2
3 This design for Martyrdom of Saint Andrew is a fine example of an idiosyncratic artist’s inspired draughtsmanship. A première pensée, the drawing is one of Bellange’s most dynamic. Bellange’s origins and training are still somewhat obscure, reflecting little of the status as court painter he would later achieve. He is assumed to be from Lorraine and received much of his artistic education there, likely in the capital Nancy. Early trips to Italy and Paris have been proposed, but are not documented. The first document relating to Bellange (French, 1575–1616) lists him as a resident of La Mothe in Bassigny, near Champagne. Dating from 1595, it is a contract to take on an apprentice, making him at least twenty years old, the age at which artists generally became independent masters. Seven years later, in 1602, he was already established enough to work for Catherine de Bourbon, wife of Henri II, heir to the ducal throne of Lorraine, and he became peintre pensionné to Duke Charles III. Court documents record Bellange’s ceremonial duties. These include decorations for the grand entry of Marguerite de Gonzague for her marriage as the second wife to Henri II, for the 1609 funeral of Charles III and the ceremonial entry of Henri II as ruler the next year, and the creation of a machine pour le Ballet de Madame put on by Duchess Marguerite. Bellange does not seem to have traveled widely, though around 1600–1601 he likely visited the printmaker Crispijn van de Passe in Cologne, and in 1608 was sent by Charles III to France, where he likely visited Paris and Fontainebleau. Antony Griffiths has succinctly outlined the unique culture surrounding Bellange and his role in it.1 Not yet a part of France, in this period Lorraine was a fief of the Holy Inscriptions none Marks none Provenance private New England collection; sale, Sotheby’s, London, 9 July 2014, bought in; Bruce Livie, by 2019; Museum purchase Literature Sotheby’s, London, 9 July 2014, lot 13, bought in 1 Jacques de Bellange Martyrdom of Saint Andrew, n.d. Pen and brown ink on cream laid paper, 27.3 x 18.7 cm. Crocker Art Museum purchase with funds provided by the Anne and Malcolm McHenry Curatorial Fund, 2019.65
4 Roman Empire with a precarious relationship to France and the neighboring Spanish-ruled lands, the Netherlands and Franche-Comté. Nancy, capital of both Lorraine and Bar, was a cosmopolitan city under Charles III, who encouraged a wide variety of industries and immigration to his realm. It was also a religious center, with many convents and monasteries emphasizing its status as a bastion of Catholicism in contrast to nearby Calvinist lands. Like his fellow countryman Jacques Callot, Bellange is now known through his prints, but as Griffiths points out, he was mainly a painter. The few paintings attributed to him share the attractive, unusual elegance of his etchings. Often considered a Mannerist artist, his style and technique are quite distinct from the Dutch Mannerism of Hendrick Goltzius and his contemporaries, whose works he would have known. The grace of his elongated, impossibly tall figures often wrapped in heavy folds of drapery reflects a conscious artifice, while a pleasing compositional rhythm unifies these figures in narrative compositions. The use of parallel hatching placed at various acute angles is a hallmark of the mature Bellange’s etching technique. Bellange’s drawings share many of these characteristics: a majority, whether in ink or chalk, share the bold angular hatching. The Saint Andrew, however, is hatched only in detail. This, along with the lack of wash, means that the artist relies entirely on gestural linear curves to achieve a legible composition. Already bound at one foot, the kneeling saint stretches his arms wide as an attendant prepares to bind them as well. The x-shaped cross of his martyrdom is emphasized not only by the gesture of a soldier, but also by a diagonal line of heads that connects his gaze to it. Around this central diagonal, an oval of bodies, punctuated by gestures and gazes, creates rhythm in the composition. Among surviving drawings by Bellange, perhaps the best comparison is the Saint Sebastian owned by Jeffrey Horvitz. (fig. 1) The precision with which the pen lines define the musculature of each nude saint is similarly skilled, the depiction of the rope is identical, and the shorthand depiction of the lower attendant’s face in the Saint Sebastian is shared by the standing figure at the center of the Saint Andrew. Bellange’s acute angles for the saint’s head in each case adds to the sense of drama. Whereas the Horvitz sheet employs wash to define the saint’s chest and arms further, the Andrew achieves believability without it, in contrast to the somewhat schematic back of the kneeling figure at lower left. fig. 1. Jacques de Bellange, Saint Sebastian, n.d. Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash on buff laid paper, 33.3 x 21.5 cm. The Horvitz Collection
5 Accepted by both Paulette Choné and Sue Walsh Reed,2 the Martyrdom of Saint Andrew is not related to surviving paintings or prints by the artist. Given its differences in figure type and technique from many of the mature Bellange’s drawings, the present author agrees with Reed’s proposal of an early date. 7
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7 Daniel Dumonstier’s opinion of his sitters was typical of his forthright, abrasive personality, which endeared him to some and made others lifelong enemies. This perceptive portrait of a French court official captures the sitter’s own matter-of-fact personality, with little of the flattery Dumonstier describes. Born to a prolific family of French artists—some painters, some sculptors, some goldsmiths—Dumonstier (French, 1574–1645) likely trained with his father, named Cosme the Younger. Cosme, like Daniel’s uncles Étienne the Younger and Pierre, was a portrait draughtsman for the French court. This tradition of portrait drawing rather than painting remained popular during Daniel’s lifetime, falling out of favor soon after. Daniel’s rise at court may reflect the esteem in which his family was held, but certainly his own talents as well: painter to the Dauphin, later Louis XIII, in 1601, he was made painter and valet de chambre to the King, Henri IV, two years later. In 1622, under Louis XIII, he was given an apartment at the Louvre, and four years later was made painter and valet de chambre to Gaston, Duc d’Orléans. Dumonstier’s position at court must have been quite secure, if the anecdotes related in his biography by Gédéon Tallement de Réaux are true. Though educated, with a large library and knowledge of Italian and likely Spanish, he was virulently anti-Jesuit and collected both “sales epigrammes”—essentially dirty poems—and erotic prints, including I Modi, Marcantonio Raimondi’s catalogue of sexual positions made to accompany salacious sonnets by Pietro Aretino. Not only this, but he punctured the pretense of his sitters with impunity, saying that he would not have portrayed the Marquis de Gordes if Inscriptions brown ink, upper left LE CHANCELIER D’ALAIGRE 1642; visible in black light, upper right le Chancelier d... / Jan 1642 / fecit Dumonstier Marks none Provenance Philippe de Béthune, by 1649; Hippolyte de Béthune, by 1665; Nicolas Joly, by 2020; Museum purchase Literature Unpublished 2 Daniel Dumonstier Portrait of Étienne Aligre the Younger, 1642 Black, red, blue, and yellow chalks on buff laid paper, 43.3 x 32.5 cm. Crocker Art Museum purchase with funds provided by the Anne and Malcolm McHenry Curatorial Fund, 2020.98.1 “They are such fools they think they are as I portray them, and pay me better for it. [Ils sont si sots qu’ils croyent estre comme je les fais, et m’en payent mieux].”1
