Friday, March 31, 2023

Poussin's Sacraments - Originals versus Early Copies

Nicolas Poussin
Sacraments I - Baptism
1637-40    
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
(purchased from the Duke of Rutland)

Anonymous copyist working in Rome after Nicolas Poussin
Sacraments I - Baptism
before 1784
watercolor and gouache on paper
Musée du Louvre

Nicolas Poussin
Sacraments I - Confirmation
1637-40
oil on canvas
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
(on long-term loan from the Duke of Rutland)

Anonymous copyist working in Rome after Nicolas Poussin
Sacraments I - Confirmation
before 1784
watercolor and gouache on paper
Musée du Louvre

Nicolas Poussin
Sacraments I - Eucharist
1637-40
oil on canvas
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
(on long-term loan from the Duke of Rutland)

Anonymous copyist working in Rome after Nicolas Poussin
Sacraments I - Eucharist
before 1784
watercolor and gouache on paper
Musée du Louvre

Nicolas Poussin
Sacraments I - Extreme Unction
1637-40
oil on canvas
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
(purchased from the Duke of Rutland)

Anonymous copyist working in Rome after Nicolas Poussin
Sacraments I - Extreme Unction
before 1784
watercolor and gouache on paper
Musée du Louvre

Nicolas Poussin
Sacraments I - Marriage
1637-40
oil on canvas
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
(on long-term loan from the Duke of Rutland)

Anonymous copyist working in Rome after Nicolas Poussin
Sacraments I - Marriage
before 1784
watercolor and gouache on paper
Musée du Louvre

Nicolas Poussin
Sacraments I - Ordination
1637-40
oil on canvas
Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas
(purchased from the Duke of Rutland)

Anonymous copyist working in Rome after Nicolas Poussin
Sacraments I - Ordination
before 1784
watercolor and gouache on paper
Musée du Louvre

Jean Dughet after Nicolas Poussin
Sacraments I - Penance
ca. 1650
engraving
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts
(Poussin's original painting destroyed in a fire in 1816
at Belvoir Castle, seat of the Dukes of Rutland)

Anonymous copyist working in Rome after Nicolas Poussin
Sacraments I - Penance
before 1784
watercolor and gouache on paper
Musée du Louvre

Nicolas Poussin
St John baptising the People
(not a component of the Sacrements series)
ca. 1630-40
oil on canvas
Getty Museum, Los Angeles
(purchased indirectly from the Duke of Rutland)

Anonymous copyist working in Rome after Nicolas Poussin
St John baptising the People
before 1784
watercolor and gouache on paper
Musée du Louvre

" . . . this Poussin is indeed a mighty eagle in his profession, or, to put it more clearly and without using metaphors, he is the most accomplished and perfect of all our modern painters.  It is not difficult to convince scholars of this, men who study and judge matters in the manner of mathematicians, that is to say with precision, on the basis of pure demonstration, through analysis of the principles involved, and without allowing opinion or favour, which are the bane of truth, to intrude.  Others, however, who have only a superficial knowledge, but yet have a very over-inflated view of their own judgment, will see this statement as a paradox, and in so doing render themselves incapable of ever being shown its truth.  That is why I leave them to argue about it, and content myself with having established in this treatise the fundamental principles and the method by which it should be dissected, without involving myself any further in this dispute.  I would only add by way of information that anyone who is curious enough to get to the stage of seeking decisive proof of Poussin's worth will find it amply demonstrated in his set of Seven Sacraments, which are to be seen in Paris at the residence of Monsieur Chantelou, a steward in ordinary to the King, and a close friend of this illustrious Poussin. [Chantelou owned, not the first set of Sacraments illustrated here, but the second set, in the same format, painted a few years later.  Unlike the first set, so disastrously mishandled by the Rutland Estate, the second set is still intact, and currently on view at the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh.]  It is a series of seven uniform pictures, moderate in size, but of extraordinary diligence, in which this noble painter seems to have given us not only a perfect demonstration of the art in accordance with all the parts examined in this treatise, but also an illustration of the highest state of excellence which can be achieved, through his innovation and inventiveness, the nobility of his ideas on each subject, his scholarly and judicious observance of costume (in which he is almost unique), the force of his figures' expressions, and, in a word, all the same qualities discernible in the great geniuses of antiquity . . . "    

