs out of wax is explained by the fact that bronze was very expensive, thus he was unable to cast them at his own cost. At the same time, he often showed the wax models to his visitors, always emphasizing that they were ready for casting. Giorgio Vasari and Benito Arias Montano seem to repeat in their own accounts what the sculptor said, using almost the same turns of phrase. Both Della Porta and Vasari give the exact measurements of the reliefs. Della Porta himself, in relation with the monument for Charles V wrote that the reliefs were nine palms high and five palms wide (198×110 cm), while Vasari gave their size as six palms high and four palms wide (132×88 cm). The latter probably refers to the reliefs
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10
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h e r e at t r i B u t e D t o g u g l i e l M o D e l l a p o r t a , M o u n t c a l va r y, B u D a p e s t, M u s e u M o f f i n e a rt s ( r e v e r s e )
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for the San Silvestro al Quirinale, since Vasari mentions here a Nativity scene. 44 During his attempts, Della Porta plausibly cast some of the reliefs in smaller size, in order to enhance his chances to find a patron, and the surviving Mount Calvary reliefs belong among these. Furthermore the second inventory made after Della Porta’s death on 2 October, 1578 mentioned a bronze Mount Calvary relief in the sculptor’s house on Via Giulia, Rome, without giving its measurements.45 The extant Mount Calvary compositions can be divided into three different groups. The first, linked directly to Della Porta himself, includes the two small altarpieces of the Escorial, the two gilded bronze plaquettes of the Fundación Lazaró Galdiano, and the gilded bronze relief that appeared on the Spanish art market. The Budapest bronze undoubtedly belongs to this group as well. It follows so closely the other pieces that we cannot possibly suppose that it is a re-modelled work showing Della Porta’s influence. Only several details differ from the Escorial’s and the auctioned reliefs: on the Budapest piece the silhouettes of the hills are diverse, and the small staffage-figure far behind on Christ’s left is missing. In the background, the buildings of Jerusalem are less elaborately worked out, and a dynamically outlined townscape appears instead. Yet this sketchy manner was typical of Guglielmo della Porta, and may be also noted in the architectonic backgrounds of his bronze and silver plaquettes representing the Flagellation of Christ.46 The detailed elaboration of the figures in the Budapest bronze is similar to the plaquettes of the Fundación Lazaró Galdiano. The sharp contours of the faces, hands, hair, and drapery undoubtedly attest that the piece cannot be an aftercast (figs. 8–9). The sizes of the relief also point to this conclusion. In the cases of aftercasting, the bronze shrinks as it cools, hence the aftercast is always slightly smaller than the original. Since the Budapest piece is an old cast, its edges are uneven, its height varies between 41.5 cm and 42 cm, and its width between 28.5 cm and 28 cm. The gilded Escorial relief measures 42×27.5 cm, while the Spanish art market bronze 41.5×28 cm. The sizes of the individual figures also contradict the possibility of aftercasting, as they are by no means smaller in size: the figure of Christ from head to toe is 16.3 cm, and from hand to hand 16.6 cm, while the Spanish art market piece and the Escorial gilded relief both measure 16×16 cm. Although the Christ figure could have been cast separately and placed subsequently onto the cross, but the same holds for the measurements of the groups. The group of the Virgin Mary is 19.2 cm high in the Budapest piece and 18.8 cm high in the Spanish art market piece; the group of Saint John the Evangelist is 19 cm in height in both the Budapest bronze and the Spanish art market relief. The technique of execution can easily be traced in the case of the Spanish art market piece: before its casting into bronze, it was put together from five wax pieces, as is proven by the joins between the wax parts perfectly visible in the bronze as well.47
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Similarly, wax to wax joins also appear on the backside of the Budapest bronze, although not so markedly (fig. 10). The bronze is thicker, the wax to wax joins in the bronze are more smoothened, however it is very probable that in this case as well, five wax pieces were put together before the cast, as the traces of the joins appear at almost the same places. On the backside of the Budapest cast even the sprues can be observed, since they were not rasped down, just as the edges of the relief were also left rough. The casting technique of the Budapest piece was identical with other reliefs of Della Porta. The detailed and finely executed relief leaves no doubt that it was made by Della Porta himself. The second group of the Mount Calvary pieces follow faithfully the original composition, yet they were executed later and cannot be linked directly to Della Porta. This group includes the Boston relief, which was made as a replica of Della Porta’s original or of an aftercast, consequently the shapes are much less defined and many of the details are missing. The terracotta piece of Lugo di Romagna, as far as it can be judged from old photographs, had been shaped following an existing relief. The third group related to Della Porta’s Mount Calvary is the one described by Jolán Balogh: the works of South-German silversmiths who used only some elements of the relief. Artists started to overtake these motifs probably around the mid-1560s; the Counter-Reformation following the Council of Trent (1545–1563) must have played a significant part in their widespread dissemination. These representations appearing in German territories were not mediated by some Northern artist, as Balogh supposed, but the Catholic Church retained important to spread these themes. As a sculptor working for the popes, Della Porta thus became part and parcel of the Counter-Reformation. Balogh’s attribution of the Budapest piece, however, was not at all accidental. There is an evident similarity between the Christ figures of Giambologna and Della Porta. In all likelihood Giambologna stayed in Rome between 1554 and 1556, during which time he could have seen Della Porta’s Passionseries, as the latter was just in the middle of preparing his Passion-reliefs for King Charles V’s monument.48 Two Northern sculptors were members of Della Porta’s workshop: Willem von Tetrode (before 1530–1587) and Jacob Cornelisz. Cobaert (ca. 1535–1615), yet we have no evidence of Giambologna’s presence there.49 Sometime later, in 1572, when Giambologna visited Rome together with Vasari and Ammanati, he most likely met Della Porta and saw his compositions as well. It was in the same year that Benito Arias Montano reported about the Passion-series in Della Porta’s workshop. What is more, Ammanati and Della Porta were close friends, their correspondence partly survived in Della Porta’s sketchbooks, and given this friendship it is almost certain that during their stay in Rome they went to visit Della Porta as well.50 Afterwards, between 1579 and 1582 Giambologna made reliefs representing Christ’s Passion for the Grimaldi Chapel in Genoa: the surviving scenes leave no
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doubt that these compositions were made under Della Porta’s influence.51 Della Porta was one of the most excellent Roman sculptors of his time, yet a significant period of his life coincided with Michelangelo’s Roman years, and in the shadow of this genius he received far less attention. This can explain why Balogh, on the basis of stylistic elements, understandably tried to identify the sculptor of the Budapest piece as a Northern artist trained with Giambologna and not by Della Porta. The depiction of the Sun and the Moon with human faces also led her in this direction, as this was indeed very rare in Italian art. However, Della Porta already applied this sort of decoration some time earlier, in a less known relief, representing God’s Charity, on the sepulchral monument for Pope Paul III.52 In conclusion, the Budapest Mount Calvary is not to be attributed to any German master, as Balogh supposed, but was made by Guglielmo della Porta himself. Miriam Szőcs is the Head of the Department of Sculpture before 1800, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.
author’s note
I owe my thanks to the generous support of the Villa I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies in Florence, for helping my research in preparation of the catalogue of the new permanent exhibition of the Collection of Sculpture before 1800. I also express my gratitude to Katalin Szépvölgyi conservator and Csanád Szesztay for their support during the examinations of the Budapest relief, as well as to Miguel Taín Guzman and Vanessa de Cruz Medina for their kind help with this paper.
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notes 1
Formerly attributed to the circle of Hans Reichle, Mount Calvary, gilded bronze, with cast bronze and wood frame, 42×28,5 cm; with frame: 92,5×69×10 cm, inv. no. 51.927. Gift of Lajos Kaczvinszky to the Museum of Applied Arts, Budapest, in 1904, transferred to the Museum of Fine Arts in 1951.
2
J. Balogh, “Un bas-relief en bronze de l’atelier de Hans Reichle”, Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts 24 (1964), 79–84, 138–39.
3
Ibid., 79, 138.
4
A. Peroni, “C. Nenci, and A. Ambrosini et al.”, Il Duomo di Pisa, 2 vols., Modena 1995, vol. I, 42, 54.
5
D. Diemer, “Hans Reichles Werk für St. Ulrich und Afra”, Jahrbuch/Verein für Augsburger Bistumsgeschichte 46 (2012), 21–76.
6
Balogh 1964, 84, 139.
7
The relief was published in 1938 as a work of Antonio Calgagni da Recanati, its present location is unknown, cf. G. Gennari, “Un bassorilievo in terracotta di Antonio Calgagni da Recanati”, L’Arte 1938, 298–300; Balogh 1964, 84, 139, note 13; R. Coppel, Ch. Avery, and M. Estella, Guglielmo della Porta. A Counter-reformation Sculptor, Madrid 2012, “Cat. Mount Calvary” (R. Coppel), 106.
8
J. Balogh, “Studi nella Collezione di Sculture del Museo di Belle Arti in Budapest”, Acta Historiae Artium 15 (1969), 77–138.
9
Patrimonio Nacional de España, El Escorial, Madrid, relief: 42×27.2 cm, with frame: 71×45 cm, inv. no. 1.409. Balogh notes that the small altarpiece was a gift to the Grand Duchess of Tuscany Bianca Cappello by Pope Gregory XIII, cf. Balogh 1969, 133, note 48.
10
Museum of Fine Arts Boston, inv. no. 29.1026; height: 39.5 cm.
11
Balogh 1969, 109–110, figs. 43–44.
12
Balogh 1969, 99.
13
Group of the Virgin Mary and Group of Saint John the Evangelist, Fundación Lázaro Galdiano, Madrid, two gilded bronze plaquettes, 21,8×13 cm and 21×13 cm, inv. nos. 2171 and 2177.
14
Balogh 1969, 98.
15
W. Gramberg, “Das Kalvarienberg-Relief des Guglielmo della Porta und seine Silber-Gold Ausführung von Antonio Gentile da Faenza”, in Intuition und Kunstwissenschaft. Festschrift Hanns Swarzenski, eds. P. Bloch, T. Buddensieg, A. Hentzen, and Th. Müller, Berlin 1973, 449–60.
16
Coppel–Avery–Estella 2012, 44–48; Grégoire Extermann, “Il Ciclo della Passione di Cristo di Guglielmo della Porta”, in Scultura a Roma nella seconda metà del Cinquecento. Protagonisti e problemi, eds. W. Cupperi, G. Extermann, and G. Ioele, Rome 2012, 59–62.
17
Gramberg 1973, 459, note 1.
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18
Guglielmo della Porta, Mount Calvary, Patrimonio National de España, El Escorial, Madrid, silver, ebony, slate, 72×42 cm, inv. no. 2.512.
19
Gramberg, Werner, Die Düsseldorfer Skizzenbücher des Guglielmo della Porta, Berlin 1964, 3 vols, vol. 1, 23–24.
20
Gramberg 1973, 452; Gramberg 1964, vol. 3, cat. no. 154.
21
Gramberg 1964, cat. no. 74.
22
Gramberg 1973, 450.
23
Ibid., 456; A. Bertolotti, Artisti lombardi a Roma nei secoli XV, XVI e XVII: studi e ricerche negli archivi romani, Milan 1881, vol. I, 142.
24
Gramberg 1973 (note 15.), 456; cf. Gramberg 1964, cat. nos. 200–201; since only the drafts of the letter survived, the name of the addressee does not appear, hitherto its identification has been impossible; recently Grégoire Extermann rightly suggested the addressee to be Benito Arias Montano, see Extermann 2012, 69–70.
25
Gramberg 1973, 456.
26
“un altare di figure di N. S. Jesu Christo sul Monte Caluario v. cere”, cf. Bertolotti 1881, vol. II, 154.
27
Gramberg 1973, 458–59.
28
J. Balogh, Katalog der ausländischen Bildwerke des Museums der Bildenden Künste in Budapest, Budapest 1975, cat. no. 345.
29
Extermann 2012; R. Coppel, “Cat. Mount Calvary”, in Coppel–Avery–Estella 2012, 98–109.
30
Madrid, Coll & Cortés, 2012.
31
Coppel–Avery–Estella 2012.
32
R. Coppel, “Cat. Mount Calvary”, in Coppel–Avery–Estella 2012, 98–111, cf. 109, note 26.
33
Ibid., 106–108; cf. R. Mulcahy, “El arte religioso y su función en la corte de Felipe II”, in Felipe II. Un monarca y su Época. Un príncipe del renacimiento, exh. cat., F. Checa Cremades ed., Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid 1998, 171–72.
34
Gramberg 1964, cat. nos. 118, 121–123, 223–224, E. Plon, Les maîtres italiens au service de la maison d’Autriche. Leone Leoni sculpteur de Charles-Quint et Pompeo Leoni sculpteur de Philippe II, Paris 1887, 384, no. 70.
35
Gramberg 1964.