8 not by royal command, as the Marquis was far too ugly2 and inscribing Madame de la Grillière’s portrait “She remembered everything except paying. [Elle n’a oublié qu’à payer].”3 Étienne Aligre the Younger is one of many courtiers Dumonstier depicted, and he portrayed seemingly everyone important at court, though more female than male portraits survive. Many of these, including the present drawing, passed from the artist’s estate to Philippe de Béthune, ambassador to the Holy See under two popes and brother of the royal treasurer Maximilien de Béthune, Duc de Sully. The inscription visible at upper left dates from this time and, like a few other of Béthune’s inscriptions, it is erroneous— the sitter’s name is Aligre not Alaigre and he was not chancellor until 1674, though his father had served in the post earlier. The sitter, fittingly for an eminent court official, was depicted many times. The first dated print seems to be that by Frosne in 1655, making this perhaps his earliest known portrait.4 A landowner and scion of an ambitious family, Aligre’s court appointments include ambassador to Venice in 1624, conseiller d’État in 1635, directeur des finances in 1648, garde des Sceaux in 1672, and chancellier de France for Louis XIV in 1674. The court chronicler Louis de Rouvroy, Duc de Saint-Simon mentions the drama surrounding Aligre’s appointment as garde des Sceaux, or keeper of the King’s seals, without which no royal document was valid. With the office of chancellor vacant after the 1672 death of Pierre Séguier, the King left it so, thereby making Aligre the most powerful administrator in France and thwarting the ambitions of his ministers Colbert and Louvois, leaders of opposing factions.5 After two years of faithful service Aligre was rewarded with the chancellorship itself. In the present drawing, Aligre’s intelligent, care-worn face bears the signs of growing responsibility for an ambitious courtier in mid-career, as opposed to the rather unworried, good-natured personage that emerges from the portraits made later in his life. This perceptive view into character is one of the real strengths of French portrait drawing and, like most, Dumonstier’s portraits were created as works of art in their own right—only one is squared for transfer.6 To this end the artist focuses on physiognomy at the expense of the costume which, however, is enlivened by the use of color. This is in blue and yellow pastel, a medium which Dumonstier was apparently the first in his family to use.7 Consonant with his male portraits, in conception it is especially like a portrait of M. de Wailly in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, and one of the comte de Clermont de Lodeve in Chantilly, according to Nicolas Joly.8 Both sitters, wearing stiff upper garments, address the viewer with their gazes. The two portraits date from around 1625. Other such portraits, though made a decade later, are a portrait of Axel Oxenstierna in Stockholm and one of Aligre’s predecessor as garde des Sceaux, Pierre Séguier, now in Saint Petersburg.9 Though not as striking as another of Dumonstier’s types, in which the clothing is merely outlined below a marvelously lifelike face, as a tout-ensemble this portrait of Aligre is made all the more effective with a believable body bearing the head of an astute, quick-witted courtier. 7
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11 The words of Giovanni da San Giovanni’s master Matteo Rosselli, recorded by the early biographer Francesco Baldinucci, show how much the younger artist was regarded as a prodigy. Born Giovanni Mannozzi (Italian, 1592–1636) in San Giovanni Valdarno, the town that provided his nickname, he was originally meant to be a cleric but rebelled, entering Rosselli’s studio in Florence at the age of sixteen. His talent gained him not only important early commissions for the Casa Buonarroti and the dome of the Ognissanti church, but also membership in the Accademia del Disegno in 1612. After completing a fresco on the exterior of Cosimo II de’ Medici’s house in the Piazza della Calza, he was made familiare di corte, along with Jacques Callot and Filippo Napoletano. In 1619 he directed a team of artists, which included Filippo, on the decoration of the Palazzo Antella in Piazza Santa Croce, then in the process of being remodeled by the architect Giulio Parigi. A year later the artist went to Rome, where Florentine connections at the papal court brought him both commissions such as the apse fresco for Santi Quattro Coronati and admission to educated circles, where his own taste for the recondite and sense of irony were welcomed. This is evidenced in his fresco of Night for the Palazzo Bentivoglio, now Rospigliosi Pallavicini, a playful and learned counterpart to Guido Reni’s Aurora there. In 1628 he returned to Florence and began work for outlying churches such as those at Badia a Settimo and Badia Fiesolana. Two years later he frescoed the Medici villa at Castello with episodes from Apuleius, and in 1635 another Medici project for the salone at Palazzo Pitti. It was his last, as he died before it was completed. Inscriptions black chalk, upper left Cav.re Calabrese Marks none Provenance Horace Walpole, by 1797 (not in 1842 sales); C. & J. Goodfriend; Susan Hill, by 2014; gift to the Museum Literature unpublished 3 Giovanni da San Giovanni Death of Dido, n.d. Red chalk on buff laid paper, 24.1 x 17.8 cm. Crocker Art Museum, gift of Susan L. Hill in honor of Curator William Breazeale, 2019.124 “After three years Rosselli told him he didn’t know what else to teach him. [D]opo tre anni [il Rosselli] gli disse che non sapeva più che gli insegnare.]”1
12 The subject of the Crocker drawing was identified as the Death of Dido by James Goodfriend. He based this on the object at lower right, which he reads as an architectural ruin, and on a drawing by Parmigianino of Dido falling on a sword. Depictions of the Classical version of the story most often show her death by dagger, as he notes, and often include some indication of the pyre she has cast herself upon. The medieval episode recounted in the Roman de la Rose is most often illustrated instead with Dido falling on a sword rather than stabbing herself with a dagger. Though not translated except for a thirteenth-century version existing in a single manuscript, it was likely not ignored entirely in Italy. Several drawings by Parmigianino depict women dying by sword. That in the Courtauld Gallery2 depicts Dido lying on the ground, her pierced body resting on the sword’s hilt. In the background a breastplate and shield, those Aeneas left behind in his hasty departure, rest on what seems to be the pyre Dido has built, clouds of smoke appearing at left. The drawing in the Morgan Library, however, has few clues to the iconography: a tablet with an illegible inscription appears at lower left, and the landscape is barren except for tree trunks. Arthur Ewart Popham,3 noted that the subject of Lucretia formerly given to the Morgan drawing takes place indoors, and identified the subject as Thisbe, even without the usual body of Pyramus visible somewhere close by. The object at lower right in the Crocker drawing determines the subject. The present writer, like Goodfriend, sees it as architectural, specifically a Corinthian capital. It may, as he proposes, symbolize Dido’s city of Carthage, but to this writer it seems as probable that, by metonymy, it represents the tomb under the mulberry tree where the final meeting of Pyramus and Thisbe took place, or perhaps the fountain that appears in the version in Boccaccio’s De claris mulieribus, equally likely as Ovid for Giovanni to use as a source. Unclear marks above the form may indicate the opening of a tomb as well. fig. 2. Giovanni da San Giovanni, Studies of a Seated Female Figure, 1607–1636. Red and black chalk on cream laid paper, 21.6 x 34.4 cm. British Museum, London, inv. no. 1874,0110.424
13 The Crocker drawing, formerly known as being by Mattia Preti, as indicated by the inscription, was given to Giovanni by John Spike. The artist’s graphic habits are present, especially in the flowing drapery with characteristic hatching—gestural, parallel, with few changes in angle. The pose of the head reverses that in a drawing of two female half-length figures in red chalk in the British Museum. (fig. 2)4 Of the two figures, the one on the left is almost an exact mirror image of the head in the Crocker drawing, down to the graceful curve of the neck. Both share the dark eye socket and lashes, the angular nose, and the shape of the chin. Whereas in the British Museum drawing the contours can be quite dark, perhaps strengthened in areas by the artist returning to them with wetted chalk, variations are slighter in the Crocker drawing. Given these similarities, this writer concurs with Spike’s opinion on the latter’s authorship. 7