– Roland Fréart de Chambray, from An Idea of the Perfection of Painting (1662), translated by Fabia Claris and Bridget Maison (1990)

Thursday, March 30, 2023

Extremely Refined Furniture (17th-18th Centuries)

Jean-Henri Riesener
Drop-Front Secretary (detail)
1783
oak veneered with ebony and Japanese lacquer panels,
gilt-bronze mounts, marble top
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Jean-Henri Riesener
Drop-Front Secretary
1783
oak veneered with ebony and Japanese lacquer panels,
gilt-bronze mounts, marble top
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

attributed to Thomas and René Pelletier
Mirror
ca. 1690
glass, verre eglomisé, giltwood
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

attributed to Thomas Pelletier
Pier Table
ca. 1705
gilded pine and beech, inlaid marble top
Royal Collection, Great Britain

attributed to Thomas Pelletier
Pier Table
ca. 1705
gilded pine and beech, inlaid marble top
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Anonymous French Maker
Folding Stool
ca. 1735-39
carved and gilded walnut
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Anonymous French Maker
Folding Stool (detail)
ca. 1735-39
carved and gilded walnut
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Anonymous French Maker
Console Tabler
18th century
carved and gilded wood, marble top
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Anonymous French Maker
Console Table
18th century
carved, painted and gilded oak, marble top
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Anonymous French Maker
Console Table (detail)
18th century
carved, painted and gilded oak, marble top
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Anonymous French Maker
Console Table (detail)
18th century
carved, painted and gilded oak, marble top
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Anonymous French Maker
Candle Stands
ca. 1700
carved and gilded walnut
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Bernard II van Risenburgh
Table en Chiffonière
ca. 1760
oak and pine veneered with exotic woods,
gilt-bronze mounts
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

attributed to Thomas and René Pelletier
Pier Table
(built as support for Japanese lacquer cabinet)
ca. 1705
giltwood
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Jean-Henri Riesener
Corner Cabinet
ca. 1785
oak and mahogany, gilt-bronze mounts, marble top
Art Institute of Chicago

"How do we arrive at a clear conception of an object in space?  We first look at its parts singly, then the combination of parts, and finally the totality.  Our senses perform these various operations with such astonishing rapidity that they seem to us to be but one single operation, and this rapidity is absolutely necessary if we are to receive an impression of the whole, which is nothing more than the result of the conception of the parts and of their combination.  Now let us assume that the poet takes us from one part of the object to the other in the best possible order; let us assume that he knows how to make the combination of these parts ever so clear to us; how much time would he use in doing this?  That which the eye takes in at a single glance he counts out to us with perceptible slowness, and it often happens that when we arrive at the end of his description we have already forgotten the first features.  And yet we are supposed to form a notion of the whole from these features.  To the eye, parts once seen remain continually present; it can run over them again and again.  For the ear, however, the parts once heard are lost unless they remain in the memory.  And even if they do remain there, what trouble and effort it costs to renew all their impressions in the same order with the same vividness; to review them in the mind all at once with only moderate rapidity, to arrive at an approximate idea of the whole!"   

– Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, from Laocoön: an Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry (1766), translated by Edward Allen McCormick (1984)

Wednesday, March 29, 2023

Renaissance Figure Studies by Giovanni Angelo del Maino

attributed to Giovanni Angelo del Maino
Figure Study
ca. 1520
drawing
Musée du Louvre

attributed to Giovanni Angelo del Maino
Figure Study
ca. 1520
drawing
Musée du Louvre

attributed to Giovanni Angelo del Maino
Paris with Golden Apple
ca. 1520
drawing
Musée du Louvre

attributed to Giovanni Angelo del Maino
Figure Study
ca. 1520
drawing
Musée du Louvre

attributed to Giovanni Angelo del Maino
Figure Study
ca. 1520
drawing
Musée du Louvre

attributed to Giovanni Angelo del Maino
Hercules carrying Pillars
ca. 1520
drawing
Musée du Louvre

attributed to Giovanni Angelo del Maino
Classical Warrior
ca. 1520
drawing
Musée du Louvre

attributed to Giovanni Angelo del Maino
Figure Study
ca. 1520
drawing
Musée du Louvre

attributed to Giovanni Angelo del Maino
Figure Study
ca. 1520
drawing
Musée du Louvre