36
C. Valone, “Paolo IV, Guglielmo della Porta, Dosio e la ricostruzione di San Silvestro al Quirinale”, in Giovan Antonio Dosio da San Gimignano architetto e scultor fiorentino tra Roma, Firenze e Napoli, ed. E. Barletti, Firenze 2011, 169–81; R. Coppel, “Guglielmo della Porta in Rome”, in Coppel–Avery–Estella 2012, 39; Extermann 2012.
37
A. Bustamante García, “Das tumbas reales del Escorial”, in Felipe II y el arte de su tiempo, Madrid 1998, 62–63.
38
“Il medesimo Fra Guglielmo ha condotto, nello spazio di molti anni, quattordici storie, per farle di bronzo, della Vita di Cristo; ciascuna delle quali è larga palmi quattro e alta sei; eccetto però una, che è palmi dodici alta, e larga sei, dove è la Natività di Giesù Cristo, con bellissime fantasie di figure. Nell’altre tredici sono l’andata
146
di Maria con Cristo putto in Ierusalem in su l’asino, con due figure di gran rilievo, e molte di mezzo e basso; la Cena con tredici figure ben composte ed un casamento richissimo; il lavare i piedi ai discepoli; l’orare nell’orto con cinque figure ed una turba da basso molto varia; quando è menato ad Anna, con sei figure grandi, e molte di basso, ed un lontano; lo essere battuto alla colonna; quando è coronato di spine; l’Ecce Homo; Pilato che si lava le mani; Cristo che porta la croce, con quindici figure ed altre lontane, che vanno al monte Calvario; Cristo crucifisso, con diciotto figure; e quando è levato di croce: le quali tutte istorie, se fussono gettate, sarebbono una rarissima opera, veggendosi che è fatta con molto studio e fatica.” Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architetti, ed. G. Milanesi, 9 vols, Florence 1878–1885, vol. 7, 548–49. 39
Gramberg 1964, Cat. Nr. 225–226; 228; 192.
40
Arias Benito Montano addressed this letter to the Duke of Alba’s secretary, Juan de Albornoz, see Bustamante García 1998, 62– 63, note 15.
41
Gramberg 1964, cat. nos. 201, 202; Extermann 2012, 69 identified these as drafts for the letter to Benito Arias Montano.
42
Gramberg 1964, cat. no. 203; Della Porta died on 6 January 1577, the first inventory was made on 5 February 1577, see G. L. Masetti Zannini, “Notizie biografiche di Guglielmo Della Porta in documenti notarili romani”, Commentari, 23 (1972), 304.
43
Extermann, 2012, 70.
44
Gramberg 1964, cat. no. 223; Vasari–Milanesi 1878–1885, 548. Vasari explicitely mentioned that the Nativity of Christ, unlike the other reliefs, was 12 palms high and 6 palms wide (264×132 cm). In the sketches for the work of the San Silvestro al Quirinale the main altar is also larger than the reliefs on the side walls. See Extermann 2012, 63.
45
After the sculptor’s death on 6 January 1577, the first inventory was made a month later, on 5 February 1577, cf. Masetti Zannini 1972 (note 43), 299–305. In this inventory there is no trace of the work yet, but it appears in the second inventory made on 2 October 1578, cf. Bertolotti 1881, 142.
46
Coppel–Avery–Estella 2012, Cat. Flagellation of Christ, 74–97, figs. 42–44 (R. Coppel).
47
Ch. Avery, “Guglielmo della Porta’s Relationship with Michelangelo”, in Coppel–Avery–Estella 2012 136.
48
Cf. Gramberg, cat. nos. 54–56, 118–120; M. W. Gibbons, Giambologna. Narrator of the Catholic Reformation. Los Angeles and London 1995, 139–41.
49
D. Zikos, “Le belle forme della Maniera. La prassi e l’ideale nella scultura di Giambologna”, in Giambologna gli dei, gli eroi, eds. B. P. Strozzi and D. Zikos, Florence and Milan 2006, 22–23.
50
Gramberg 1964, cat. nos. 227–228, Bustamante García 1998, 63.
51
Gibbons 1995, 138–39.
52
Charles Avery, “Guglielmo della Porta’s Relationship with Michelangelo”, in Coppel–Avery–Estella 2012, 134–37; R. Coppel, ibid., 36, fig. 13.
147
148
u n n u o v o D i p i n t o D e l c ava l i e r t r o p p a n e l M u s e o D e l l e B e l l e a rt i D i B u D a p e s t
francesco petrucci
In una recente visita allo Szépművészeti Múzeum di Budapest, sono stato colpito dalla presenza di un grande quadro raffigurante San Giovanni Evangelista a Pathmos (fig. 1), esposto in una delle sale dedicate alla pittura spagnola come opera attribuita al pittore e trattatista andaluso Antonio Palomino (Bujalance, 1655 – Madrid, 1726).1 Il dipinto, inquadrabile nell’ambito della pittura “tenebrista”
1
.
g i r o l a M o t r o p p a , s a n g i o va n n i e va n g e l i s t a a p at h M o s , B u D a pe s t, M u s e o D e l l e B e l l e a rt i
romana, è in realtà riferibile a Girolamo Troppa (Rocchette in Sabina, 1637 – post 1710), artista eclettico e di sfuggente personalità, tra i più prolifici nel vasto panorama del Barocco romano.2 Documentato a Roma sin dal 1656, ove giunse dal pittoresco borghetto di Rocchette incastonato tra i monti della Sabina, Troppa si formò probabilmente nella bottega di Pier Francesco Mola considerato all’epoca, assieme all’anziano Pietro da Cortona, il pittore più importante presente a Roma. Negli anni ’70 ebbe un periodo di collaborazione con Giovan Battista Gaulli “il Baciccio”, astro emergente del Barocco romano, accostandosi ai suoi modi, mentre nella tarda produzione fu marginalmente influenzato dal classicismo di Carlo Maratta.
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La cospicua produzione del Troppa, costituita da affreschi, pale d’altare, pittura da quadreria e ritratti, con opere di soggetto sacro e profano, è caratterizzata da libertà di tocco e rapidità d’esecuzione, tanto che, come ha rilevato Zsuzsanna Dobos, in un suo San Girolamo nel deserto pose la scritta “Opera d’un giorno del Cavalier Troppa”.3 Il suo maggiore limite fu quello di essere un “artista provinciale”, non per la qualità della pittura, ma per la localizzazione della maggior parte delle sue opere lontano da Roma, in ambiti periferici, dislocate nel vasto territorio dello Stato Pontificio, tra Ferrara, il Viterbese, la Sabina, il Reatino, il Frosinate, le Marche e l’Umbria, ove probabilmente ebbe stabile dimora per lunghi periodi. Questa attività itinerante determinò probabilmente una scarsa frequentazione degli ambienti accademici e dai circoli intellettuali romani, non essendo registrato tra i membri dell’Accademia di San Luca o dei Virtuosi del Pantheon. In conseguenza fu ignorato dalle fonti e dai principali repertori della pittura del Seicento, fino alla sua tardiva riscoperta a partire dalla fine degli anni ‘70 del secolo scorso. Tuttavia il prestigio ottenuto in ambito ecclesiastico e il sostegno di alti prelati della curia romana, tra cardinali, vescovi e responsabili di ordini religiosi, gli valse l’ottenimento attorno al 1685 della prestigiosa onorificenza di Cavaliere dello Speron d’Oro, conferitagli da papa Innocenzo XI: un onore ambito da molti ma concesso a pochissimi eletti. Il Cavalier Troppa può essere inquadrato, perlomeno nella prima fase della sua produzione, fra i “tenebristi”, un eterogeneo gruppo di pittori del ‘600 romano mossi da una comune matrice naturalistica, che prediligevano i forti contrasti chiaroscurali, non conformati con le tendenze dominanti del Barocco berniniano o cortonesco e del Classicismo. Una corrente che ha la sua origine in suggestioni caravaggesche, con artisti di formazione eterogenea, che tocca anche puristi di cultura emiliana come Giuseppe Puglia “il Bastaro”, Giovan Domenico Cerrini o Francesco Cozza, 2
.
g i r ol a M o t r oppa , pa e s a g g io c on l a v e r on ic a ,
prendendo vigore con Mattia
Boville ernica (fr osinone), santo stefano
Preti, Pier Francesco Mola e
150
Giacinto Brandi, proseguendo con artisti dell’ultima generazione come Giovan Battista Beinaschi, Francesco Rosa, Agostino Scilla, Daniel Seiter, Monsù Bernardo, Pasquale Chiesa, Antonio Gherardi, Giovan Battista Boncori, Paolo Albertoni, Giovan Battista Pace, fino a Biagio Puccini.4 Il San Giovanni Evangelista a Pathmos evoca lo spirito romantico dei paesaggi del Mola, con la figura in primo piano che si staglia
3
.
g i r ol a M o t r oppa , g ua r ig ion e D i toBi a , r o M a , c ol l e z ion e f ort i B e r n i n i
su un contesto naturale idealizzato al crepuscolo. Stilisticamente e compositivamente il dipinto può essere confrontato con i teleri orizzontali della chiesa di Santo Stefano a Boville Ernica (Frosinone), raffiguranti santi immersi in rustiche campagne, in particolare il Paesaggio con la Veronica (fig. 2).5 Singolarmente nel museo di Budapest sono presenti altri due dipinti di Troppa, Adamo e la sua famiglia e La Maddalena penitente, che mostrano la stessa sensibilità paesaggistica di
4
.
g i r ol a M o t r oppa , a D or a z ion e D e i pa s tor i , già lonDra, sotheBy ’s, 14 aprile 2011
natura molesca e carraccesca come ha notato Dobos che li ha recentemente studiati.6 A conferma di questa propensione verso Mola, di cui Troppa dovette essere considerato un erede nel genere misto tra paesaggio e figura è confermato anche dai documenti contemporanei.7 Il volto del più giovane degli evangelisti è quello caratteristico delle figure nelle altre opere del pittore laziale, sia maschili che femminili (figg. 3, 4, 5). La conduzione trasparente adottata nello
151
sfondo paesistico, da cui emerge la preparazione rossiccia, vivacizzata da bagliori luministici sulla vegetazione, sulle nubi e sulle colline, torna in vari suoi dipinti, come La Maddalena penitente di Budapest o un quadro di San Giovanni Battista (fig. 6).8 Potrebbe essere plausibile una datazione del San Giovanni Evangelista a Pathmos di Budapest attorno al 1665–1670, prossima alle tele di Boville Ernica. Non conosciamo la provenienza originaria del quadro, acquistato dal museo magiaro nel 1962, sebbene nell’inventario ereditario del cardinale Luigi Omodei iuniore (Madrid 1657 – Roma 1706) del 1706 fossero presenti “Due paesi grandi di nove, e sette uno con un S. Girolamo, e l’altro con un altro 5
.
santo di nove, e sette del Troppa g i r ol a M o t r oppa , g i u D i t ta e olof e r n e , c a pr a r ol a , s a n ta t e r e s a
senza cornice”, ubicati nella stanza adiacente la Biblioteca del Palazzo
Omodei in piazza Santi Apostoli a Roma. Le misure, considerando le dimensioni del palmo romano 9
(22,34 centimetri), corrispondono perfettamente in altezza al dipinto in esame, mentre c’è un piccolo scarto in larghezza, dato frequente negli antichi inventari, poiché un dipinto di questo tipo doveva essere ubicato in alto, probabilmente come sovrapporta. L’inconsueta dimensione e l’atipico formato del quadro di Budapest, potrebbero giustificare una coincidenza con quello raffigurante il santo non identificato, descritto nell’inventario citato. Come mi suggerisce Dobos, il pendant potrebbe essere il San Girolamo nel deserto del Kunsthistorisches Museum di Vienna, avente misure e formato molto simili al quadro in esame.10 D’altronde il cardinale Luigi Alessandro Omodei seniore (Milano
152
1608 – Roma 1685), uno dei più attivi mecenati d’arte del ‘600 romano, fu forse il massimo committente del Troppa, cui affidò la realizzazione di un affresco e una pala nella Chiesa di SS. Ambrogio e Carlo al Corso a Roma, oltre alle decorazioni nell’appartamento adiacente la chiesa e a vari dipinti documentati nel suo inventario, compreso il suo ritratto in due versioni.11 Segnalo in questa sede un’ulteriore importante aggiunta al catalogo del pittore sabino. Si tratta di un misterioso ed intrigante dipinto, ignorato dalla bibliografia, conservato presso The McManus Art Gallery di Dundee in Scozia, ove è schedato come Allegoria della Fama (fig. 7). Donato al museo scozzese prima del 1912 da Mrs Anstruther Duncan, è stato riferito a scuola emiliana del XVII secolo,12 poi a Giovanni Lanfranco, e restituito a Troppa da Fabrizio Lemme, famoso avvocato e collezionista d’arte italiano, in una sua visita al museo del 21 agosto 2002. Il dipinto rappresenta una figura femminile alata con la tromba, allegoria della Fama, che aiuta un pittore, individuato dai due pennelli che mostra, ad uscire dalla tomba, da cui emerge anche un uomo con la testa incoronata di lauro, cioè un poeta. Il doppio ritratto raffigura lo stesso giovane personaggio, con baffi, naso aquilino, grandi occhi e capelli lunghi, che evidentemente fu artista e letterato. Il tema è incentrato sull’ esaltazione dei valori universali dello spirito, che si contrappongono al carattere effimero di un’esistenza basata su principi puramente materiali: soltanto l’arte può garantire all’uomo la vera immortalità, consacrata da fama imperitura, superando l’oblio della morte. L’attribuzione, confermata da motivi stilistici, trova un evidente riscontro nel rapporto tra la figura della Fama
6
.