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15 S on of a Florentine painter, Matteo Confortini, and brother of another, Pietro, Jacopo Confortini (Italian, 1602–1672) trained under his father and perhaps with Giovanni da San Giovanni. Besides the latter, with whom he certainly collaborated in his maturity, Jacopo was influenced by Matteo Rosselli and Giovanni Biliverti. He gained Florentine citizenship, necessary to open his own studio, in 1617. By 1621 he was at work on the Casino Mediceo, a prestigious collaborative fresco project for cardinal Carlo de’ Medici that included Rosselli among its artists. Confortini joined the Accademia del Disegno in 1628 and, three years later, created the work for which he is best known, lunette frescoes for the Vallombrosan church Santa Trinita. In church records he is noted as “Frate,” or monk and, in fact, nearly all of his work after the 1620s is religious. Information on Confortini is sparse, since he was ignored by the biographer Filippo Baldinucci, chronicler of his generation of Florentine artists. One reason for this may be the nature and quality of Confortini’s later production, which consisted almost entirely of altarpieces for minor churches in outlying towns, repetitive in composition with only a few exceptions. The Crocker drawing is related to an unexecuted project that, along with the Casino Mediceo frescoes, represents a major part of Confortini’s known secular production. This is a scene of musicians playing for a dining couple, for which six drawings survive. The two compositional drawings differ in the setting for the meal, with one interior and one exterior. A watercolor in the Uffizi, generally considered to be final, is the interior version and does not include this figure, whereas the other, now in Weimar, shows the Crocker figure as an onlooker at right. (fig. 3) (fig. 4)1 In both, a meal at a central table—rather sketchily drawn in the Weimar sheet—is accompanied by music. A seated man plays the Inscriptions none Marks none Provenance Sotheby’s, London, 6 July 1978, lot 75; Jean-Luc Baroni, by 1991; Stephen Ongpin, by 2007; Museum purchase Literature Shields et al. 2010, p. 120; Stephen Ongpin, Old Master, 19th Century and Modern Drawings presented by Stephen Ongpin, Winter Catalogue, London, 2007, no. 10; Jean-Luc Baroni, An Exhibition of Master Drawings presented by Jean-Luc Baroni at Colnaghi, New York and London, 1991, no. 26; Sotheby’s London, 6 July 1978, lot 75 4 Jacopo Confortini A Standing Cavalier, Seen from Behind, n.d. Red chalk on cream laid paper, 20.4 x 14.7 cm. Crocker Art Museum purchase with funds from the Anne and Malcolm McHenry Fund, 2008.26
16 fig. 3. Jacopo Confortini, Musicians Accompanying Diners, n.d. Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, brush and red and blue watercolor and white opaque watercolor on cream laid paper, 18.1 x 27.6 cm. Uffizi, Florence, inv. no. 1847 S fig.4. Jacopo Confortini, Banquet with Musicians, mid 17th century. Red chalk on cream laid paper, dims. Klassik Stiftung Weimar, inv. no. KK 2833 theorbo, a fretted instrument of the lute family with an extended neck supporting diapason strings. Behind him stand a violist and a flautist. The Weimar sheet is more convivial with its outdoor setting, and better composed. The building and standing figures balance the musicians, with the two groups framing the revelers. There are many similarities between the standing figures at right and the figure in the Crocker drawing, down to the drapery folds and the shoelaces, though the feathers projecting from the rakish hat are better defined and the sleeve and sword are cropped by the edge of the paper. The Weimar drawing also explains the tangle of lines above the Crocker figure’s left shoulder, which resolve into the head and shoulders of his interlocutor. A similar tangle is found at the right edge of the Weimar sheet, indicating that a third figure was perhaps planned for the group. The Crocker drawing’s style is perfectly consonant with that of Confortini’s standing male figures, the swooping curves of the wool cape providing more dynamism than found in many other examples. One of these, sold at Christie’s in 2012,2 could almost be the Crocker figure seen from the front, were it not for the opposite arm akimbo, the different angle of the sword, and the fluffier feathers in the cap. Another figure sold in Paris in 2015, seen this time from the back, is differently draped but otherwise close to the Crocker drawing.3 Roberto Contini has dated the Uffizi drawing and those related to it to the years just before 1630.4 To this writer it seems that the Crocker drawing should bear a similar date. 7
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19 One of the most original artists in seventeenth-century Florence in terms of style, Cecco (short for Francesco, Italian, 1607–1661) received a varied artistic education under Giovanni Biliverti and Sigismondo Coccapani, before working with Matteo Rosselli. By 1629, when he was 28, he led a workshop with assistants. Following this he became known as a fresco painter, soon working in the church of Santissima Annunziata frescoing portraits of famous Tuscans for the Casa Buonarroti in 1636, and in the following two years working in Palazzo Pitti. These were the years Pietro da Cortona was working there as well, which seems to have provoked a stylistic reassessment. 1637 saw Cecco installed as an Accademico del Disegno and, in 1656, he was appointed professor of life drawing—maestro del naturale—in the Accademia del Disegno. However, it seems by this time he had waned in favor among his colleagues. In 1660, Archduke Ferdinand Karl of Tyrol and Further Austria called Cecco to his court in Innsbruck. The relationship between ruler and artist was likely already well-developed, as the Archduke and his wife, Anna de’ Medici, had spent much time at the Florentine court. Cecco’s time in Innsbruck was troubled and brief, however, and he died there a year after his appointment. Cecco is better known as a frescoist than an easel painter, and partly since no signed or dated independent paintings are known, attributions are still somewhat muddled. His style, however, is rather distinct, reflecting a certain furious energy in both paintings and drawings. Of the latter, most are in red chalk, and surviving identified drawings are predominantly male nudes characterized by chiaroscuro, soft surfaces, and networks of broken lines interacting to create form. Inscriptions none Marks none Provenance Luca Parasassi, Florence; Jeffrey Ruda, by 1991; gift to the Museum Literature Shields et al. 2010, p. 105 5 Attributed to Francesco Montelatici, called Cecco Bravo Male Nude, n.d. Red chalk on cream laid paper, 40.6 x 27.2 cm. Crocker Art Museum, gift of Jeffrey Ruda, 2012.99.2
20 Perhaps the best parallel to the Crocker drawing among Cecco’s works is a standing male nude formerly in the Woodner collection, sold in 1991. (fig. 5)1 Likewise in red chalk, the figure shares the grace of pose and angle of the upturned head, and like the Crocker drawing, uses a support to hold the pose—a staff for the ex-Woodner drawing, a rope for the Crocker one. There are significant differences, however, in that for the Crocker drawing the shading is more restrained and the contours less jagged. Most striking is the lack of contextual shading or cast shadow outside the figure, creating an impression of airlessness. Though both shading and shadow are present in the Woodner drawing, some of Cecco’s drawings now in Copenhagen are similar to the Crocker drawing in this regard.2 Given the relative restraint in draughtsmanship, the single-minded focus on the figure at the expense of context, and the use of the rope to hold the pose, it seems the Crocker drawing, considered as Cecco’s work, would fit best in the years of his professorship as maestro del naturale, and in the life drawing classroom. 7 fig. 5. Cecco Bravo, Standing Male Nude, 1637–1638. Red chalk, heightened with traces of white chalk on buff laid paper, 41 x 26.8 cm. Art Institute of Chicago, George B. and Mary A. Young Fund; Harold Joachim Endowment, inv. no. 1992.133
