Art History Today

A View Without a Room. Alessio Baldovinetti’s Landscapes and the Promise of a Better World.

“The view thence of Florence is most beautiful--far better than the hackneyed view of Fiesole. It is the view that Alessio Baldovinetti is fond of introducing into his pictures. That man had a decided feeling for landscape. Decidedly. But who looks at it to-day? Ah, the world is too much for us." E. M. Forster, A Room with a View

In the next sentence a character declares that she has never heard of Alessio Baldovinetti, ignorance of the painter that is still common today. Trawl through the usual journals: a few articles. Look in vain for a significant representation in books and monographs; hardly any volumes devoted to him. There was a monograph written on him by Ruth Wedgwood Kennedy in 1938, but as far as I know there has been no major study of him undertaken. And are we surprised to learn that Baldovinetti doesn’t make the renaissance team in Beck’s survey of Italian painting; he’s relegated to the ignominy of an appendix, along with other cruelly overlooked artists left to languish on the touchlines. Somebody’s got to root for Baldovinetti, so here I am again, putting the case for yet another marginalised artist in the mould of Tura and Francia.

Possible Self-portrait. Fragment of destroyed frescos in Gianfiliazzi chapel (Bergamo, Accademia Carrara)

A few facts are known about Baldovinetti, although much remains in the realm of speculation. Born in Florence in 1427 to a family of wealthy merchants, he was a member of the Guild of St Luke. Vasari tells us that Alessio was trained by Domenico Veneziano, who’s only slightly more recognized than his pupil. Most of Baldovinetti’s work is documented and we even have a “Libro di Ricordi” in which he gives us details of kinds of colours he has purchased for commissions. His favourite method was to paint a secco with a mixture of yolk of egg and varnish. He seems to have been an experimenter in the mould of Leonardo; his frescos like the great Florentine’s haven’t fared well over time.

Alessio Baldovinetti, (previously att. to Piero della Francesca)Madonna with Child, Musée du Louvre, Paris, tempera on wood, 106 x 75 cm,

There’s another reason for this post: to link Baldovinetti with Berenson’s ideas on Florentine landscape and spectatorship, an idea I’m using in a course I’m currently teaching on Central Italian art. It was actually Berenson who was the first to take the artist seriously. In an article written in 1902, Berenson challenged an attribution to a painting acquired by the Louvre. A Madonna and Child set against a magnificent landscape with cliffs, rivers, pools, bridges and hamlets, it had been purchased as a Piero della Francesca, and Berenson was quite rightly determined to re-attribute the painting to Baldovinetti. This was comparatively easy; there are distinctive stylistic elements in Alessio’s art which help the connoisseur to identify him, and to disentangle him from the cluster of mid quattrocento painters like Piero, Veneziano, Andrea da Castagno and others. Compare the two Madonnas below: the colour scheme is uniform, lapis and vermillion for the Virgin; a pearly tone for the sky. But the dead giveaway is the landscape. In the words of Vasari, this artist “delighted in drawing landscapes from nature exactly as they are, whence we see in his paintings rivers; bridges, rocks, plants, fruits, roads, fields, cities, exercise grounds, and an infinity of other such things." Piero paints similar landscapes, but as Berenson pointed out, Piero’s landscape are more descriptive, cartographical; but Alessio’s use space in a different way; almost as an envelope surrounding the Madonna, wrapping round her like a kind of atmospheric garment. Berenson called it the “poetry of space.”

Alessio Baldovinetti, Madonna with Child, 1460-65, Musée du Louvre, Paris, tempera on wood, 106 x 75 cm,	Alessio Baldovinetti, Madonna with Child, 1455-60, Jacquemart-André Museum, Paris, tempera on canvas, 90 x 74 cm

After Berenson completed his essay on Venetian painters in 1894, he embarked on the most famous essay in the series- Florentine painters, published in 1896. Unlike the Venetian essay, which suffers from being too much in the shadow of Ruskin, Berenson used his Florentine essay to launch a number of ideas, most notably tactile values and the spectator- which we’ll look at another time. Then, the concept was linked with the figurative: the two dimensional character of painting being supplemented by a third dimension, which the viewer could imagine, if he or she looked as Berenson looked. However, Berenson didn’t confine himself to figurative art; he also extended his concept to landscape.

Antonio Pollaiuolo, Tobias and the Angel, 1460, tempera on wood, Galleria Sabauda, Turin, dimensions unknown.

“Before Verrocchio, his precursors, first Alessio Baldovinetti, and then Pollaiuolo, had attempted to treat landscape as naturalistically as painting would permit. Their ideal was to note it down with absolute correctness from a given point of view, their subject almost invariably the Valdarno, their achievement a bird’s eye view of this Tuscan paradise. Nor can it be denied that this gives pleasure, but the pleasure is only such as is conveyed by the tactile values. Instead of having the difficulty we should have in nature to distinguish clearly points near the horizon’s edge, we here see them perfectly and without an effort, and in consequence feel great confirmation of the capacity for life. Now if landscape as most people vaguely believe, is a pleasure coming through the eyes alone, then the Pollaiuolesque treatment could be equalled by none that has followed, and surpassed only by Rogier van der Weyden, or by the quaint German “Master of the Lyversberg Passion,” who makes us see objects miles away with as great a precision and with as much intensity of local colour as if we were standing off from them a few feet. Were landscape really this, then nothing more inartistic than gradation of tint, atmosphere, and air, all of which help to make distant objects less clear, and therefore tend in no way to heighten our sense of capacity. But as a matter of fact the pleasure we take in actual landscape is only to a limited extent an affair of the eye, and to a great extent one of unusually intense well-being.”