g i r o l a M o t r o p p a , s a n g i o va n n i B at t i s t a , lonDra, christie’s, 8 DiceMBre 1989
153
7
.
g i r ol a M o t r oppa , a l l e g or i a D e l l a fa M a , D u n D e e ( s c o z i a ) , t h e M c M a n u s a rt g a l l e r y
con quelle dell’angelo nelle varie versioni della Guarigione di Tobia (fig. 8).13 Credo sia legittimo individuare nel pittore-poeta un autoritratto dello stesso Troppa, la cui ossessione di essere dimenticato è dimostrata dalla frequenza, abbastanza rara al tempo, con cui appose la propria firma su numerose opere, di committenza sia pubblica che privata. L’età desumibile nel doppio autoritratto e le caratteristiche stilistiche del dipinto suggeriscono una datazione attorno al 1670. Il soggetto neo-stoico e lo spirito pre-romantico dell’opera, accostano Troppa ad artisti-filosofi come Pietro Testa e Salvator Rosa, che svilupparono nella loro produzione composizione di soggetto allegorico ed escatologico, in aperta polemica con gli ambienti ufficiali e la cultura accademica. Dobbiamo quindi pensare che il pittore sabino fosse anche poeta, o perlomeno ebbe l’ambizione di esserlo, come lo era il Rosa. Tuttavia il destino del Troppa
8
.
g i r ol a M o t r oppa , g ua r ig ion e D i toBi a , c o l l e z i o n e p r i vat a
è stato paradossalmente opposto rispetto alle aspettative espresse in questo suo ritratto allegorico: al
successo in vita, dimostrato dall’impressionante numero di pale d’altare realizzate, consacrato dall’ onorificenza ottenuta dal papa, corrispose la successiva totale dimenticanza della sua figura, con la perdita di paternità di numerosi suoi dipinti, compreso quello qui presentato e riscoperto. Francesco Petrucci, Conservatore, Palazzo Chigi in Ariccia.
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nota Dell’autore
Rivolgo un sentito ringraziamento a Zsuzsanna Dobos e Vilmos Tátrai, rispettivamente curatore e curatore associato della splendida mostra “Caravaggio to Canaletto. The Glory of Italian Baroque and Rococo Painting”, probabilmente la più importante esposizione complessiva sul Barocco italiano mai tenuta fuori dall’Italia, che hanno accolto con entusiasmo la scoperta di un nuovo dipinto del Troppa nel museo di Budapest e mi hanno offerto l’opportunità di pubblicare qui questo contribuito. notizia 1
Olio su tela, 156×226,5 cm. Provenienza: venduto all’asta del Museo Ernst a Budapest, in 1929, XLII, no. 32, come opera di un pittore dell’Italia settentrionale del 18. secolo, intitolata L’Allegoria della Scienza; trasferito dal Galleria Nazionale Ungherese in 1962; inv. 62.3. L’attribuzione a Palomino e stato proposta per la prima volta da István Barkóczi in 1991. É. Nyerges, Spanish Paintings. The Collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, Budapest 2008, 184–185, no. 85.
2
Su Troppa, in linea generale e con precedente bibliografia, cfr. B. Toscano et al., Pittura del Seicento e del Settecento. Ricerche in Umbria, 1, Treviso 1976, ad indicem; S. Rudolph, “Un episodio di barocco romano a Ferrara e alcune considerazioni sul cavalier Gerolamo Troppa”, Bollettino dei Musei Ferraresi, 7 (1977), 27–36; A. Busiri Vici, “Un dimenticato pittore del Seicento Gerolamo Troppa”, L’Urbe, 6 (1980), 22–28; V. Casale, in La Pittura del Seicento. Ricerche in Umbria, catalogo della mostra (Spoleto), Milano 1989, 319–321; A. G. De Marchi, in La Pittura in Italia. Il Seicento, vol. 2, a cura di M. Gregori, E. Schleier, Milano 1989, 906; E. Schleier, “Disegni di Girolamo Troppa nelle collezioni tedesche e altrove”, Antichità Viva, XXIX, 6 (1990), 23–34; id., “Aggiunte a Girolamo Troppa pittore e disegnatore”, in Antichità Viva, XXXII, 5 (1993), 16–23; G. Sestieri, Repertorio della pittura romana della fine del Seicento e del Settecento, Torino 1994, vol. 1, 177–179; U. Ruggeri, Troppa Girolamo, in The Dictionary of Art, a cura di J. Turner, vol. 31 (1996), 370; E. Schleier, Adiciones a Girolamo Troppa, pintor y dibujante, in In sapientia libertas. Escritos en homenaje al professor Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez, a cura di M. Cóndor Orduña, Madrid–Sevilla 2007, 526–534; Zs. Dobos, “New additions to the art and research of Girolamo Troppa”, Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts, 106–107 (2007), 115–129; F. Petrucci, Pittura di Ritratto a Roma. Il Seicento, Roma 2008, II, 388–390, 422, III, figg. 706–709; Il restauro dell’Elemosina di San Tommaso da Villanova del Cavalier Gerolamo Troppa, a cura di C. Sodano, Roma 2009; E. Schleier, “Nuove proposte per Girolamo Troppa pittore”, Arte Cristiana, 870–872 (maggio-ottobre 2012), 245–256; F. Petrucci, “Considerazioni su Girolamo Troppa: un ‘tenebrista’ del tardo Seicento romano”, in Prospettiva, 146 (2012), 163–177; E. Schleier, “Integrazioni e nuove proposte per Girolamo Troppa disegnatore e qualche aggiunta a Troppa pittore”, in Arte Cristiana, 875 (marzo–aprile 2013), 83–98. Sui rapporti fra Troppa e Mola cfr. F. Petrucci, Pier Francesco Mola (1612–1666). Materia e colore nella pittura del ‘600, Roma 2012, ad indicem. Sui rapporti con Gaulli cfr. F. Petrucci, Baciccio. Giovan Battista Gaulli (1639–1709), Roma 2009, 107–109.
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3
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, olio su tela, 166×235 cm, inv. 2394.
4
Per una definizione dei “tenebristi” cfr. F. Petrucci, “I ‘tenebrista’ nel tardo Seicento romano: aggiunte a Scilla, Albertoni e Troppa”, Arte Documento, 28 (2012), 154–159.
5
Sui teleri di Boville Ernica cfr. V. Casale, “Alcune precisazioni sui disegni di Lazzaro Baldi”, Prospettiva, 33–36 (1983–84), 270–271, 274.
6
Sui dipinti di Budapest cfr. Dobos 2007, 115–120, figg. 1, 3.
7
Per esempio, l’inventario Sforza Cesarini del 1687 ricorda “Un paesetto di Girolamo Troppi del gusto del Mola”.
8
Il dipinto fu venduto all’asta il 8 dicembre 1989 da Christie’s a Londra.
9
“Due paesi grandi di nove, e sette uno con un S. Girolamo, e l’altro con un altro santo di nove, e sette del Troppa senza cornice”; per l’inventario di Luigi Omodei iuniore cfr. Archivio del collezionismo romano, a cura di A. Giammaria, progetto diretto da L. Spezzaferro, Pisa 2009, 397, n. 0289b.
10
Cfr. nota 3.
11
Luigi Alessandro Omodei seniore, appartenente alla famiglia milanese di origine spagnola dei marchesi di Villanova e Piovera, nel 1652 fu nominato cardinale da Innocenzo X e “protettore” della “Venerabile Arciconfraternita dei SS. Ambrogio e Carlo della nazione lombarda in Roma”. Tra gli artisti favorito, oltre a Troppa, ci furono pittori come Pietro da Cortona, il Maratta, Salvator Rosa, Giacinto Brandi, scultori come Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini e Antonio Raggi, mentre Baciccio e Troppa eseguirono suoi ritratti. Il cardinale milanese fu anche uno dei maggiori estimatori del Mola e dei suoi allievi. Di grande portata gli interventi di restauro delle chiese dei SS. Ambrogio e Carlo al Corso e di San Marcello al Corso a Roma, di Santa Maria della Vittoria a Milano. Su Omodei cfr. A. Spiriti, “Il cardinale Luigi Alessandro Omodei e la sua famiglia: documenti e considerazioni”, Archivio Storico Lombardo, CXIX (1993), 107–127; id., “Luigi Alessandro Omodei e la riqualificazione di S. Carlo al Corso”, Storia dell’Arte, 84 (1995), 269–282. Sui ritratti di Omodei eseguiti da Troppa cfr. Petrucci 2008, I, 254–255, fig. 358, II, 389–390, III, figg. 706, 707.
12
Olio su tela, 99×140 cm, inv. 127-1912. Cfr. W. Hardie, Dundee City Art Gallery Catalogue, Dundee 1973, 156, fig. 23, come “Emilian School, 17th century”.
13
Roma, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Palazzo Barberini; Ponce, Museo de Arte; Roma, collezione privata.
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s hort not i c e s
t wo faces fr oM coffins
é va l i p tay
1
Among the wooden painted coffin masks in the Egyptian Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, there is a piece of outstanding quality (fig. 1).1 The gently rounded, heart shaped face reflects quiet serenity. The contours of the cosmetic line of the elegantly shaped eyes and the slightly arched eyebrows are artfully drawn, but not filled with blue paint. The cheerful face has delicate features, with a straight pointed nose and full lips slightly curved upwards. Still, the most striking elements of the piece are its bright reddish-orange colour 2 and the composite headdress. A similarly coloured and sculpted face from a wooden coffin of the same type is preserved in the Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York.3 Based on their size and iconography, both pieces must have
1
.
c o f f i n M a s k i n v. n o . 5 1 . 2 1 2 9
belonged to female inner coffins of the same period. The style and features of the idealised faces of the Budapest coffin mask and its New York parallel clearly reveal they were inspired by the early Ramesside funerary art,4 which itself was influenced by Thutmosid trends; i.e. the art of mid-18th Dynasty.5 This unique combination of the Ramesside charm with more “classical” Thutmosid stylistic elements well demonstrates the ideal style recreated by the Libyan dynasty founder Sheshonq I and his successors during the tenth–eighth centuries BC.
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The composite headdress of the Budapest fragment appears both on male and female coffins of the period. One main difference is in the wig, which is usually monochrome dark blue on female heads, but blue-yellow striped on male coffins. Furthermore, separately sculpted and fixed ears are characteristics of male coffins, while on female exemplars they are absent for being covered by the wigs. The first element of the headdress is a narrow red band above the forehead. Above this, a floral wreath or fillet is present, composed of greyishwhite lotus petals. It is followed by a ribbon made of oblongs of variegated colours (blue-green-blue) on a red basis, flanked by narrow white borderlines. The garland with the petal 2
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f a c e o f t h e c o f f i n i n v. n o . 5 1 . 1 9 9 5 . 1 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 2
motifs is repeated at the top. The red areas of the headdress are varnished.
Different versions of this composite headdress are well-known from contemporary Theban coffins sets (on outer, intermediate and inner anthropoid coffins alike) made either for men or women.6 The most exclusive examples are decorated with eyes and eyebrows inlaid with glass and lapis lazuli.7 On several coffins, including the Budapest piece, these valuable materials are emulated with dark blue paint. We can thus conclude that the Budapest wooden coffin mask most probably originates from a Libyan type inner coffin, made for a deceased woman in Thebes, and datable to the ninthâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;eighth centuries BC.