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23 Cornelis Saftleven’s father Herman, brothers Herman the Younger and Abraham, and niece Sara were all artists. Though he was born in 1607 in Gorinchem, the family originated in Rotterdam and returned there while he was still a child. Cornelis (Dutch, 1607—1681) trained in the city and, around the age of twenty, was made a member of the guild of Saint Luke. An undocumented trip to Antwerp around 1632–1634 is proposed on the basis of changes in Saftleven’s style; a portrait of him made by Anthonie van Dyck, later engraved for his Iconography series of portraits, may date from this trip. Saftleven is recorded as receiving a painting commission in Utrecht in 1634–1635. By 1637 he returned to Rotterdam, where he led a quiet but very productive life as an artist. Saftleven’s paintings are varied. His many portraits include some collaborations with his brother Herman the Younger, and his genre subjects encompass interiors, rural scenes, animal paintings, and landscapes. In mythological and Old Testament paintings the landscape often predominates as well, though this is less so for his New Testament works. The artist is especially appreciated for his satires on specific events and, on human nature in general. Supernatural subjects, including human torments and scenes of Hell, are also prized. Among Saftleven’s drawings, the same varied categories are represented. Around 250 sheets are known to survive, of which over half bear dates. Most, like the present drawing, are in black chalk on white paper, though some early examples employ oiled chalk and a few later ones watercolor. Saftleven occasionally repeated compositions in autograph replicas.1 The Crocker drawing belongs to a kind not represented among Saftleven’s paintings: single figures, many with props or performing an activity, isolated in space. These ‘naer het Inscriptions black chalk, lower right: CSL (in ligature) / 1637; verso, graphite, lower left: Cornelis Saftleven; verso, graphite, lower right: 127 twee Stuk; graphite, lower right corner: MRPSSX (another hand:) 182 Marks Lugt 4665 (Meissner) lower left verso Provenance Stefan von Licht, by 1927; his sale, Hugo Helbing, Frankfurt am Main, 7, December 1927, lot 310 (bought in); sale, Dorotheum, Vienna, 9 December 1932, lot 537; Artaria, Vienna; Dorotheum, Vienna, 7 April 1933, lot 326; Kurt Meissner; The British Rail Pension Fund; their sale, Sotheby’s, New York, 8 January 1991, lot 120; Christie’s, London, 4 July 2000, lot 220; David Tunick, by 2015; gift to the Museum Literature Adam Woolf, Sackbut Solutions, a Practical Guide to playing the Sackbut, Mechelen, 2012, ill. p. 156; Christie’s, London, 4 July 2000, lot 220; Sotheby’s, New York, 8 January 1991, lot 120; Wolfgang Schulz, Cornelis Saftleven, Berlin, 1978, no. 149 and p. 63; Françoise Forster-Hahn, Old Master Drawings from the collection of Kurt Meissner, exh. cat. Stanford, 1969, no. 63; Handzeichnungen alter Meister aus schweizer Privatbesitz, exh. cat. Bremen and Zürich, 1967, no. 149; A. P. Mirimonde, “Les cabinets de musique,” in Jaarboek van het Koninklijke Museum voor Schoone Kunsten te Antwerpen, 1966, pp. 161–162; Gemälde und Zeichnungen alter Meister, Kunsthandwerk aus Privatbesitz, Bern, 1944, no. 150; Dorotheum, Vienna, 7 April 1933, lot 326; Dorotheum, Vienna, 9 December 1932, lot 537; Hugo Helbing, Frankfurt am Main, 7, December 1927, lot 310 6 Cornelis Saftleven A Seated Man Playing a Sackbut, 1637 Black chalk on cream laid paper, 25.2 x 19.2 cm. Crocker Art Museum, gift of Neil Kreitman in honor of Lial A. Jones, 2015.14
24 fig. 6. Cornelis Saftleven, Cello Player, 1631. Black chalk on cream laid paper, 24.9 x 16.6 cm. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, inv. no. NMH 2183/1863 fig. 7. Cornelis Saftleven, Sitting Boy with Flute, 1665. Black chalk on cream laid paper, 27.4 x 19.7 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. RP-T-1902-A-4570 leven’ drawings, done directly from life, are among the most famous of the artist’s works.2 The sitters, generally male, range from young to old and are dressed in cloaks, rich finery, or the more modest type of dress seen here. The musicians among them cannot be connected directly with paintings, and few drawings in general can be connected with paintings that include musicians.3 No painting includes a sackbut player. Among the drawings securely attributed to Saftleven, two of cello players are dated 1635 and 1636, directly before the year of the Crocker drawing. The first, now in Stockholm, shows a young man with long hair sitting on a three-legged chair. (fig. 6)4 The similarity in pose is striking. As in the Crocker drawing the chair and body are placed at an angle, though the gaze addresses the viewer. The shading and lighting system is quite similar, and the artist’s graphic habits, such as the squarish fingers and the doubled and reinforced contours, are much in evidence in both. Interestingly, the position of the cello, leaning against one knee, and the player’s fist-like bow grip differ significantly both from modern posture and what is considered historical posture by modern players. The second drawing, now in Rotterdam, shows the cellist in a similar pose to the Stockholm sitter, but from the left rather than the right. (fig. xx)5 His costume, like that of his colleague, includes an overshirt but here the collar is closed. He is seated more comfortably, supported by a pillow. As in keeping with the date of 1636, the handling is similar to both the Stockholm and Crocker drawings. A drawing of 1665 illustrates the artist’s continuing interest in musical subjects. (fig. 7) 6 A boy draped in a heavy woolen cloak gazes intently down as he brings what appears to be a straight trumpet to his lips. With fingerholes visible towards its bell, the instrument does not have a modern equivalent. Strangely, his hands and the proportions of his body are those of an adult, and he is shown seated outdoors, two elements that may indicate more fantasy than is usual in Saftleven’s ‘naer het leven’ drawings. Given the type of cloak and the setting, perhaps Classicizing pastoral overtones were intended. The charm of the Crocker drawing lies in its directness, capturing a natural, passing moment in the life of the sitter. Seated on a simple bench, dressed in ordinary clothes, he leans back as he reaches for a low note on his instrument. The drawing is helpful for understanding the history of music, as it shows the seventeenth-century form and playing position of the sackbut, a precursor to the modern trombone. Compared to the current instrument, the sackbut’s bore is more uniformly round and its metal thicker. These characteristics, along
25 with its tighter bell, make it closer in sound to the human voice. The sackbut was generally considered a noble instrument, used in music for church, court, and festivals, but it was also sometimes used for music for civic organizations, dances, or more humble celebrations. The history and characteristics of the instrument he plays raises the question of the sitter’s position in society. Sitting on a bench, seemingly dressed in the garb of an artisan or peasant, he is likely not a court musician, whereas the Stockholm celloist, which his jacket and open shirt over fine trousers, has the air of a more professional player. Whether the Crocker sitter is a member of a festival band, a dance band, or is a professional rehearsing in comfortable clothes, his humble demeanor as he concentrates on his tone adds to the natural, unguarded moment depicted in Saftleven’s drawing. 7
26
27 Once attributed to Jean-Baptiste Greuze, this double academy joins the Crocker’s cache of Jouvenet’s drawings, including an important single figure from his time as professor at the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, to provide a wider view of the artist’s life drawing activity. Born in Rouen to an artistic family, Jouvenet (French, 1644–1717) arrived in Paris in 1661. By 1668 he was winning prizes at the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture. Soon, he was well-regarded enough to assist its founder, Charles Le Brun, with royal commissions including the decoration of the Salon de Mars at Versailles. In 1673 he painted the May, the annual gift of the goldmiths’ guild to the cathedral of Notre-Dame, with the subject of the Healing of the Paralytic. A year later he was agréé and in 1675 reçu, that is to say given first preliminary and then full membership, by the Académie. He took his first post there, as professeur adjoint, in 1676. During this part of his career Jouvenet not only created many portraits and altarpieces, but also enjoyed the patronage of the aristocracy and upper bourgeoisie, in addition to some royal commissions. The 1680s and early 1690s found him accepting commissions outside Paris, and in this period he painted his greatest large-format mythological and religious narratives—the “grandes machines.” Jouvenet worked intensively for the Prince de Conti, though his patronage became sporadic later on. In 1695 Jouvenet received a pension from the King, which inaugurated a new wave of royal commissions. These increased by the early 1700s, including work for Marly, Meudon, and the Trianon at Versailles, as well as the decoration of the chapel there, which he completed in 1709 in collaboration with Charles de la Fosse and Noël Coypel. He became Inscriptions red chalk, lower left: JB (in ligature) Marks unidentified blind stamp, lower right corner Provenance sale, Drouot, Paris, 19 March 1954, lot 47, as Greuze; Rieunier-BaillyPommery at Drouot, Paris, 12 December 1990, lot 62 as Greuze; Jacques Malatier; his sale, SGL enchères at Drouot, 10 October 2018, lot 24; W. M. Brady; Museum purchase Literature Antoine Schnapper and Christine Gouzi, Jean Jouvenet 1644–1717 et la peinture d’histoire à Paris, Paris, 2010, no. D.126 7 Jean-Baptiste Jouvenet Double Academy, n.d. Red chalk on cream laid paper, 15 5/8 x 10 13/16 in. (39.7 x 27.5 cm.) Crocker Art Museum purchase with funds provided by the Anne and Malcolm McHenry Curatorial Fund, 2019.67