attributed to Giovanni Angelo del Maino
Figure Study
ca. 1520
drawing
Musée du Louvre

attributed to Giovanni Angelo del Maino
Figure Study
ca. 1520
drawing
Musée du Louvre

attributed to Giovanni Angelo del Maino
Perseus
ca. 1520
drawing
Musée du Louvre

attributed to Giovanni Angelo del Maino
Figure Study
ca. 1520
drawing
Musée du Louvre

attributed to Giovanni Angelo del Maino
Minerva
ca. 1520
drawing
Musée du Louvre

attributed to Giovanni Angelo del Maino
Study of Mounted Warrior
ca. 1520
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Giovanni Angelo del Maino (ca. 1475-ca. 1535) – Son of the Milanese woodcarver Giacomo del Maino, Giovanni Angelo del Maino, together with his brother Tiburzio, operated a successful workshop for polychromed wooden sculptures and altars during the first third of the sixteenth century.  Based initially in their native Milan, the pair ultimately settled in nearby Pavia, continuing to supply choir stalls, altar structures, crucifixes and other wooden fittings, primarily to churches throughout Lombardy.    

Tuesday, March 28, 2023

Artworks in London Reproduced by Simon Gribelin

Simon Gribelin
Raphael's Tapestry Cartoons installed at Hampton Court Palace,
with vignettes of Raphael above and of Queen Anne below

1707
engraving
Harvard Art Museums

Simon Gribelin after Raphael
Christ's Charge to Peter
(Tapestry Cartoon installed at Hampton Court Palace)
1707
engraving
Harvard Art Museums

Simon Gribelin after Raphael
The Death of Ananias
(Tapestry Cartoon installed at Hampton Court Palace)
1707
engraving
Harvard Art Museums

Simon Gribelin after Raphael
Elymas the Sorcerer struck with Blindness
(Tapestry Cartoon installed at Hampton Court Palace)
1707
engraving
Harvard Art Museums

Simon Gribelin after Raphael
The Lame Man healed by Peter and John
(Tapestry Cartoon installed at Hampton Court Palace)
1707
engraving
Harvard Art Museums

Simon Gribelin after Raphael
The Miraculous Draught of Fishes
(Tapestry Cartoon installed at Hampton Court Palace)
1707
engraving
Harvard Art Museums

Simon Gribelin after Raphael
Paul and Barnabas at Lystra
(Tapestry Cartoon installed at Hampton Court Palace)
1707
engraving
Harvard Art Museums

Simon Gribelin after Raphael
Paul preaching at Athens
(Tapestry Cartoon installed at Hampton Court Palace)
1707
engraving
Harvard Art Museums

Simon Gribelin after Peter Paul Rubens
Ceiling of the Banqueting House, Whitehall
ca. 1720
engraving
Yale Center for British Art

Simon Gribelin after Peter Paul Rubens
James I Enthroned
(Ceiling of the Banqueting House, Whitehall)
ca. 1720
engraving
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Simon Gribelin after Peter Paul Rubens
Apotheosis of James I
(Ceiling of the Banqueting House, Whitehall)
ca. 1720
engraving
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Simon Gribelin after Peter Paul Rubens
Union of the Crowns of England and Scotland
(Ceiling of the Banqueting House, Whitehall)
ca. 1720
engraving
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Simon Gribelin after Paolo de' Matteis
The Choice of Hercules
1713
engraving
Harvard Art Museums

Simon Gribelin
Scene of Battle
1690
engraving
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
(Achenbach Foundation)

Simon Gribelin (1661-1733) – Ornamental and metal engraver and designer.  Born in Blois, to a Huguenot family of watchmakers and engravers, and fled to England before the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.  He received his denization on 8 March 1682, and became a member of the Clockmakers' Company in 1686.  He remained part of the immigrant French community, and the autograph annotations on his prints are always in French.  He married in 1691 the daughter of the minister of the Huguenot church in Spitalfields.  In 1690 he was living in Arundel Street, 'the next running down from the King's Arms Tavern, next door to the White Lion'.  From at least 1707 until his death he lived at the corner house of Banbury Court in Long Acre, and his long career continued into the 1720s.  . . .  Almost all his engravings after old master paintings, among them the Raphael Cartoons and the Whitehall ceiling by Rubens, belong to the 18th century, as do his two sets of book illustrations.  

– from biographical notes at the British Museum