158
2
Apart from the above-discussed coffin fragment, the Egyptian Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest also owns an intact wooden coffin from the second half of the eighth century (fig. 2).8 Although its provenance is unknown, in its most recent publication I suggested that it could originate from Akhmim.9 This hypothesis was based on a very close typological and iconographical parallel, acquired in 1889 and preserved in a French collection, which unquestionably originates from Akhmim.10 However, there is another closely similar coffin in the Musée Ochier, Cluny,11 which also originates from Akhmim and was gifted to the collection in 1888. The acquisition dates of these two coffins point to the fact that they must have been obtained directly after the survey of Akhmim by Gaston Maspero in 1884.12 An additional hypothetical member of this group is a mask from a cartonnage coffin in Yverdon, dated back to the early 25th Dynasty, whose provenance is unknown.13 On this piece, ears are not represented, but the striped wig, the colours and the modelling of the face are strongly reminiscent of those of the Budapest coffin and its two analogies. Among the distinct common iconographic features is the striped wig, appearing on male and female coffins alike—in contrast to the Theban version of the Libyan period which usually makes a distinction between male and female wigs. The pattern of the yellow and blue stripes can also be distinguished from the earlier Theban type: Theban coffins from the Libyan period usually show elegant, narrow yellow lines on a dark blue background, while the above-described local variants from Akhmim apply wide stripes; i.e. yellow and (lighter) blue bands of the same width. Theban anthropoid coffins with similar, wide striped wigs are dated back to the 25th–26th Dynasty.14 An additional difference is that the Akhmim exemplars have separately carved and fixed 15 or painted16 ears on both male and female coffins, while on Theban coffins of the Libyan period ears are usually covered by the wig on female coffins.17 Theban coffins of the 25th Dynasty, on the other hand, tend to represent ears on female coffins as well.18 Finally, it is also worth mentioning the accentuated, remarkably wide-opened “wondering” eyes, a peculiar feature of the discussed coffin group. The most important characteristic of these pieces is, however, that their wooden surface is covered with linen and coated with plaster to serve as a base for the painted decoration. The iconographical layout, the applied motifs and inscriptions in these objects obviously follow the same pattern. A possible Theban model which may have been followed by this Akhmim coffin group is a coffin in the Nicholson Museum, Sydney,19 which itself belongs to a well-defined group of Theban coffins dated back to the 25th Dynasty.20 However, the makers of the Akhmim coffins clearly revised and consciously developed a local version of their Theban prototype. Éva Liptay is the Head of the Egyptian Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.
159
notes 1
Inv. no. 51.2129; height: 23.6 cm; width: 19.5 cm; depth: 9 cm.
2
For the colour schemes of this coffin type, see J. H. Taylor, “Patterns of Colouring on Ancient Egyptian Coffins from the New Kingdom to the 26th Dynasty”, in Colour and Painting in Ancient Egypt, ed. W. V. Davies, London 2001, 172–73; J. H. Taylor, “Theban Coffins from the Twenty-second to the Twenty-sixth Dynasty: Dating and Synthesis of Development”, in The Theban Necropolis—Past, Present and Future, eds. N. Strudwick and J. H. Taylor, London 2003, 110.
3
Inv. no. 37.2037E; height 21.5 cm; width 20.5 cm; depth 11 cm; see http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/ opencollection/objects/4272/Face_from_an_Anthropoid_Coffin/set/cdf167c43a1b7912a8c0326d3cfda2eb ?referring-q=egyptian+coffin+mask. See also the fragment of the Allard Pierson Museum, Amsterdam, inv. no. APM 4076; http://www.globalegyptianmuseum.org/large.aspx?img=images/APM/4076a.jpg.
4
K. M. Cooney, The Cost of Death: The Social and Economic Value of Funerary Art in the Ramesside Period (Egyptologische Uitgaven 22), Leiden 2007, figs. 73 and 107.
5
R. A. Fazzini, “Several Objects, and Some Aspects of the Art of the Third Intermediate Period”, in Chief of Seers: Egyptian Studies in Memory of Cyril Aldred, eds. E. Goring, N. Reeves, and J. Ruffle, New York 1997, 115; R. van Walsem, The Coffin of Djedmonthuiufankh in the National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden (Egyptologische Uitgaven 1), Leiden 1997, 362, 367–68; “Past Imperfect. Attitudes towards the Past in the Third Intermediate Period”, in Pharaonic Renaissance—Archaism and the Sense of History in Ancient Egypt, ed. F. Tiradritti, exh. cat., Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest 2008, 77–78.
6
E. g. several pieces in London, British Museum: inv. no. EA 6659 (Hor/wooden coffin/Thebes: Taylor 2003, pl. 53); inv. no. EA30720 (Nespernub/cartonnage case and wooden coffin/Thebes: Taylor 2003, pl. 49); inv. no. EA30721 (Ankhefenkhons/wooden coffin/Thebes: J. H. Taylor, Mummy: the inside story, London, British Museum 2004, 9); inv. no. EA6681 (Peftauemawykhons/Ankhunennefer/cartonnage case: W. R. Dawson and P. H. K. Gray, Catalogue of Egyptian Antiquities in the British Museum I. Mummies and Human Remains, London 1968, no. 20, pl. VIb); and inv. no. 29578 (Padhorpakhered/wooden female coffin/Thebes: Taylor 2003, pl. 56); furthermore, New York, Brooklyn Museum, inv. no. 36.1265 (Nespanetjerenpere/cartonnage case/Thebes: R. A. Fazzini, R. S. Bianchi, J. F. Romano, and D. B. Spanel eds., Ancient Egyptian Art in the Brooklyn Museum, New York 1989, no. 67); Exeter, Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery, inv. no. 11/1897.3 (Shepenmut/wooden coffin and cartonnage case/presumably Thebes: A. Dodson, Catalogue of Egyptian Coffins in Provincial Collections of the United Kingdom, I: The South West. Exeter: Royal Albert Memorial Museum, London 2011 (inv. no. 11/1897.3). Available at: http://www.bris.ac.uk/archanth/research/dodson/ecpuk_files/exeter.
160
7
E. g. New York, Brooklyn Museum, inv. no. 36.1265 (see the previous note).
8
Inv. no. 51.1995.1-2; see E. Varga, “Un cercueil anthropoïde de la Basse Époque”, Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts 51 (1978), 41–54; I. Vozil, “Restauration d’un cercueil momiforme de Basse Époque”, Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts 55 (1980), 17–22; É. Liptay, Third Intermediate Period Coffins and Coffin Fragments of the Egyptian Collection (Catalogues of the Egyptian Collection 1), Budapest 2011, 58– 61.
9
See the previous note. For its Akhmim origin see also J. P. Elias, Coffin Inscription in Egypt after the New Kingdom: A Study of Text Production and Use in Elite Mortuary Preparation, PhD diss., University of Chicago, Chicago 1993), 655, n. 33; 687, n. 70; Brech 2007, 91–92 (3.5.3.).
10
S. Aufrère, Colléctions égyptiennes. Collections des Musées départementaux de Seine-Maritime, Rouen 1987, 21–22 (no. 1: Musée des Antiquités de Seine-Maritime inv. no. 1857.10).
11
Inv. no. 888.1.1: Les collections égyptiennes dans les musées de Saone-et-Loire, Autun 1988, 223–227 (no. 263); R. Brech, Spätägyptische Särge aus Achmim (Aegyptiaca Hamburgensia 3), Hamburg 2008, 62–64 (Dok. A 4).
12
K. P. Kuhlmann, Materialen zur Archäologie und Geschichte des Raumes von Achmim (DAIK Sonderschrift 11), Mainz am Rhein 1983, 50–52; R. Germer, H. Kischkewitz, and M. Lüning eds., Berliner Mumiengeschichten. Ergebnisse eines multidisziplinären Forschungsprojektes, Berlin–Regensburg 2009, 113–16.
13
A. Küffer and R. Siegmann, Unter dem Schutz der Himmelsgöttin. Ägyptische Särge, Mumien und Masken in der Schweiz, Zürich 2007, 199. The provenance is unknown, but another coffin from the same private collection definitely originates from the excavation of G. Maspero in Akhmim in 1885; see Küffer and Siegmann 2007, 160.
14
E .g. London, British Museum, inv. no. EA25256 (wooden inner coffin: Taylor 2003, fig. 65); Bern, Historisches Museum, inv. no. AE 1bis (Nes-pauti-taui/cartonnage coffin lid/Thebes: Küffer and Siegmann 2007, 106–9).
15
Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts, inv. no. 51.1995.1–2; Cluny, Musée Ochier, inv. no. 888.1.1.
16
Rouen, Musée des Antiquités de Seine-Maritime inv. no. 1857.10.
17
For examples, see note 6.
18
E.g. E. D’Amicone and E. Fontanella ed., Nefer. La donna nell’Antico Egitto, exh. cat., Milan, Palazzo Reale, 2007, 40, 42, 60, 64. For the above-listed iconographic features (wigs, ears) of contemporary coffins from Akhmim, see also Brech 2007, 84 (3.2.1.).
19
J. H. Taylor, “The Coffin of Padiashaikhet”, in K. N. Sowada and B. G. Ockinga eds., Egyptian Art in the Nicholson Museum, Sydney, Sydney 2006, 263–91.
20
Taylor 2003, 277–81; Brech 2007, 93–96.
161
162
a Di s p u t e D Dr aw i ng By h a n s B o c k s Be r g e r t h e e l De r i n B u Da pe s t
szilvia
BoDnár
The Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest preserves a sixteenthcentury German drawing with a composition on both sides that deserves distinguished notice for its contemporary inscription in the top right corner of the recto: “Dis hatt der alt Mais... / Hans Poxperger von / Saltzburg gerissen” [This was drawn by the old master, Hans Poxperger of Salzburg].1 The study, thus far only referred to in literature without illustration, was executed in pen and black ink, has been irregularly trimmed, and damaged at the edges. The scenes on both sides are difficult to discern at first sight. The recto shows a group of three female and two male figures in the open air; the women are wearing clothes cling-
1
.
hans BocksBer ger the elDer, the golDen age, B u D a p e s t, M u s e u M o f f i n e a r t s
ing to their bodies, while the men are naked (fig. 1). One man leans against a tree with his right arm, placing his left hand on a large vessel or a tree stump, the other is leaning forward while one of the women is placing a wreath on his head. The woman lying in the middle foreground gently touches the face of the figure next to her, and 163
the third woman turns back, pointing towards the wreath with her left hand. The details of the figures are formed with dense parallel lines and crosshatching within loosely drawn, interrupted outlines. The composition on the verso, showing a seated, naked man and a putto drumming in a landscape, is of poorer quality and was executed by another hand (fig. 2). The inscription on the recto refers to Hans Bocksberger the Elder (ca. 1510 – 1561), a painter from Salzburg. 2
.
a n o n y M o u s s i x t e e n t h - c e n t u r y g e r M a n a rt i s t, M a n k i n D ' s r e v i va l o f f a i t h ( v e r s o o f f i g . 1 )
Belonging to the extended Bocksberger family of painters, he carried out various commissions from the 1530s, mainly for
frescos in Salzburg, Linz, Bavaria and Prague. The activity of the family was first discussed in detail by Max Goering, but the Budapest drawing was not mentioned in his article of 1930.2 It was Heinrich Geissler who first discussed it in his dissertation on Christoph Schwarz, and later in the catalogue of the 1979 Stuttgart exhibition of German drawings executed between 1550 and 1650.3 Geissler regarded the inscription as a signature and claimed the design was an original work by Hans Bocksberger the Elder. The Albertina, Vienna preserves a sheet depicting an animal fight, with an inscription very similar to that of the Budapest sheet: “1557 / der alt Hans Poxperger / V. Saltzburg hatt / ditz gemacht” [1557, the old Hans Poxperger from Salzburg executed this]4 (fig. 3). Goering was already familiar with this drawing, showing a fight between bears, lions, an elephant and billy-goats, and he, along with later authors, regarded it as Hans Bocksberger the Elder’s authentic work.5 In her 2003 monograph about the Bocksberger family, Susanne Kaeppele accepted only this Fight of Wild Animals as Hans Bocksberger the Elder’s autograph work,6 thought that a Hunting Scene in the Museum Nordico in Linz may be regarded as original with reservation,7 while she listed the Budapest sheet among the works erroneously attributed to the artist.8 Kaeppele’s arguments against Bocksberger’s authorship included the Budapest drawing’s lack of affinity with known works of the master, and the dissimilarity of the facial types to his painted figures. Based on the drawing’s style, she proposed a dating to the period after 1600. Furthermore, she pointed to inaccuracies such as the unclear position of the left leg of the standing woman, as well as the inconsistencies in the relative proportions of the two male figures. The leg in the bottom left 164
corner is indeed problematic, but it does not belong to the standing woman, as Kaeppele thought. It is rather part of the reclining woman whose upper body, however, appears to be disproportionately far. Kaeppele regarded the verso as of poor quality drawn by another artist who did not belong to the Bocksberger circle. However, Kaeppele failed to consider that the inscriptions of the Budapest and Viennese drawings are not only similar in content but were also written in the same hand, both in brown ink. If we accept the authenticity of the text on the Viennese drawing, we shall do the same with the one on the Budapest sheet. The Viennese Fight of Wild Animals bears a date, indicating that the inscription is rather a signature and was not subsequently added by a collector, although the latter cannot be completely excluded. As apart from these two sheets no other drawings are known that can be veritably linked to Hans Bocksberger the Elder, these two cannot be compared with any other works. The Fight of Wild Animals is dissimilar to the Budapest composition both in its technique and subject; and drawings cannot be compared with frescos either. Hence, the difference between the Budapest sheet and these works provides insufficientbasistoexcludeourdrawing from Bocksberger’s œuvre. The subject matter of the recto has thus far been identified as a Coronation of an Antique Hero or a Mythological Scene. Fritz Koreny recently
3
.
hans Bock sBer ger the elDer, fight of wilD aniM als, D e ta i l , v i e n n a , a l B e rt i n a
proposed that it is a depiction of The Golden Age.9 This hypothesis clarifies that the male figure in the middle ground is presumably the allegory of a river-god.10 The even more enigmatic iconography of the verso, perhaps executed by an apprentice in the Bocksberger workshop, was resolved by Geissler. Identifying the drumming putto as Christ, because of the glory above his head, he claimed the scene represents Christ Reviving Faith among Pagans.11 A contemporary Italian version of this theme, rarely depicted in German areas, is a Christ on the Mount of Olives, painted in several variants probably by Marcello Venusti (1512/15 – 1579) after Michelangelo. Christ appears twice in the composition: on the left, in prayer, and on the right while waking the apostles, which scene alludes to mankind’s revival of faith.12 Szilvia Bodnár is Head of the Department of Prints and Drawings, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.