28 director at the Académie in 1705 and rector in 1707. Age, however, brought paralysis to his right hand in 1713, and he learned to paint with his left, noting the fact in the signature of an altarpiece in 1716. He died the following year. As a double academy, the Crocker drawing reflects the practice of the life drawing room at the Académie royale. According to Emmanuelle Brugerolles and Camille Debrabant, 1664 was the first year the exercise was based on two models together, and Jouvenet was one of the three professors who set the pose this way most often.1 The life drawing room was highly regulated, with two-hour posing sessions three days in a row each month, with the “attitude” set by the professor. The professor drew the pose beside his students and, in the last part of the session, walked the room to correct their work. The students’ order of entry to the room, and therefore their seating, was determined by quarterly competitions.2 The Crocker’s single figure life drawing by Jouvenet (fig. 8) is certainly from this rule-bound exercise, and bears the date of May 1682, the month Jouvenet was in rotation to set the pose. On tan paper in black and white chalk, it places the figure in context, transforming whatever props were present— crates, ropes, and staffs used to support the model—into forested surroundings. Of Jouvenet’s known surviving life drawings, four are of this type.3 More commonly, the artist employed red chalk alone on cream-colored paper, transmitting any props as they appeared and with only gestural shading to isolate the figure in space. Unlike the first type, these rarely bear inscriptions. In the red chalk group are five double poses, three in the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, a replica of one of these in Dijon, and a drawing offered in Paris in 2008.4 Of these, the three École des Beaux-Arts drawings seem the most consonant in style with that at the Crocker. All five, and it seems the Crocker drawing as well, show a bearded, turbaned model posing with a clean-shaven, bareheaded one. It is possible that they are the same models in each case. Two of the École des Beaux-Arts drawings are dated 1686 and 1689. The three models employed during those dates, two of whom continued to model for many years after, were Francesco Antonio Cascyoli (there 1673–1714), Marc-Aurèle Fleury (there 1685–1704) and François Gobin, called Saint-Germain le fils (there 1684–1689).5 The pose in the Crocker drawing, as with many such poses at the Académie, seems to have been created with a narrative subject in mind, whether that be a soldier and his dying companion, Jupiter abducting Ganymede, or Saint Paul on the road to Damascus and his attendant. As pointed out by Laura Bennett, however, the closest parallel for the lower fig. 8. Jean-Baptiste Jouvenet, Reclining Male Nude, 1682. Black and white chalk on beige laid paper, 39 x 53.6 cm. Crocker Art Museum, E. B. Crocker Collection, inv. no. 1871.517
29 figure’s pose among surviving paintings is Jouvenet’s Descent from the Cross of 1697 for the Église du couvent des Capucines, now in the Louvre. (fig. 9)6 The importance of this celebrated altarpiece is attested by the large number of copies it inspired among later generations of artists.7 The reclining figure’s upper half is nearly identical and the position of the head similar, though the position of the legs differs in keeping with the Passion subject. One aspect of the Crocker drawing calls its context into question. Unlike nearly all Jouvenet’s surviving life drawings of both the black-and-white and red chalk groups, it is quite small. Only one other, a single figure in a Parisian private collection, shares the dimensions.8 Given the highly-regulated nature of life drawing at the Académie, it seems likely that a specific size of paper would have been habitual for posing sessions there and that, possibly, the Crocker drawing represents a less formal posing session in the artist’s studio. Arguing against this hypothesis are the presence of the turbaned figure, the crates and boxes, and the staff used to hold the pose, all seen in many of the larger sheets as well. Whatever the case, the dimensions of the Crocker sheet are exactly half those of the usual paper, if the Museum’s single figure by Jouvenet can be taken as typical. Given the close connection with the 1697 Louvre altarpiece, the drawing should likely be dated shortly before, in the mid-1690s. 7 fig. 9. Jean-Baptiste Jouvenet, The Descent from the Cross, 1697. Oil on canvas, 424 x 312 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv. no. 5493
30
31 This rather fresh Adoration of the Magi, well-composed and filled with exotic detail, has a certain quiet charm. Before the Christ Child, reaching forward from the Virgin’s lap, an ermined king kneels to offer his gift. Another stands at left while the third, his head illuminated by the beam of light radiating from the star above to the Virgin’s head, bows gracefully to the Child. A crowd of attendants, complete with camels, looks on from the distance, while the ox and ass are present at right. As seen in the verso inscription, the drawing entered the Crocker collection as the work of Jan Gossart, called Mabuse, an attribution from an unknown source. The Crocker drawing is difficult to reconcile with Gossart’s known corpus of drawings, expanded by Steen Alstijns in 2010.1 In addition to the fact that only one of these drawings is in chalk, and that same one in black chalk, all of Gossart’s drawings are much more curvilinear, with ornamental flourishes absent entirely here. The Crocker drawing, while remaining Flemish in tone, reflects the influence of Italy in the handling of the bodies, the proportionate anatomy, and the rational construction of space. Stylistically, the Adoration seems to belong best later in the sixteenth century. In the present author’s view, the attribution to Gossart, likely prompted by the combination of Flemish and Italian elements, should be shifted forward, to a later generation that is not Mannerist in the sense of Spranger and his circle, but also not as late as Rubens and his school. Two Flemish artists of that generation who worked in Italy are Denys Calvaert and Pieter de Witte, also known as Dionisio Fiammingo and Pietro Candido. Compositional similarities to a small copper Adoration sold in Munich in 2022 (fig. 10)2 point towards this moment for the drawing: though in reverse, the central relationship between the kneeling Inscriptions verso, graphite, lower center the Nativity / Jan de Mabuse, c. 1470 - ? – 1541? / 7 9/16 x 10 7/8 / His early pictures bear the signature Jannyn Gossaert, his / later ones the Latin signature JOHANNES MALBODINS. He is known / in the records of St Luke’s Guild of Antwerp as JENNYN VON / HENNEGROUWE (John of Hainault), JAN DE MABUSE, JAN GOSSAERT OR / JAN GOSSART / Charles F. Ramus collection / RAL 3873 Marks none Provenance Charles F. Ramus; sale, Butterfield and Butterfield, 20 November 1988; Eva Dencker-Winckler; by descent to Claudia Dencker; Museum purchase Literature unpublished 8 Flemish, 16th-century Artist Adoration of the Magi, n.d. Red chalk on cream laid paper, 27.6 x 19.1 cm. Crocker Art Museum purchase with funds provided by Anne and Malcolm McHenry, 2014.99.2
