Tuesday, August 27, 2019

Timoteo Viti (1469-1523) - Urbino and Rome

Timoteo Viti
Muse Thalia
(painted for Palazzo Ducale, Urbino)
ca. 1495
tempera on panel
Palazzo Corsini al Parione, Florence

attributed to Timoteo Viti
Agony in the Garden
ca. 1490-1500
tempera on vellum
(manuscript illumination)
Cleveland Museum of Art (Ohio)

attributed to Timoteo Viti
Agony in the Garden
ca. 1510
oil on panel
Bristol Museum and Art Gallery

Timoteo Viti after Raphael (designer)
Prophet Hosea and St John the Evangelist
ca. 1514
fresco
Chiesa di Santa Maria della Pace, Rome

Timoteo Viti after Raphael (designer)
King David and the Prophet Daniel
ca. 1514
fresco
Chiesa di Santa Maria della Pace, Rome

"Timoteo, a painter of Urbino, was the son of Bartolommeo della Vite, a citizen of good position, and Calliope, the daughter of Maestro Antonio Alberto of Ferrara, a passing good painter in his day, as is shown by his works at Urbino and elsewhere.  While Timoteo was still a child, his father dying, he was left to the care of his mother Calliope, with good and happy augury, from the circumstance that Calliope is one of the Nine Muses, and the conformity that exists between poetry and painting.  Then, after he had been brought discreetly through his boyhood by his wise mother, and initiated by her into the studies of the simpler arts and likewise of drawing, the young man came into his first knowledge of the world at the very time when the divine Raffaello Sanzio was flourishing.  . . .  The name and fame of Timoteo spread abroad, and he was invited with great insistence by Raffaello to Rome; whither having gone with the greatest willingness, he was received with that loving kindness that was as peculiar to Raffaello as was his excellence in art.  Working, then, with Raffaello, in little more than a year he made a great advance, not only in art, but also in prosperity, for in that time he sent home a good sum of money.  . . .  Now, although Timoteo was well and honourably placed in Rome, yet not being able to endure, as many do, the separation from his own country, and also being invited and urged every moment to come home by the counsels of his friends and by the prayers of his mother, now an old woman, he returned to Urbino, much to the displeasure of Raffaello, who loved him dearly for his good qualities.  And not long after, having taken a wife in Urbino at the suggestion of his family, and having become enamoured of his country, in which he saw that he was highly honoured, besides the circumstance, even more important, that he had begun to have children, Timoteo made up his mind firmly never again to consent to go abroad, notwithstanding, as may still be seen from some letters, that he was invited back to Rome by Raffaello.  But he did not cease to work, and he made many works in Urbino and in the neighbouring cities." 

– from Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects by Giorgio Vasari (1568), translated by Gaston du C. de Vere (1912)

Timoteo Viti
Virgin of the Annunciation with St John the Baptist and St Sebastian
(altarpiece)
ca. 1512-20
oil on panel
Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

Timoteo Viti
Youth with Arm Raised
(study for St Sebastian in Virgin of the Annunciation altarpiece)
ca. 1515
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Timoteo Viti
Noli me tangere, with St Michael Archangel and St Anthony Abbot
(altarpiece)
ca. 1512-14
oil on panel
Chiesa di Sant' Angelo Minore, Cagli

Timoteo Viti
Orpheus
before 1523
drawing
British Museum

Timoteo Viti
Woman leaning against Door-post
before 1523
drawing
British Museum

Timoteo Viti
Study of Standing Model
before 1523
drawing
British Museum

Timoteo Viti
Head of a Woman
before 1523
drawing
British Museum

Timoteo Viti
Study of Seated Model
before 1523
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Timoteo Viti
Study of Standing Model with Staff
before 1523
drawing
British Museum

Timoteo Viti
Figure Studies for The Finding of Moses
before 1523
drawing
British Museum