165
notes 1
Pen and black ink (recto and verso), 199×164 mm; provenance: Gelozzi Collection (Lugt 545); Országos Képtár (Lugt 2000); Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts, inv. no. 58.
2
M. Goering, “Die Malerfamilie Bocksberger”, Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst 7 (1930), 185–280.
3
H. Geissler, Christoph Schwarz: ca. 1548–1592, Ph. D diss., Freiburg im Breisgau 1960, 127, note 45; H. Geissler, Zeichnung in Deutschland: Deutsche Zeichner 1540–1640, exh. cat., Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart 1979, vol. 1, 8.
4
Pen and brown ink, brown and grey wash, heightened with white, 201×301 mm; Vienna, Albertina, inv. no. 3274. See H. Tietze et al., Die Zeichnungen der deutschen Schulen bis zum Beginn des Klassizismus (Beschreibender Katalog der Handzeichnungen in der Graphischen Sammlung Albertina 4), Vienna 1933, no. 438.
5
Goering 1930, 267; Geissler 1979, vol. 1, 8, Nr. A9; F. Koreny in Spätmittelalter und Renaissance, Geschichte der Bildenden Kunst in Österreich 3, ed. A. Rosenauer, Munich 2003, 566, no. 307.
6
S. Kaeppele, Die Malerfamilie Bocksberger aus Salzburg: Malerei zwischen Reformation und italienischer Renaissance, Salzburg 2003, 144–45 and 270, no. 2.5.1.
7
Museum Nordico Linz, inv. no. S III/200, ibid., 271, no. 2.5.2.
8
Ibid., 271, no. 2.6.1.
9
Oral communication by Fritz Koreny, January 2013.
10
The allegorical figure of a river-god can also be seen for example in an etching depicting The Golden Age by Battista Franco (ca. 1510–1561) after a composition by Giulio Romano (1499–1546), see A. Bartsch, Le peintregraveur, 21 vols., Vienna 1803–1821, vol. 16, 143, no. 73.
11
Stuttgart 1979, vol. 1, 8.
12
Oil on panel, 47×77 cm; Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, inv. no. 334. S. Ferino-Pagden et al., Die Gemälde des Kunsthistorischen Museums in Wien. Verzeichnis der Gemälde, Vienna 1991, 130, pl. 136. Another painting with the same theme by Venusti is preserved in the collection of the Palazzo Barberini in Rome, inv. no. 1469. L. Mochi Onori and R. Vodret Adamo, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Palazzo Barberini, i dipinti. Catalogo sistematico, Rome 2008, 457.
166
a figure stuDy B y i l c ava l i e r e g i u s e p p e c e s a r i D ’ a r p i n o
z o ltá n k á r pát i
Marco Simone Bolzoni’s recent catalogue raisonné of drawings by Giuseppe Cesari (1568–1640) includes more than three hundred sheets by the master and several more from his circle.1 The vast corpus of Cesari’s graphical œuvre comprises two drawings preserved in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest. One is the widely published red chalk study of a standing male figure from behind, drawn around 1595–1596,2 and the other is a preleminary drawing for Christ Carrying the Cross painted ca. 1610 for Sant’Agostino in Rome; 3 Bolzoni doubted the autograph status of the latter and proposed it may be a workshop production. But the Museum also owns a vigorous chalk drawing traditionally attributed to the Roman master, which is not mentioned by the author (fig. 1).4 The complete absence of this large-size, dynamic chalk study of a woman is not totally surprising. The drawing had been exhibited several times at the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest under the name of Cesari,5 and only a laconic curatorial note on its catalogue card questioned its authorship and considered the sheet as a work of a member of the Cesari workshop. As a consequence of this negative judgement, the drawing disappeared from focus and has not been exhibited or published until now. The obscurity around the drawing was also caused by the fact that it was reproduced for the first, and so far only time in the early twentieth-century multi-volume publication by Josef von Schönbrunner and Joseph Meder.6 The drawing derives from the renowned collection of Prince Nikolaus Esterházy, where it was registered as a work by Giuseppe Cesari. The Prince acquired the drawing from Antonio Cesare Poggi in Paris in 1810, but there is no trace of its provenance before it entered Poggi’s possession. Its nineteenth-century English-style mount, however, implies that the drawing probably came to Poggi via an English collection. The old attribution to “Cavre. Giuseppe d’Arpino” written in pen and brown ink on the sheet by a seventeenth-century hand suggests that it originally belonged to the renowned collection of Don Gaspar de Haro y Guzmán (1629–1687), 7th Marchese del Carpio and Viceroy of Naples. Nicolas Schwed pointed out to me that several sheets from the Carpio collection are inscribed in the same hand, and an allegorical design by Giovanni Paolo Schor (1615–1674), formerly also in the Marchese’s collection, bears an inscription which is very comparable with the Budapest handwriting.7
167
1
168
.
g i u s e p p e c e s a r i , f i g u r e s t u D y , c a . 1 6 0 2 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 1 6 0 3 , B u D a p e s t, M u s e u M o f f i n e a rt s
2
.
giuseppe cesari, gr oup of solDiers with a sit ting youth, c a . 1 6 0 0 – 1 6 0 5 , pa r i s , M u s é e D u l o u v r e , D é pa rt e M e n t D e s a rt s g r a p h i q u e s
169
María López-Fanjul, however, called my attention to the fact that it is difficult to recognize Carpio’s drawings without their original mount, because the Marchese himself did not mark his sheets. Instead, other connoisseurs, such as the most well-known Padre Sebastiano Resta had worked in the Marchese’s collection, especially on attribution and on the arrangement of the drawings, as the various handwritings on the sheets and the mounts indicate. Therefore we may only assume that the Budapest drawing was probably in the possession of the Marchese or another collector who was responsible in the Carpio collection. The Budapest drawing has been vigorously sketched in red chalk with flowing lines defining the outlines of the figure, before soft black chalk was used for modelling with dynamic hatchings clinging to the form. Finally, some red chalk was added to emphasize certain facial details. Although the handling of the chalk gives the impression of spontaneity, some outlines reinforced later in pen and brown ink spoil much of its vivacity. The high quality of draughtsmanship, the stunning physical presence and lively representation of the figure resemble Cesari’s chalk studies from the late 1590s and early 1600s, and closely correlate in style and technique with his several preparatory drawings for the seven Old Testament scenes frescoed in the Villa Aldobrandini, Frascati, between 1602–1603.8 Comparison with these drawings, especially with Cesari’s masterly chalk study for a group of soldiers from the same period clearly attest the same hand (fig. 2),9 and leave no doubt about the authorship of the Budapest sheet. There is no surviving painting or fresco by Cesari directly related to the Budapest drawing. The pose of the female figure closely corresponds, although in a different angle, with that of the executioner on the right side of the fresco Stoning of Saint Stephen, painted ca. 1604–1605 for the Cappella Sannesi in San Silvestro al Quirinale, Rome,10 which demonstrates that the motif of this complex turning posture was frequently used in the Cesari workshop. The subject of the Budapest drawing has long been regarded as a dancing girl, but this interpretation cannot be accepted uncritically. The sheet has been slightly trimmed close to its edges before it was glued onto the present mat, and during this intervention the figure’s left hand was partially cut, while several sketchy lines suggest that she was originally holding something in this hand. Because the pose surely recalls that of the powerful heroine of Jael Killing Sisera in the Villa Aldobrandini, Frascati,11 and proposing that the lost detail in her left hand may be a nail or a hammer, the figure may possibly be alternatively identified as Jael. Only one other preparatory drawing for the Sisera scene has come down to us, representing the sleeping commander,12 and it seems plausible that the Budapest figure was drawn as a prima idea for Jael in the early stage of the preparation, around 1602–1603. Zoltán Kárpáti is curator of Italian drawings and prints, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.
170
notes 1
M. S. Bolzoni, Il Cavalier Giuseppe Cesari d’Arpino: Maestro del disegno: Catalogo ragionato dell’opera grafica, Rome 2013.
2
Inv. no. 2145; Bolzoni 2013, no. 132.
3
Inv. no. 1823; ibid., no. B21.
4
Red and black chalk, some traces of pen and brown ink, paper, 403×259 mm; provenance: Antonio Cesare Poggi (Lugt 617), Nikolaus Esterházy (Lugt 1965), Országos Képtár (Lugt 2000); inscribed in pen and brown ink on the recto at lower centre: “Cavre. Giuseppe d’Arpino” and in pencil on the old mat: “C. Arpino”; Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts, inv. no. 1824.
5
S. Meller, Külföldi mesterek rajzai XIV–XVIII. század [Drawings by Foreign Masters: 14th to 18th Centuries], Budapest 1911, no. 144; E. Hoffmann, Miniatúrák és olasz rajzok [Miniatures and Italian Drawings], Budapest 1930, no. 187; E. Hoffmann, Rajzoló eljárások [Drawing Techniques], Budapest 1934, no. 137; I. Fenyő, Középitáliai rajzok: Bologna, Firenze, Róma [North-Italian Drawings: Bologna, Florence, Rome], Budapest 1963, no. 92.
6
J. von Schönbrunner and J. Meder, Handzeichnungen alter Meister aus der Albertina und anderen Sammlungen, 12 vols., Vienna 1896–1908, no. 144.
7
Auctioned at Christie’s, New York, 30 January 1998, lot 87; see also M. Fagiolo dell’Arco, La festa barocca, Rome 1997, 165.
8
Bolzoni 2013, nos. 199–215.
9
Red and black chalk, 418×287 mm, Paris, Musée du Louvre, Département des Arts graphiques, inv. no. 2982; see ibid., no. 214.
10
H. Röttgen, Il Cavalier Giuseppe Cesari D’Arpino: Un grande pittore nello splendore della fama e nell’incostanza della fortuna, Rome 2002, 351–52, no. 114, fig. 114.3.
11
Ibid., 103–11, 338–40, no. 105, fig. 105.2.
12
Bolzoni 2013, no. 211.
171
172
giuseppe verMiglio’s penitent MagDalene
z s u z s a n n a
D oB o s
In 1971 the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, purchased a Penitent Magdalene, which, astonishingly (perhaps due to its association with French Caravaggist works) was inventoried as a painting by an unknown seventeenth-century French artist (fig. 1).1 The identification of its master has remained unresolved until now, although several researchers, both Hungarian and foreign, have noted its outstanding quality. As a result of its anonymity and unrestored state, the picture never left the Museum’s storage and was never displayed at any temporary exhibition, or provisionally at the permanent exhibition. The Lombard stylistic elements of the Penitent Magdalene had for a long time been evident to experts: Ágnes Szigethi listed it in the summary cata-
1
. giuseppe
verMiglio, penitent MagDalene,
B u D a p e s t, M u s e u M o f f i n e a r t s
logue of the Old Masters’ Gallery as the work of an unknown Northern Italian painter,2 while Vilmos Tátrai tried to identify its master in the circle of Tanzio da Varallo. The question of authorship has now been resolved, as I have succeeded in placing this painting in the œuvre of Giuseppe Vermiglio (Milan?, 1587? – after 1635), a preeminent
173
and highly characteristic representative of Lombard and Piedmontese seicento painting. Even though Vermiglio’s name frequently appears in the inventories of seventeenthand eighteenth-century collections, and Luigi Lanzi hailed the master in his biography as “the finest painter in oil that the ancient state of Piedmont can boast” (“il miglior pittore a olio che vanti I’antico Stato di Piemonte”),3 by the twentieth century the artist had almost completely sunk into oblivion. Vermiglio’s early masterpiece, the Incredulity of Thomas altarpiece (1612) in the church of San Tommaso ai Cenci, Rome, has been regarded as one of the most significant Caravaggist works since its assessment by Roberto Longhi some seventy years ago (“… felice risultato di uno dei più 2
. giuseppe
v e r M i g l io , t h e p e n i t e n t M a g D a l e n e ,
p r i vat e c o l l e c t i o n , i t a l y
sinceramente caravaggeschi che possono occorrere”).4 Nevertheless, the bulk of works from his later period characterized by an
academic naturalism including neo-cinquecentesque elements is mainly known from the accomplishments of research carried out over the last one and a half decades. The artist was restored to his position among the most important representatives of Lombard and Piedmontese seicento painting in Alessandro Morandotti’s comprehensive study of 1999,5 and later by the monographic exhibition in Campione d’ Italia in 2000, which, although of a relatively modest scale, provided a plethora of new information.6 In the exhibition catalogue, Francesco Frangi published a Penitent Magdalene (private collection, Italy, fig. 2), of which the Budapest painting is a larger, knee-length version.7 The two pictures show different iconographical types of the penitent Mary Magdalene living in seclusion after Christ’s resurrection, which was one of the most popular themes of the Italian Seicento. In the Italian version Magdalene appears in a pose borrowed from allegorical figures of Melancholy, contemplating with her head leaning on her left hand and holding a skull in her right, while the passionate heroine of the
174
Budapest picture turns her right palm and tearful face to the heavens in a state of rapture. In contrast to the numerous sensual, nude representations of the Penitent Magdalene from the first quarter of the seventeenth century, the Budapest Magdalene has a chaste appearance: her long hair cascades onto her bosom like an auburn shawl and iridescently blends with her madder lake robe. According to Frangi, the Italian Penitent Magdalene—and, we shall add, probably the Budapest piece as well—was produced immediately after Vermiglio, like many of his Lombard colleagues, left behind Roman Caravaggism and returned to Milan,8 where his presence is documented from April 1621.9 His style was initially shaped there by local Lombard masters combining Late Mannerist compositional schemes with Baroque rhetoric, but primarily by Daniele Crespi and Giovani Battista Crespi, called Il Cerano. Later an increasingly marked Emilian influence manifested in his art apparent in the softer modelling of the figures and a more sentimental rendering of religious themes. According to Frangi’s aptly expressed opinion, Vermiglio painted his Penitent Magdalene “with his eyes fixed on Reni’s and Alessandro Tiarini’s flourishingly beautiful female figures, which Giuseppe subjected to the confines of his more disciplined idiom in this work and all the ones to come, inclined to transform the slightly profane sentimentality of his Bolognese contemporaries into something more profoundly emotional and pious.”10 Similar female figures feature in other works by Vermiglio from these years, including the Magdalene of his Lamentation over the Dead Christ (private collection, Italy), and the woman clasping a kerchief to her face, standing on the left of the painting Saint Innocent Raising Senatrice from the Dead, painted
3
.