32 king and the Virgin and Child is quite similar, with elements such as the star and the crowd of attendants with their camels treated analogously. However, Calvaert’s red chalk drawings, as exemplified by his 1598 Marriage at Cana in Edinburgh,3 tend towards a somewhat hard-edged quality not present in the Crocker drawing, and de Witte’s do as well. Whatever the authorship, this Adoration, with its combination of northern and southern European influences and handsome red chalk technique, will reward further inquiry. 7 fig. 10. Denys Calvaert, Adoration of the Magi, n.d. Oil on copper, 57 x 41.4 cm. Private collection
33
34
35 F rancesco Solimena (Italian, 1657–1747) dominated painting in Naples in the first half of the eighteenth century, after the death of Luca Giordano. An artist of varying styles, he remained true to the Classicizing basis of the baroque ultimately derived from Roman painting. The Crocker drawing was employed for a figure in Solimena’s most important mythological work of the mid-1710s, the Apollo and Phaethon pained for Count Wirich Daun, the Austrian viceroy of the kingdom. Son of a painter, Solimena was put on the path to artistic success early in life. His training took place under Francesco di Maria in Naples, where he became aware of the works of Luca Giordano and Mattia Preti. Beginning in the late 1670s, when he was in his early 20s, the artist began to receive commissions from religious patrons and, in 1681, he received a prestigious one from the Abbey of Montecassino. In this early period he concentrated on the graceful naturalism and light of the Roman Baroque. After 1689– 1690, when he worked on the sacristy of San Paolo Maggiore, he modified his style to a heavy chiaroscuro based in his knowledge of Mattia Preti’s works. These two modes of working alternated in following periods—around the turn of the eighteenth century, for example, he returned to a more ideal Roman style at a time he was painting more subjects drawn from ancient history and mythology. At about this time also, and certainly after Luca Giordano’s death in 1705, Solimena’s patrons began to include more nobles and royalty from outside Naples, including Genoa, Venice, and after the 1707 Austrian conquest, Vienna. His Austrian patrons included not Inscriptions black ink, lower center: Solimene; verso, black ink: ...Ciccio. Marks none discernible Provenance Sotheby’s, London, 14 April 1999, lot 4 as attributed to Solimena; Jean-Luc Baroni, by 2014; gift of Alan Templeton Literature Cristiana Romalli, Solimena e le arti a Napoli, Disegni, Rome, 2018, no. D71; Sotheby’s, London, 14 April 1999, lot 4 9 Francesco Solimena Study of a Seated Male Nude for the Artist’s Phaeton and Apollo, circa 1719 Black chalk with touches of white chalk on oatmeal laid paper, 14 1/2 x 10 3/4 in. (36.7 x 27.4 cm.) Crocker Art Museum, gift of Alan Templeton, 2016.2
36 only the viceroy Daun but also the Elector Lothar Franz von Schönborn and Prince Eugene Francis of Savoy-Carignano. In his later career Solimena trained an entire generation of artists in his busy studio. His disciplined curriculum included many artists whose work pupils were encouraged to imitate, but the Neapolitan biographer of artists De Dominici says he emphasized Nicolas Poussin and Carlo Maratta. Solimena’s most important pupils were Francesco di Mura, Corrado Giacquinto, and Sebastiano Conca. The painting for which the Crocker drawing is a study was created for the reception room of Count Daun’s new palace in Vienna, constructed beginning in 1713 and frescoed by Carlo Innocenzo Carlone, Marcantonio Chiarini, and Antonio Bedazzi. Solimena, along with Paolo De Matteis and Giacomo del Pò, painted their canvases in Naples and had them shipped to Vienna.1 In keeping with his idea of the palace as a showplace for Italian, and specifically Neapolitan, art in the Austrian capital, Daun visited the artist frequently as the canvas progressed.2 The subject is Apollo and Phaethon accompanied by a council of gods. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Phaethon asks his father Apollo for permission to drive the chariot of the sun across the sky, a request that for various reasons Apollo cannot refuse. Half-mortal, Phaethon lacks the skill and standing to guide it well, with disastrous results for himself and the earth. Though usually interpreted as a straightforward depiction of hubris and human frailty and thus as a warning to Daun’s many visitors bearing requests,3 Annette Hofer has argued for a different interpretation. Based on her reading of Solimena’s iconography and his literary and pictorial sources, as well as Daun’s political situation, she sees Phaethon as a more positive figure. In her view Phaethon bravely takes on a difficult task as Daun had done in accepting the viceregency, the later moments of the tale serving as a warning to pursue moderation when in power.4 fig. 11. Francesco Solimena, Apollo and Phaeton, n.d. Oil on canvas, 86.4 x 130.8 cm. Crocker Art Museum, E. B. Crocker Collection, inv. no. 1872.142
37 The drawing, like the painting now in Prague’s Narodní Galeri and its modello also in the Crocker collection, is dated between 1713 and 1719 when the palace was completed. (fig. 11) As Cristiana Romalli points out, it may be done from life or from one of the models in wax or terracotta the artist is known to have used.5 The figure, at center left in the painting, appears as Bacchus, crowned with grape leaves and representing harvest time with an aged Winter huddled beside him. Between drawing and painting the angle of the legs has changed slightly and the head now faces the other direction. Another modello, likely preceding the one at the Crocker, was sold at Christie’s in 2001 and uses the figure in the same way.6 However, the first idea for the ceiling design, in which the composition is vertical rather than horizontal, shows the figure of Bacchus more closely derived from the Crocker male nude, with the head facing the same direction. Moreover, these were not the only uses for the figure. As pointed out by Jean-Luc Baroni,7 later, around 1737, Solimena re-used the pose, reversing it precisely from the modified figure in the painted Phaethon versions, for the figure of Hercules in an Allegory with Hymen, Hercules, and the Marital Virtues. Frescoed in the Palazzo Reale in Naples and later destroyed, the composition survives in a modello now in the Palacio Real in Madrid.8 The composition is strikingly similar to that of the Apollo and Phaethon, pyramidal, with the main action at the top above a group of allegorical female figures, and the main elements reversed left to right. Baroni points to two other uses as well, in the Four Seasons canvases for the Hôtel de la Tresne in Bordeaux and the Saints in Glory for Santa Maria Donnalbina in Naples, for which a bozzetto survives.9 Given the changes in pose between the Crocker drawing’s first use in the original, vertical composition for the Apollo and Phaethon and the long series of later uses, it seems that the latter were not based on the Crocker drawing itself. Rather, the modelli for the Daun ceiling of 1713–1719 provided the figure for the later works, whether directly or through another intermediate drawing now lost. 7
38
39 With caricatures of the most important men in Rome, from prelates to ambassadors and visiting aristocrats, Pier Leone Ghezzi provides a window into the eighteenth century and the city’s unique society. His gentle humor points out the foibles behind their public personae, here depicting a rich and powerful prince. Ghezzi (Italian, 1674–1755) was well suited to such a project, given his varied interests and his position in Roman artistic society. Born in 1674 to an artist father who was secretary of the Accademia di San Luca, Ghezzi was the godson of Carlo Maratta, at the time a leading painter.1 Trained as a religious painter in the Classicizing current of Maratta and Giambattista Gaulli, he won the 1695 drawings prize at the Accademia di San Luca. After ten years he was admitted as a member, with his reception piece being an Allegory of Gratitude. He was also soon made a member of the prestigious Accademia dei Virtuosi al Pantheon, an artists’ society founded in 1542. In 1708, Ghezzi’s talent was recognized by Clement XI, who made him painter to the papal court and curator of the papal collections, for which service he was made Cavaliere dell’Ordine di Cristo. Some of his most important projects during the following years were frescoes for the churches of San Clemente and San Giovanni in Laterano, as well as for the papal villa at Castel Gandolfo. After Clement’s death in 1721, Ghezzi gained the patronage of Cardinals Alessandro Falconieri and Melchior de Polignac, though he also received commissions from following popes and, in 1747, returned to Castel Gandolfo to paint another fresco cycle, this time for Benedict XIV. He died in 1755. Inscriptions signed and dated in dark brown ink, across lower margin: A.o Prencipe di Avellino, e l’altro è il suo Cappellano, chiamato D. Ciccio, i quali partirono p Napoli con lal.a Prencipessa d’Avellino, la quale era sorella carnale del N. Duca di Matalona alli 2. di Luglio 1750 fatti dà mè Cav.re ghezzi il 9o del anno sud.o Nella mia età di anni 77.; dark brown ink, mount below image: Il Prencipe d’Avellino col suo Cappellano D. Ciccio. Marks none Provenance Arthur Wellesley, 1 st Duke of Wellington and by descent to the 8th; Robert Light; Woodner family; their sale, Christie, Manson, & Woods, London, 2 July 1991, lot 117; Margot Gordon, by 2009; Museum purchase Literature Christie, Manson, & Woods, London, 2 July 1991, lot 117; William Breazeale, with Cara Dufour Denison and Victoria Sancho Lobis, Reuniting the Masters, European Drawings from West Coast Collections, exh. cat. Sacramento, 2016, no. 4 10 Pier Leone Ghezzi The Prince of Avellino with his Chaplain Don Ciccio, n.d. Pen and brown ink over black chalk on cream laid paper, 32.0 x 22.2 cm. Crocker Art Museum purchase with funds from Anne and Malcolm McHenry and the Anne and Malcolm McHenry Fund, 2009.8
40 Though he painted formal portraits in oils and made drawings after ancient gems, as well as painting altarpieces and frescoes, Ghezzi is remembered better for his caricature drawings, an informal project that he pursued alongside his official career. Early drawings of this nature are varied in content and style, but around 1722–1723 the artist developed a format that, in its essentials, continued for the rest of his life. Figures isolated from their surroundings, often with only slight indications of space, dark brown ink with bold hatching, and explanatory inscriptions at bottom in the artist’s hand are used both for full-sheet and smaller bust caricatures. The many clerics and nobles appear among characters from other social strata: in addition to the papal court and its visitors, architects, hermits, historians, servants, composers, and castrati all had their egos punctured by Ghezzi’s pen. The drawings were assembled into albums, many by the artist himself, who sold twenty volumes to Benedict XIV in 1747.2 Still in the Vatican, these were given the title Il Nuovo Mondo, appropriately enough since it is the Italian term for an eighteenth-century peep-box, which created an amusing view through perspective and distortion. Never malicious, Ghezzi’s caricatures rely on humor and deflation of pretense, such that one can imagine prelates and Grand Tour nobleman seeking out Ghezzi in the hope of being included in his albums rather than avoiding his pen. The Prince of Avellino and his Chaplain Don Ciccio, is a late drawing, made five years before the artist’s death. It was page 18 in the first of three volumes of caricatures owned by the Dukes of Wellington. Containing 201 such caricatures, these albums were sold out of the collection in 1971; two were broken up for the market and one is now in the Morgan Library and Museum.3 Traditionally thought to have been made for Carlo VII, King of Naples and Sicily and from 1759 King of Spain as Carlos III, the date of 1780 on the title page of the Morgan album means they cannot have been assembled for him during his time in Italy. The main sitter in the Crocker drawing is, however, one of Carlo’s staunchest supporters, Marino Francesco Caracciolo, 7th Prince of Avellino. Having taken sides with the Bourbons against the Habsburgs who had ruled Naples since 1714, the prince hosted the new king in 1735, the year after the Austrians were driven out. Awarded the Golden Fleece by Carlo in 1739, the Prince was owner of several of the largest estates in the realm, riches that did not endear him to Carlo’s more suspicious successor Ferdinando IV, who acceded in 1759. The Prince is shown seated, deep in conversation with his confessor, enumerating the points he is making on his fingers. Resplendent in his brocade dressing-gown and turban, he grimaces from a mask-like face, his teeth showing in rows. Opposite sits his chaplain, still dressed in street clothes, glasses perched on his hawkish nose. His name, Don Ciccio, is a playful one, as this dry, wizened figure is the opposite of “ciccio,” which in Italian means “chubby.” Though he seems to listen attentively, the gesture he makes is an ambiguous one. He may be raising his hand to place his pointed chin on it as he listens, but more likely he is scraping it forward in the Italian gesture of boredom or dismissiveness. As noted in the inscription, the Crocker drawing was made on July 9, 1750. It is not the only likeness of the sitters. The profile heads appear in an album in the Gabinetto
41 Nazionale dei Disegni e delle Stampe in Rome, both with the same diligent notation of 2 July as the day the Prince and his entourage left Rome for Naples. The Princess of Avellino, Maria Antonia, appears there as well, one of the relatively rare caricatures Ghezzi made of women in the overwhelmingly masculine society of Rome.4 The inscription on the Princess’ profile places it in April, while that on the Prince’s profile dates it the 20th of that month, noting the departure for Naples on July 2 as well. With this situation, it seems the drawings in the Gabinetto Nazionale album are the artist’s records of likenesses from previous sittings—the Prince’s profile could not have been made on April 20unless the inscription were added later, after July 2. Thus, the first drawings of the Prince and his entourage must have been made in April, and may still exist. 7
42
43 A Dutch artist who spent most of his early career in Germany, Willem Troost (Dutch, 1684–1759) trained with the Italianate painter Johannes Glauber. In 1712, he went to Düsseldorf, where he worked for the Wittelsbach court as a landscapist. After the death of Elector Johann Wilhelm in 1716, he spent many years wandering among other cities of the Rhineland, supporting himself mainly through portraiture. This lasted at least until 1731, when he is recorded executing a portrait commission for the Princess of the Palatinate-Sülzbach in Essen. By 1735 he returned to the Netherlands, first in Haarlem and then in Amsterdam, where he died in 1752. Troost’s oeuvre is unusual in that, once back in the Netherlands, the artist returned to landscape, bookending his long activity as a portraitist. According to Hans Berveek, this was at the instigation of his Haarlem collector, Pieter de Hollander.1 These imaginative, somewhat archaizing compositions were prized during the artist’s lifetime. In addition to his paintings, Troost left a large number of landscapes in watercolor or gouache for which he is best known, as in the present example. In a 1992 exhibition catalogue, Klaus Weschenfelder traces various traditions within Rhine landscape, which constitutes an entire genre. Beside the depictions made with topographical intent, he defines a tradition of Rhine fantasies that finds its origin in Joachim Patinir and the Danube School around Albrecht Altdorfer.2 These often mountainous landscapes, exotic to artists of the Netherlands, then appear in the works of Joos de Momper and Roelandt Savery, the latter being the first to include identifiable Rhine monuments in his fantastic compositions. Wolfgang Schulz then brings the narrative forward to Troost’s time, noting Lambert Doomer and Herman Saftleven as Inscriptions none Marks none Provenance Swann, New York, 23 January 2003, lot 210; Swann, New York, 25 January 2006, lot 173; Anne and Malcolm McHenry; gift to the Museum Literature Swann, New York, 25 January 2006, lot 173; Swann, New York, 23 January 2003, lot 210 11 Willem Troost An Imaginary Rhine Landscape, n.d. Brush and watercolor and opaque watercolor on cream laid paper, 13 1/2 x 18 3/4 in. (34.2 x 47.6 cm.) Crocker Art Museum, gift of Anne and Malcolm McHenry in honor of William Breazeale, 2011.18.2