giuseppe verMiglio, saint innocent raising senatrice, Daughter of prospero, tortona, catheDral
175
after 1621, now in the sacristy of the Tortona Cathedral (fig. 3). Maria Cristina Terzaghi drew attention to the fact that this latter figure is actually the transposition of the woman into Lombard dialect on the right of Caravaggio’s Entombment (Rome, Pinacoteca Vaticana).11 Several single figure pictures of saints and apostles, closely resembling the two Penitent Magdalenes both in type and rendering, have survived from Vermiglio’s Lombard period (e. g. Penitent Saint Peter, London, Lasson Gallery; Saint Margaret, private collection; The Four Evangelists, Rho, Collegio degli Oblati Missionari). Alessandro Morandotti indicated that in these paintings the artist renders suffering and religious piety more profoundly than in his earlier works, and suggested this might be explained with commissions he received at that time from religious orders, such as the Novara Dominicans, the Novara and Tortona Lateran canons, and the Carthusians in Pavia.12 Although neither the Penitent Magdalene, nor Vermiglio’s other work, discovered in Hungary in 1996 (Saint Sebastian, Pannonhalma, Picture Gallery of the Abbey of the Benedictines)13 belong to the most significant pieces of the œuvre, Vermiglio’s authorship and their rightful place in the basic corpus of a future monograph are unquestionable. The Budapest Penitent Magdalene is a significant addition to the Lombard-Piedmontese seicento collection, comprising only a few works, of the Old Masters’ Gallery.14 The painting’s outstanding aesthetic qualities would be more evident by a comprehensive restoration, after which it may become a worthy and impressive companion to Daniele Crespi’s Entombment, and Francesco Cairo’s Madonna with the Infant Jesus displayed at the permanent exhibition. Zsuzsanna Dobos is curator of the Old Master Gallery, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.
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notes 1
Oil on canvas, 102.5×83 cm, inv. no. 71.4. Purchased from the BÁV (Commission Trading and Pawn Credit Company) in 1971. Among the deposited works in the Old Masters’ Gallery until 1962.
2
Á. Szigethi in V. Tátrai ed., Museum of Fine Arts Budapest, Old Masters’ Gallery, A Summary Catalogue of Italian, French, Spanish and Greek Paintings, Budapest 1991, 90.
3
L. Lanzi, Storia pittorica della Italia dal Risorgimento delle Belle Arti fin presso al fine del XVIII secolo, 6 vols., Bassano 1795–1796, translated by Th. Roscoe, The History of Painting in Italy from the Period of the Revival of the Fine Arts to the End of the Eighteenth Century, London 1854, vol. VI, 306.
4
R. Longhi, “Ultimi studi su Caravaggio e la sua cerchia”, in Proporzioni. Studi di storia dell’arte a cura di Roberto Longhi, vol. I, 1943, 30. I would like to note here that the style of the Incredulity of Thomas altarpiece is not exclusively rooted in the art of Caravaggio and Caravaggism, as generally claimed in literature. It is undoubtedly true that the intense gestures of the figures and the powerful chiaroscuro reflect the influence of Caravaggism, and it can be presumed that Vermiglio was aware of the literal depiction of the biblical passage—“Reach out your hand and put it into my side.” (John 20:27)—from Caravaggio’s painting of the same subject (Potsdam, Sanssouci) or its copies. However, similarly noteworthy a stylistic element is the picture’s “neo-renaissance archaism”. (The term was used by Jacopo Stoppa in connection to Vermiglio’s works executed after 1620. See J. Stoppa, “Campione d’Italia: Giuseppe Vermiglio”, The Burlington Magazine 142 (2000), 797–99). The isocephaly and the symmetrical arrangement of the apostles flanking the majestic Christ figure, only broken by the figure of Saint Thomas, does not follow an Italian prototype but rather Albrecht Dürer’s Incredulity of Thomas woodcut from his Small Passion series (1511). The direct inspiration of the print is also confirmed by the posture of Saint Peter, a counterpoint to Thomas. The influence of the Dürer woodcut on Italian works, e. g. on Caravaggio’s mentioned picture, has been noted by several art historians (e. g. W. Friedländer, Caravaggio Studies, New York 1955, 162). However, thus far no one has underlined its impact on Vermiglio’s composition, even though it possibly follows its model more closely than any other of the surviving examples.
5
A. Morandotti, “Giuseppe Vermiglio, naturalista accademico e diligente”, in G. Romano ed., Percorsi caravaggeschi tra Roma e Piemonte, Turin 1999, 239–71, plates 65–57, 74–79, 84–89.
6
D. Pescarmona, Giuseppe Vermiglio. Un pittore caravaggesco tra Roma e la Lombardia, exh. cat., Campione d’Italia, Milan, 2000.
7
Oil on canvas, 63.5×49.5 cm; F. Frangi, “Giuseppe Vermiglio in Lombardia: indicazioni per un percorso”, in D. Pescarmona 2000, 66, fig. 41.
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8
Frangi, in Pescarmona 2000, 65
9
M. C. Terzaghi, “Giuseppe Vermiglio Lombardo e piemontese”, Paragone 29, 599 (2000), 39.
10
“…dipinta avendo presenti negli occhi le bellezze floride del Reni e di Alessandro Tiarini, che Giuseppe riconduce, come sempre sarà, entro i confini di un linguaggio più controllato, orientato a declinare in chiave tutta intimistica e devozionale i languori un poco profani dei suoi compagni bolognesi.” Frangi, in Pescarmona 2000, 65.
11
Terzaghi 2000, 41.
12
Morandotti, in Romano 1999, 269.
13
Zs. Dobos, in I. Takács ed. Mons Sacer 996–1996. Pannonhalma 1000 éve [Mons Sacer 996–1996. 1000 Years of Pannonhalma], Pannonhalma 1996, vol. III, 72–74, A. 47.
14
See Á. Szigethi, “Kora lombard-piemonti festmények Magyarországon” (Early seicento paintings from Lombardy and Piedmont in Hungary), Művészettörténeti Értesítő 32 (1983), 44–50.
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a l i f e D e v ot e D to a rt — g á B or t é r e y ’ s l e g a c y i n h i s l a s t w i l l a n D t e s ta M e n t
orsolya r a D vá n y i
To the memory of Miklós Mojzer
For over a decade, I have been researching the personality and intellectual legacy of Gábor Térey, his role in Hungarian art history and museology, and the reasons of the contradictory assessments of his person. 1 During the years he spent as keeper of the Collection of Old Master Paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts, Térey curated numerous exhibitions, augmented the collections through the acquisition of several hundred artworks, and participated in the devel-
1
.
g á B or t é r e y r e a D i ng to h i s w i f e , on t h e wa l l p o rt r a i t s o f h i s f o r e r u n n e r s a n D h i s s o n , pa l i
opment of the Museum’s modern institutional system. In addition to his duties as general director of the Museum, he regularly published his findings and also kept an observant eye on Hungarian and especially on international art market. He also nurtured good personal ties with the great scholars of the day as well as with art collectors and art dealers. His writings and his accomplishments at enriching the Museum’s collection with valuable pieces shed light to the personality of this straightforward, steadfast and decent man—someone who would always find fault in himself first. He had many an enemy among his compatriots, who were unable to tolerate his successes, and whose unjust and groundless suspicions not only drove Térey into early retirement but also besmirched his name. All of this may have contributed
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to his illness and premature death, in connection to which the presumption of suicide cannot be excluded. The surviving documents and his correspondence demonstrate that in the turbulent decades of the twentieth century he was not only personally doomed to a tragic fate, but so were other members of his family, who seem to have been condemned to share in his difficulties. This impression was confirmed by a fortunate meeting with his only living grandchild, Marianne Térey,2 who shared with me many stories that conjured up Térey’s figure, whom I only had known from documents. After World War II, only Marianne and her father, Pál—Térey’s second son—remained in Hungary, the adopted country of her great grandfather. During my visits to her home, I noted that the elderly lady was surrounded by an atmosphere of Puritanism and humility combined with moderate elegance. A mere handful of small 2
.
Detail of the living rooM, on the wall térey ’s portrait
objects and photographs preserved
By f ü löp l á s z ló , i n t h e wa l l n i c h e t h e B u s t of e D i t h
the memory of her grandfather, the
tére y By Miklós ligeti
museum director, a man with refined
taste and a friend of many artists, who, according to some articles that had appeared in the 1920s, was “extremely rich” and “acquires by prescription numerous valuable works of art from the state”. Exactly during the time that I was visiting Marianne Térey, I came across a more recent writing3 which carried a tacit condemnation of Térey, based on news that proliferated about him in the press of the time. Although the ill-meaning accusations against him had never been proven, they nevertheless served to slander him, to fuel insinuation and finally to sideline him. I was spurred on to follow his story to the end and to ascertain if indeed Térey could have been truly accused of abusing insider information as the press suggested and whether he really accumulated a huge private fortune at the expense of state funds? Wishing to be uninfluenced by reminiscences of family members, I searched for Gábor Térey’s last will and soon found three such documents in the Budapest City Archives. In respect to Térey’s financial affairs, the latest will and testament4 written in his own hand in German and dated 22 November 1924 is of the greatest importance, the one which annulled the other two wills5 that had been made 30–35 years earlier.
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The three-page document testifies that an entire life spent in public service, the responsible duty of directing the Museum and the activity as an art expert in the private sector brought Térey nothing more than some personal objects and paintings as well as a selection from his library and furniture from his home. This would be surprisingly little “evidence” for the veracity of accusations of the Gyűjteményegyetem that preceded his condemnation and humiliating dismissal, and at the same time, a miserable symptom of the financial situation of an upper-middle class family after the Great War. Some of the artworks mentioned in the will had passed down from generation to generation in his family as a legacy from both sides, while others were Gábor Térey’s personal objects, which he received as presents from his friends.6 The small watercolours and ivory miniatures depicting his grandparents Karl and Cristina von Térey, his father Pál, his uncle, Károly, as well as his aunts, Anna and Mari, which were of special personal value, were bequeathed to his second son, Pál (1893–1953).7 Pál also inherited the portrait by the itinerant painter Joseph Franz Mücke,8 depicting Pál Térey’s wife, Mary Norton with Gábor as a child, sitting in her lap in front of Pál Térey Senior’s mansion with a classicist facade in Promontor (fig. 3). The heritage of his grandfather must have passed onto Pál because he was the one to carry on the older man’s profession. He also inherited the large-scale watercolour by Goebel depicting the mansion of his great-grandfather, Károly Térey, in Nagykároly, as well as a tie clip adorned with black pearls, which probably originated from his grandmother, Cristina. In addition, Pál received the oil sketch depicting him as a child by Fülöp László, his father’s friend. 9 Térey’s oldest son, László (1889–1943), born to his first wife, Mabel Gattley, was left a red crayon portrait of László as a child, drawn by Róbert Wellmann, a silver cup given to his father, Pál Térey Senior, commemorating his participation in the 1867 World Fair in Paris as an organiser-commissioner, a tie clip inlaid with white pearls from the legacy of his grandmother, and three unidentified paintings by Károly Brocky.