44 the most important among the wider circle of his predecessors.3 Finally, Patricia Stahl points to a later revival of Saftleven’s manner, which peaked in the third quarter of the eighteenth century, by artists such as Christian Georg Schüz.4 Schüz and his circle, a generation younger than Troost, may well have experienced Saftleven partially through Troost himself. The Crocker drawing relates to this tradition well. With no identifying landmarks, it nonetheless is typical of fantastic Rhine landscapes identified by Weschenfelder and Schulz. The castle on the hills at right is generic, but the architecture resembles that of the mid-Rhine territory near Coblenz. Troost composed the scene carefully, placing a hillock with a house and tree close to the viewer on the left, a deep river landscape with cliffs and rolling hills opening out at right. The foreground is populated by tradesmen and their boats, some pulled up to shore and some setting off down the tributary river towards the Rhine itself. Though the tone of the paper has changed, the delicate and modulated color recalls the sixteenth-century landscape tradition. However, it is the high point of view, unusual for Troost, that most reflects the artist’s earliest predecessors, Patinir and Altdorfer. Their all-encompassing views were employed for grander subjects, but here the intent seems to be pure visual enjoyment of a handsome landscape and prosaic river life. 7
45
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47 One of the most important artists of the first quarter of the eighteenth century and the originator of a new genre of painting, Jean-Antoine Watteau (French, 1684–1721) transformed art in France before his early death at the age of 37. Born in Valenciennes in northeastern France, Watteau was apprenticed there, perhaps to the sculptor Antoine-Joseph Pater. Around 1702 he went to Paris, where he worked for other artists. He met Claude Gillot, a painter and designer for the theater, about three years later. In this period, which lasted until 1708, Watteau collaborated with the elder artist on paintings which often included figures from the commedia dell’arte. Of Italian origin, this was a form of theater that, though frowned upon in French court circles, nonetheless remained quite popular. After this he worked for Claude Audran, a decorative painter, and gained enough recognition to be chosen to compete for the Prix de Rome at the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in 1709. As the top prize was denied to him and the second, which he won, did not fund travel to Rome, he returned to Valenciennes and for a while painted military subjects. Around 1711 Watteau met the royal treasurer and art collector Pierre Crozat and studied his prints and drawings extensively. The next year he was agréé to the Académie royale and his interest in commedia dell’arte subject returned. Soon he had created what became known as the fête galante, a type of painting in which figures in contemporary dress and commedia dell’arte figures interact in timeless, pastoral surroundings, most often with romantic subjects. The artist’s relationship with Crozat continued through a commission for a Four Seasons series in 1716, and he is recorded as part of the financier’s household in Inscriptions none Marks none Provenance Jean Delaigne, by 1914; sale, Lair-Dubreuil, Drouot, Paris, 14 February 1914, lot 123; sale, Lair-Dubreuil, Drouot, Paris, 2 June 1923, lot 101, to Galippe; sale, Hémard, Drouot, Paris, 30 April 1924, lot 143; Matthiesen Gallery, by circa 1946; Baron Paul Hatvany, his sale; Christie, Manson, and Woods, London, 24 June 1980, lot 41; sale, Christie’s, London, 2 July 1991, lot 324; Arturo CuellarNathan; Stephen Ongpin, by 2021; Museum purchase Literature Stephen Ongpin, From Giorgione to Picasso, Master Drawings from Five Centuries, London, 2021, no. 9; Pierre Rosenberg and LouisAntoine Prat, Antoine Watteau, catalogue raisonné des dessins, Milan, 1996, no. 358; K. T. Parker and Jacques Mathey, Antoine Watteau, catalogue complet de son oeuvre dessiné, Paris, 1957, no. 679; Matthiesen Gallery, Catalogue of an exhibition of French Master Drawings of the 18th Century, exh. cat. London, 1950, no. 108 12 Jean-Antoine Watteau A Young Man Looking Down, n.d. Black, red, and white chalks on cream laid paper made up of two sheets, 18.5 x 12.5 cm. Crocker Art Museum purchase with funds provided by Alan Templeton and the Templeton Endowment, 2022.52.1
48 1717. That year he was finally reçu at the Académie royale, with the painting The Pilgrimage to Cythera, now in the Louvre. The category of peintre des fêtes galantes was created expressly for him in the Académie’s structure, though in the hierarchy of genres it remained lower than history painting because of its appeal to the senses. A 1719 trip to London brought commissions from British patrons. Upon Watteau’s return to Paris the next year he was financially devastated by the failure of his investments in John Law’s Mississippi Company, a notorious economic bubble. His health long in decline from tuberculosis, he died of the disease in 1721. The Crocker drawing is done in trois crayons, the combination of black, red, and white chalks popularized by Watteau himself, depicting a dramatically foreshortened head on a figure leaning forward, with a black undershirt and loose striped overgarment. The costume is not easily identifiable as related to the commedia dell’arte or to Watteau’s character studies of Savoyards or figures in Ottoman garb. The artist exploits the full range of possibilities afforded by the medium, combining areas of dark, bold gestural strokes with more subtle blending, and superimposing the chalks to create intermediate tones and shading. A relationship between the Crocker drawing, dated around 1715, and the painting La Surprise, now at the J. Paul Getty Museum, was proposed by Stephen Ongpin. (fig. 12)1 In that painting, typical of the artist’s smaller fêtes galantes, an embracing couple is accompanied by Mezzetin, the flirtatious, scheming servant from the commedia dell’arte, who tunes his guitar. The head of the man is reversed in relation to the present drawing, the lower face obscured, and the hair and costume different. Two other drawings are related to the painting, the figure of Mezzetin in the Louvre2 and a drawing of an embracing couple in the Musée des Arts décoratifs in Paris. (fig. 13)3 The latter, mentioned by Ongpin and discussed at more length by Pierre Rosenberg, is a copy after a painting, La Kermesse, now in the Louvre, by Pieter Paul Rubens. Along with the work of sixteenth-century Venetian artists, Rubens’s works had the most direct influence on Watteau.4 Remarkably, the artist has preserved the entire complicated pose from the Rubens painting to the Musée des arts décoratifs drawing. In the Getty painting based on it, he modifies only the clothing to transfer the invention from an earthy village festival into the fantasy world of the fête galante. Rubens’s painting was fig. 12. Jean-Antoine Watteau, La Surprise, circa 1718–1719. Oil on panel, 36.4 x 28.2 cm. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, inv. no. 2017.72
49 easily available to Watteau, who could have seen it in the Palais du Luxembourg soon after his arrival in Paris, given that Claude Audran was curator there at the time. Compared with the Musée des Arts décoratifs drawing and the figure in La Surprise, the composition of the Crocker drawing has progressed. Reversed left-to-right from those depictions, the figure’s clothing and hair differ in the Crocker drawing and the lower part of the face is present. Though such reversals were common in Watteau’s work—as Davide Gasparotto has pointed out, the dog in La surprise is reversed from Rubens’s Marriage by Proxy of Marie de Médicis and Henri IV5 —the Crocker drawing is unnecessary to his working process for the Getty painting. Perhaps instead it is a reminder of an effective pose, partially reconceived for incorporation in his repertory of motifs. Given that another likely copy by Watteau from the same period, now in Stockholm,6 shows a head at almost the same angle and a different, seventeenth-century costume, it is likely he was exploring several sources for variations on this theme. 7 fig. 13. Jean-Antoine Watteau, TBD
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