3
.
f r a n z M ü c k e ’ s B i g D o u B l e p ort r a i t h u n g in the Dining rooM in the 1920s
181
His son Benno (1902–1973), the only child from his second marriage, received a picture by Fülöp László, which depicted Gábor Térey at work by his desk,10 as well as a marble bust on a Secessionist plinth by Miklós Ligeti representing his mother, Edith Térey (b. Müller, 1877–1929).11 In addition, he inherited his father’s golden cigarette box and the jewellery belonging to his Hungarian festive attire. He left to his wife portraits of himself by Ede Balló12 and Fülöp László, as well as portraits of Benno painted by Oszkár Glatz13 and Anna Vas, Ligeti’s tarnished plaster bust of Térey from 1903,14 and caricatures by Tibor Pólya. In addition to these works, his wife only inherited the right of usufruct to his bank accounts, shares and their three-room flat with all the furniture and furnishings, with the condition that upon their selling the value would have to be divided among the three children. He forbid to sell the family silver and jewellery inherited from the Térey grandmother, and after Edith’s death these were to return to the three boys. Térey arranged that all of the furniture not directly linked to the furnishing of the flat, as well as the books and photographs were to be sold with half of the proceeds to go to his wife and the other half to his sons.15 Among the paintings the will mentions one landscape by Jules Rosier, one by Schirmer and three by Nándor Katona—as well as some carpets, gobelin cushions and silk piano covers, a silk vestment, two large and two small gilded candle holders.16 Concerning his library, he arranged that his two encyclopaedia series (Konversations, Brockhaus) could be used by Edith until her death, but afterwards should be possibly sold to a book dealer in Leipzig (Karl von Hiersemann) or in Frankfurt (Joseph Baer). These instructions are remarkably precise and definite, in order to make sure that his books did not remain in Budapest against his wish.17 Independently of this intention, directly prior to his retirement he donated to the institution volumes missing from the holdings of the Museum Library, as well as reproductions of paintings and sculptures, and diapositives.18 Following the provisions governing his estate, Térey entrusts his son, Benno, to take care of his father’s manuscripts, among which the Studien und Kritiken zur Kunstgeschichte, and exhorts him to complete, with the assistance of his colleagues, his unfinished monographs on Jakab Bogdány and Jan Siberechts, by adding an introduction, footnotes and data.19 At the time when the will was made, Benno was studying art history at the University of Berlin, thus Gábor Térey hoped with good reason that his youngest son would follow in his footsteps. The volume on Siberechts was published with an introduction and supplements by Timon-Henricus Fokker.20 In the foreword Fokker clearly credited the greater part of the book to Térey, and claimed that he merely edited Térey’s chapters and added some newly emerged items to the catalogue. In honour of the author, he dedicated the “joint” work to Térey’s memory.21 In the case of the Bogdány manuscript, the attitude of Térey’s Hungarian colleague was rather different,22 but that is another story that would lead quite far. Orsolya Radványi is Head of Research, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.
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notes 1
O. Radványi, Térey Gábor (1864–1927). Egy konzervatív újító a Szépművészeti Múzeumban [Gábor Térey (1864–1927). A conservative innovator in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest], Budapest, Szépművészeti Múzeum 2006.
2
After the completion of this article, I recognized the fact that the daughters of Térey’s oldest son, Monica and Daphne lived in England. I am indebted to Monica, Philip and Catherine Jacob for the images of Térey’s flat in the Museum around 1926. The paintings on the wall are identical with the ones figuring in the will (figs. 1–2).
3
A. Sándor Végh, “Átok leng a képek fölött” [Curse Hanging Over the Pictures], Magyar Nemzet 24 May 2002 (http://mno.hu/migr_1834/atok-leng-a-kepek-folott-785289).
4
Gábor Térey’s proclaimed last will and testament, 18 May 1927. HU BFL – VII.12.e -1927-V.(I)05287.
5
Gábor Térey’s last will and testament, 17 July 1889. HU BFL – VII.183-1889-0462, and the codicil for the will, 27 March 1986. HU BFL VII.183-1895-0291. The two earlier wills were withdrawn because of the divorce of Gábor Térey and Mabel Gattley in 1896.
6
One of Térey’s closest friends was the painter Fülöp László, whom he met around the latter’s return to Hungary in 1896, through their common friend Elek Koronghi Lippich, a ministerial senior civil servant. Even though László left Budapest in 1907, they maintained their friendship until the end of their lives, which is attested to by their correspondence. László painted portraits of Gábor Térey and his children as well. Térey also had a good relationship with the painter Ede Balló and the sculptor Miklós Ligeti, the latter of whom fashioned portrait busts of him and his wife around 1903.
7
The objects listed, but otherwise not indicated in his last will are probably in the family’ possession.
8
Joseph Franz Mücke (Nagyatád, 1819 – Pécs, 1883), portrait and genre painter. Studied in Vienna and later active in the environs of Eszék and Pécs as an itinerant painter. He also worked on the frescoes of the Basilica in Pécs. U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler vor der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, Leipzig, 1931, vol. 25, 211–12.
9
Fülöp László, Portrait of Pali Térey, private collection.
10
Fülöp László, Portrait of Gábor Térey, Budapest, Hungarian National Gallery, inv. no. 64.111 T.
11
Miklós Ligeti, Edith Térey, 1903, Budapest, Hungarian National Gallery, inv. no. 74.86–N.
12
The painting’s whereabouts are unknown.
13
Oszkár Glatz, Benno Térey, Budapest, Hungarian National Gallery, inv. no. 74.121 T.
14
The sculpture’s whereabouts are unknown.
15
Following Edith von Térey’s death in December 1930, furniture and furnishings from Térey’s estate were auctioned by the Viennese auction house Glückselig. Sammlung Dr. G. v. T. und anderer Privatbesitz. Skulpturen, Porzellan, Textilien, Teppiche, Mobiliar, Bronzen, Zinn, Glas, Gemälde, Silber etc. Auktionshaus für Altertümer. Glückselig Ges. M.B.H., Vienna, December 1930.
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16
Most of the objects listed in Térey’s last will cannot be identified or their present status is unknown.
17
After Térey’s death, his widow, Edith von Térey, offered all the contents of his library for sale. When the Hiersmann Company did not wish to take the opportunity she donated the chest of books that had arrived back from Leipzig to Elek Petrovics, director of the Museum of Fine Arts. Central Archives of the Museum of Fine Arts, 1084/927.
18
“Before I finally leave the place of my activities to my current workplace, please allow me, Your Honour, to bequeath to the Museum of Fine Arts the objects from my collection as detailed below, thus carrying out the humble service to the Museum of donating what is to my knowledge a considerable part of this material is lacking in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts. I wish to donate 755 reproductions of Antique, Italian, French and German sculptures and architectural works, and of Hungarian and German paintings, as well as 48 Hungarian books. In addition, I wish to donate 42 diapositives of Hungarian paintings ….” Gábor Térey’s letter to the Museum of Fine Arts’ director, Elek Petrovics, Budapest, 8 July 1926. Central Archives of the Museum of Fine Arts, 753/1926.
19
“I charge my son, Benno Térey with the task of compiling in a single volume the manuscripts of my short writings, studies and art historical essays, to have it published by a German publisher (e.g. Klinkhardt und Biermann, Leipzig, Liebigstrasse 6, or Karl W. Hiersemann, Leipzig, Kaiserstrasse 29), and to add a foreword containing biographical data. Furthermore, to my above-named son I leave the manuscripts and notes collected for the Bogdány and Siberechts monographs, in order for him to pass them on to competent colleagues of mine so that my scholarly research is not wasted.”
20
T.-H. Fokker, Jan Siberechts peintre de la paysanne flamande, Bruxelles and Paris,1931.
21
“To the memory of the late Dr. Gábor Térey, director of the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts, honorary member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, and member of the London Burlington Fine Arts Club.”
22
A. Pigler, Bogdány Jakab (1660–1724), Budapest 1941.
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list of e xhiBitions geo-neo-post
1 February – 28 April 2013 viktor hulik: ars geoMetrica 2
Vasarely Museum, 14 March –- 12 May 2013 helMut newton 1920 – 2004
4 April – 14 July 2013 hanDs-on art for all in each other’s hanD
2 May – 26 May 2013 collection grauwinkel 1982–2012 – thirty years of concrete art
Vasarely Museum, 11 May – 11 September 2013 carla accarDi – losing the threaDs of voice, the artists froM the farnesina collection
Vasarely Museum, 6 June – 25 August 2013 egon schiele anD his age 26 June – 13 October 2013 fifthly – exhiBition of Mária BerhiDi anD és kaMilla szíJ 27 September – 24 november 2013 interspaces – international exhiBition in the vasarely MuseuM 16 October 2013 – 10 January 2014 caravaggio to canaletto, the glory of italian Baroque anD rococo painting 26 October 2013 – 16 February 2014 Bálványos–rieDl: opencloseD space Vasarely Museum, 5 December 2013 – 14 February 2014 triuMph of perfection – raphael, renaissance Drawings anD prints froM the MuseuM of fine arts BuDapest 18 December 2013 – 30 March 2014
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h i g h l i g h t e D w or k s of a rt a sicilian askos
Spring – 12 March – 2 June 2013 a top s y- t u rv y w or l D – t h e g r ot e s q u e
Summer – 25 June – 8 September 2013 the sirens' singing
Autumn – 17 September – 1 December 2013 Be t w e e n a f r ic a a n D i f r Īqi ya – l at e a n t i q u e p o t t e r y f r o M t u n i s i a
Winter – 17 December 2013 – 2 March 2014
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L I S T O F N E W P U B L I C AT I O N S
K. A. K Ó T H A Y – É . L I P T A Y E D S . , E G Y P T I A N A R T E F A C T S
OF THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS BUDAPEST, BUDAPEST 2013
ZSUZSANNA DOBOS, DÓRA SALLAY, AND ÁGOTA VARGA EDS.,
CARAVAGGIO TO CANALETTO, THE GLORY OF I TA L I A N B A R O Q U E A N D R O C O C O PA I N T I N G , B U D A P E S T 2 0 1 3 ZOLTÁ N KÁ R PÁT I – E S Z T E R S E R E S , R APHAEL:
D R AW I N G S I N B U D A P E S T, B U D A P E S T 2 0 1 3 KATA B OD OR E D. , EGON SCHIELE AND HIS AGE, BUDAPEST 2013
ZOLTÁN KÁRPÁTI AND ESZTER SERES. RAPHAEL. DRAWINGS IN BUDAPEST . M U S E U M O F F I N E A R T S , B U D A P E S T, 2 0 1 3 . 1 5 6 P P, 8 5 I L L U S T R AT I O N S
Researching the Museum of Fine Arts’ Collection of Prints and Drawings is a process that never comes to an end, this being obviously true for all prominent art collections. The same applies even to works, either autograph or debated, by such masters as Raphael, whose art has attracted the unfailing and fervent attention of artists, biographers, theoreticians and art historians for some five hundred years. The present volume, published on the occasion of the exhibition titled The Triumph of Perfection: Raphael: Drawings and Prints from the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest (18 December, 2013 – 30 March, 2014), contains in-depth studies on the six Budapest drawings directly linked to Raphael, and on his Esterházy Madonna, included in the context of drawings for its underdrawings. Four of the Museum’s Raphael sheets and the painting are discussed by Zoltán Kárpáti, and two drawings by Eszter Seres. Detailed entries on Raphael’s Budapest drawings were last written by Loránd Zentai in his catalogue for the Museum’s 1998 exhibition devoted to sixteenth-century Central Italian drawings of the collection. 187
The art historical results conducted since then and the findings of recent technical examinations have prompted the authors of the current volume to a comprehensive reconsideration of Raphael’s Budapest drawings. Their analyses also focus on the organization of Raphael’s workshop, the technical aspects and the execution of the works, the relationship between masters and workshops, as well as the circumstances of commissions and patrons’ requests; in other words, issues relating to the realization of artworks. Thus, the catalogue, both intentionally and unintentionally, draws attention to the fact that the spiritual content and the practical aspects of craftsmanship are integrally linked, and even the most sublime ideas are given form here on earth, jointly created by the imagination, the mind, and the artist’s hand. The seven studies also highlight the brilliant dynamics characterising Raphael’s artistic career, which extended merely over two decades. Our review solely seeks to summarize the major findings and hypotheses contained in the volume. Zoltán Kárpáti argues that The Assumption of the Virgin—drawn by Raphael for his first Perugian altarpiece, is not a modello, but together with its counterpart in the Louvre is a detailed pen drawing originally attached to the contract; its autograph status is substantiated both by the excellent quality clearly revealed by the infrared reflectograph, and by the fact that the young painter changed the theme of the composition and eventually painted the Coronation of the Virgin. In connection with Raphael’s drawing from his early Florentine period, probably depicting Saint Jerome, the author claims that it has previously been mistakenly suggested as one of the master’s first life studies after a model, and it is actually linked to the tradition of using pattern-books containing antique and contemporary prototypes. This late Quattrocento eclectic method of figure construction is completely different from Leonardo’s and Michelangelo’s new approach of anatomical drawing. Technical examination also produced a positive result in the case of the compositional study for Marcantonio Raimondi’s engraving, The Massacre of the Innocents, described as “a restrained and stylized tableau of violence”. Kárpáti observes: “The ultraviolet induced luminescence image shows the drawing’s vigorous character, and the confident and sweeping strokes of pen clearly contradict the features of a possible copy.” In regard to its function, the author attributes the drawing a role similar to that of “auxiliary cartoons”, and regards it as a meticulously executed work that helped the engraver in the exquisite elaboration of the print, and replaced the modello that was destroyed during the composition’s transfer onto the copperplate. Following the detailed analysis of the Esterházy Madonna’s preparatory drawing, today in the Uffizi, and the painting’s underdrawing, the author concludes that despite its almost identical size and pricked contours the drawing in Florence cannot have been the final cartoon for the painting but rather an intervening study from 188
which Raphael made a further drawn copy. The underdrawing on the panel outlines only the main contours of the composition, which indicates that the execution of the famous painting was certainly preceded by a sequence of preparatory drawings, but no cartoon was used. Raphael’s sheet with a study on both sides was certainly made in Rome: the verso bears a sketch for a detail of the Disputa fresco. Eszter Seres argues that this sketch was made early in the preparatory process, during which major alterations were introduced to the entire composition. The purpose of the Design for a Temporary Decoration on the recto, with a figure of Mars inspired by the Apollo Belvedere and a putto holding an inverted torch, will probably remain unrevealed forever, since the design seems likely to have never been carried out. The Venus, executed all’antica in the traditional technique of silverpoint in the second decade of the sixteenth century, when pen and chalk drawings dominated, does not precisely correspond to any of Raphael’s painted Venuses. In relation with the drawing, the master’s close connection with classical antiquity is discussed in detail. Kárpáti refutes any links between this study and the frescos of the Loggia di Psyche, apart from their shared subject matter, and connects it to Raimondi’s engraving, The Judgement of Paris, and its preliminary drawings. In her discussion of the Head of an Angel, from Raphael’s late period, Seres provides insight into the practices and organisation of Raphael’s workshop, in which Giovanni Francesco Penni and especially Giulio Romano played an outstanding role. As Raphael’s colleagues were capable of drawing in the same manner and to the same high standard as Raphael, “all that is certain is that [the Head of an Angel] was created in Raphael’s workshop, probably during the initial phase of the preparation of the fresco”. Confuting the hypothesis that the drawing is a fragmentary cartoon, the author excludes the possibility of the work’s original function as an ‘auxiliary cartoon’. She concludes that the drawing, which has long been associated with the angel holding a candelabre in a finally unrealised fresco of the Sala di Costantino, “was most likely intended as a simple head study directly preceding the execution of the final cartoon”. The volume ends with a detailed check-list of the seven Budapest works, including their complete bibliography. Vilmos Tátrai is curator of the Old Master Gallery, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.
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s t i l l i n t e r f e r e nc e s on pa pe r The artistic activity of the American artist of South Korean origin, Nam June Paik (Seoul, 1932 – Miami, 2006) has become associated with two trends: the Fluxus movement and media art.1 International art history tends to simply refer to him as the “father” of video art,2 a genre that emerged in the 1960s,3 this obviously being an oversimplified approach as Paik’s art is far too diverse and complex to be fit into a single category. It is undeniably true, however, that Paik was one of the first multimedia artists—besides, among others, the German Wolf Vostell (1932–1998)—who used television and video technology in many of his epoch-making artworks, installations and performances. Paik was exploring new, untrodden paths all his life, and thus experimented with connecting television, computer and video technology, as well as adapting technical and electronic solutions and ICT devices to the field of fine art. According to the German art historian and curator Florian Matzner, “Paik is one of the first artists who used the achievements of technology and science for his own purposes after World War II, to play with them and to transform and juxtapose them with one another.”4 From the 1960s onwards television and computers were the status symbols of the Western middle class, emblematic of openness to the world as well as of communication and accessing information at an international level. In his essay titled Random Access Information, Paik wrote: “There is art and there is communication, and the curves of the two sometimes overlap. (A significant part of art has no communicative
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relevance and a significant part of communication has no artistic content). At their intersection there is something like an apple seed. This will be our theme—maybe our dream as well.”5 By the 1980s, media became the main channel of social interaction and communication, and as a result of the simulacrum theory developed by Jean Baudrillard in 19816—according to which real social relations have been replaced by mere signs and symbols, and human experiences are only simulations of reality—virtuality exerted an influence also on Nam June Paik, Blurry borderlines between reality and fiction, as well as issues of manipulation and simulation constituted the central message of a great many of his works. Paik was a versatile artist, who surpassed the previous rigid borderlines between genres and simultaneously composed music, created performances, conceptual art works, built objects and
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installations, worked with television, video and the internet, and installed entire environments, while continuously painting on canvas as well as making drawings and prints on paper. He was challenging the borderlines of technology and fine art, thus establishing art forms that generated a fundamentally new approach in contemporary fine art. Paik was a truly international artist and a “cultural nomad”7: born in Seoul, he learned philosophy and music history at universities in Tokyo and Munich, pursued studies in musical composition in 1957–1958 at the Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg, before he finally settled in New York in the middle of the 1960s. After his early, passionate interest in the musical works of the Austrian artist Arnold Schönberg (1874–1951), and his general enthusiasm towards avant-garde music, in the 1950s in Germany he made the personal acquaintance of contemporary experimental composers, Karlheinz Stockhausen, John Cage, György Ligeti and David Tudor , whose influence is clearly manifest in Paik’s compositions dating from the following years (e.g. Hommage à John Cage, 1960, and Etude for Pianoforte, 1960). Participating in the western Fluxus movement, he turned to fine art in the early 1960s: he took part in one of the Dusseldorf events of the first European Fluxfest in Germany in 1962 with his action music performance titled One for Violin. He also met Joseph Beuys (1921–1986) at this time. Paik became internationally known in the art world in spring 1963, when he put on his first solo exhibition at the Wuppertal Galerie Parnass, titled Exposition of Music—Electronic Television, where he displayed deformed television sets.8 He installed these so-called video sculptures sporadically in space, and so the televisions appeared as autonomous works of art or spatial objects, whose screens only showed interferences or were completely switched-off. With the idea of TV screens disturbed or eliminated by magnetic interference Paik introduced a new visual form and a new medium at the same time. His images created by electronic manipulation, his “video walls” (screen-compositions) that grew ever more monumental during the years, and his installations built from images on screens had been simple experiments at the beginning, only known to a narrow circle. The real breakthrough that brought him worldwide fame was his “media tower” built from 1000 monitors, titled The More the Better, at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. At the 1993 Venice Biennial his work became internationally recognised: his installation constructed from forty-eight different electronic projections won him a Golden Lion award.9 Although Nam June Paik spent a significant part of his life in Western Europe and the United States, Asian origin, oriental tradition and Zen Buddhism played a similarly crucial role in his art as Western philosophical thinking: he created a universal language in all the genres and places where
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he worked. His universality is also evident by the fact that in addition to his video works, a prominent place is occupied in his œuvre by his paper-based works. In his drawings, prints, letters, photo-text combinations, documents, etc. he often used calligraphic, oriental signs, emblems, minute motifs, as well as real and fictitious characters or musical notes of Western culture, to create pseudo sheet music, pseudo television images, and imaginative landscapes or still lifes. Manipulation is an underlying concept in his drawings and prints alike. In the 1970s he began making his so-called “TV drawings”,10 which resemble pages of notebooks or musical sheets infinitely and densely filled with repeated motifs, or frozen images on TV screens. In contrast to real, hissing, non-broadcasting TV screens showing vibrating and oscillating frequency lines, in TV drawings everything is quiet, still and tranquil, being playful rather than representing actual electro-technology. Interferences are replaced on paperworks by horizontally arranged lines of various tiny, still forms and symbols (hearts, cars, flowers, fruits, animals, musical notes, moons, letters, etc.). These works are two-dimensional variations of the heart rhythm of real TV sets, with Paik’s peculiar TV-language unfolding through uninterruptible lines of motifs. The drawing from the 1980s by Nam June Paik that entered the Museum of Fine Arts’ Collection of Prints and Drawings in 2013 is a variation of the earlier TV drawings (fig. 1). The composition shows vertical bands of oriental writing, a detail of which is framed by a schematic face (the outline of a TV set with an antenna). The black and white piece was reproduced in the renowned book titled Niederschriften eines Kulturnomaden. Aphorismen. Briefe. Texte, published by DuMont in 1992,11 the copies of which were pulped because of Paik’s letters included at the beginning of the volume. Throughout his life Paik was preoccupied with the questions of the infinite and the finite (temporality); repeatability and uniqueness; reality and fiction, and these themes are reflected in his paperbased works as well. His inventions executed on paper can be interpreted along such concepts as repetition, variation, vibration, simulation and intensity. As all of these are basic elements of music, a close connection can be detected in Paik’s art between visuality and acoustics. Paik believed that every substance and sound that can be grasped visually has inherent artistic potential. Paik’s “silent” versions of connecting visuality and sound are his pseudo sheet music pieces, among them the signed and numbered colour offset lithograph that also entered the Museum of Fine Arts’ Collection of Prints and Drawings in 2013 (fig. 2). The sheet includes repeated patterns of abstract forms and signs (characters, musical notes, dots and lines) arranged in rows similar to sheet music. Pseudo sheet music is a system of signs constructed from horizontal bands, the beginning and the end of which cannot be defined. It resembles oriental meditation that can be started at any point and continued infinitely.
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Up until 2013, there were no works by Paik in the Museum of Fine Arts’ Collection of Prints and Drawings. The acquisition of two paperworks by the South Korean-American artist further enriched the collection’s international post-1945 holdings, which grew significantly in 2010 thanks to the generous donation of prints (works by Hartung, Tàpies, Uecker, Chillida, Motherwell, Tobey, etc.) by the Swiss Franz Larese and Jürg Janett Foundation. The donated European and American Art Informel prints are now worthily complemented by Paik’s paper-based works, representing a new approach to postWorld War II abstract thinking and non-figurative concepts. Despite what initially seems a contrast, Paik’s visual sheet music works are in a special dialogue with Günther Uecker’s 2012 lithographed pseudo musical scores titled Optical Partitures 1–3—also in the Museum’s collection—in which the same issues of repetition, variation and harmony emerge. In musical terms, neither Paik’s nor Uecker’s scores can be interpreted; however, both works possess individual dynamics and harmony with their silent musical notes coming to life through a kind of inner meditation or simulation. Kinga Bódi is curator of the Department of Prints and Drawings, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.
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notes 1
This is also acknowledged by the fact that the most prestigious international media art award, issued by the Kunststiftung NRW of North Rhine-Vestphalia, was named after Nam June Paik in 2002 (Nam June Paik Award). This award was given to a Hungarian artist Attila Csörgő in 2008.
2
The term video art does not denote a distinct genre, but rather the use of video equipment (camcorder, VCR, monitors) in creating artworks.
3
The term “video art” does not specially denote a distinct genre, but rather the application of video equipment (camcorder, VCR, monitors) in creating artworks.
4
F. Matzner, “Baroque Laser”, in Matzner ed., Nam June Paik. Baroque Laser, Ostfildern 1995, 52.
5
Text first published: Nam June Paik, “Random Access Information”, Artforum XIX, no. 1 (1980), 46–49.
6
J. Baudrillard, Simulacres et Simulation, Paris 1981.
7
The concept of “cultural nomadism” was most distinctly defined in international contemporary art by the Italian art historian Achille Bonito Oliva by chosing the subject of migration of artists and dissolution of cultural borders as the central theme of the Venice Biennial of 1993, where Nam June Paik exhibited in the German Pavilion. See La Biennale di Venezia. XLV. Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte. Punti cardinali dell’Arte, exh. cat., Venice 1993.
8
L. Movin, “The Zen Master of video. Nam June Paik: Between Minimalism and Overkill”, in V. Petersen and M. Torp Øckenholt eds., Electronic Undercurrents. Nam June Paik: Video Sculptures, exh. cat., Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen 1996, 32.
9
Electronic Super Highway—From Venezia to Ulan Bator. Video installation, German Pavilion (together with Hans Haacke), Venice Biennial, 1993.
10
Ch. Müller, “Einführung“. in Nam June Paik. Zeichnungen. exh. cat., Museum für Gegenwartskunst Basel, Basel 2000, III.
11
E. Decker ed., Niederschriften eines Kulturnomaden. Aphorismen. Briefe. Texte, Cologne 1992, 192.
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