What’s notable from the above passage is the idea that renaissance landscape can fill the spectator with a sense of immense well-being, hope even. For Berenson, landscape is linked with pleasure, not scientific abstraction, although the precise rendering of natural objects in space, conveying distance or proximity is important. Pleasure is less allied with the sense of rational sight, but instead with depth psychology: landscapes create the feeling in the spectator that anything can be achieved, a sort of therapeutic working through of problems through viewing landscape. This is an example of what Berenson calls the “life-enhancing” or “life-confirming” function of art, an idea that he developed from reading the philosophy of Nietzsche at Harvard, individuation achieved through aesthetic means,- a far cry from the traditional connoisseurship for which he is known.

Masaccio and Masolino di Panicale, The Tribute Money (and others), Brancacci Chapel, Santa Maria della Carmine, Florence, 1426-7, fresco.

Sometimes, Berenson’s prose takes on a decidedly Nietzschean tone, as when, for example, he describes Christ and the Apostles in Masaccio’s Tribute Money as a race of supermen fit to inhabit the new earth (actually Masolino’s mountainous landscape) that the painter has prepared for them. “Then what strength to his young men, and what gravity and power to his old! How quickly a race like this would possess itself of the earth, and brook no rivals but the forces of nature”! The exclamation marks have a Nietzschean flavour about them too!

Alessio Baldovinetti, The Nativity, 1460-62, Santissima Annunziata, Florence, Fresco, 400 x 430 cm.

The opposite of “life-enhancing” is “life-denying” when the horizon of expectations is closed down leaving the spectator closed up in a confined space. Perspectives of hope are narrowed, and consequently that capacity Berenson talks of is diminished. It is the  painter’s function to convey “the consciousness of an unusually intense degree of well-being.” To demonstrate this in Baldovinetti’s case, Berenson presents the wonderful landscape in Baldovinetti’s Nativity, a fresco in Santissima Annunziata. This landscape contains a horizon which could symbolise hope, the future, the salvation of the world, an appropriate idea because of the presence of Christ himself born into the world.

The “immense well-being” of landscape.

Perhaps we could identify with the figure looking into the depth of the picture, out across the Tuscany landscape. We can follow his gaze out over the valley patterned by snaking paths and rivers that wind with a mazy motion under bridges, until our eyes reach further to the distant mountains. This landscape suggests the beginning of a new day, a new era of Chris, and the morning of the world. Baldovinetti’s painting opens up to the spectator with the result that the pleasure of looking is transmuted into potential. The spectator is uplifted- not in a moral- but in an aesthetic and psychological sense. The promise of a better world becomes visible, made manifest through Baldovinetti’s naturalistic skill and his poetic evocation of the Italian countryside.

Sources.

Bernard Berenson, “Alessio Baldovinetti and the New “Madonna” of the Louvre, in The Study and Criticism of Italian Art, (1902).

Bernard Berenson, Italian Painters of the Renaissance: Florentine  and Central Italian Schools (Oxford, 1952).

E.M. Forster, A Room with a View, 1908, and appendix, "A View without a Room” (1958).

Roger Fry, “Three Pictures in the Jacquemart-André Collection”, Burlington Magazine, Vol. 25, No. 134 (May, 1914), 78-85

Herbert P. Horne, “ A Newly Discovered “Libro di Ricordi” of Alessio Baldovinetti”, Burlington Magazine, Vol. 2, no. 5, (1903), 164-174.

Ruth Wedgwood Kennedy, Alessio Baldovinetti, (New Haven, 1939).

The Judgement of Paris. A Summing Up.

Att. to Raphael, previously att to Giorgione, The Judgement of Paris, Private Coll., 1512.

There's no doubt that the Malmesbury Judgement of Paris is a controversial painting. The series of posts started last year have examined every aspect of it. AHT has attempted to reconstruct its stylistic milieu, identify the context in which the picture was received, and tried to unravel its technique and iconography.

The dispute revolves around whether this disregarded picture was painted by Raphael. But even if we discount that attribution, I think we have to face the fact that the composition, models and sources are connected with Raphael’s workshop. I won’t repeat all that has been written in the lost four posts; but I did ask Graeme Cameron if he had anything else to add, or wanted to indicate material that had got left out of the previous posts. I’m quoting GC verbatim here:

1. Dating and Style.

“To assist with the scientific verification of both the date and style of the dress depicted within the "JoP", as worn by Raphael, it can be actually scientifically proven as certainly deriving from the years 1500 to 1520 in the High Renaissance. Most fortunately,my research is also dealing with yet another significant work from this period on an oak panel, which concerns "Three Saints", which has been accurately dated by leading Dendrochronologist, Prof. Dr. Peter Klein, to the 1500 to 1510-20 period.

Attribution to be advised, St James from “Three Saints”, oil on oak, dimensions not known.

The Saint depicted here, "St. James" ( with the Scallop Shell), wears the same White Hose and Slashed Doublet/Tunic style, and even more so, the same soft style Suede Boots/Shoes, as does Raphael in the "JoP". In this composition, St.James like Raphael, has likewise been updated to the contemporary early 1500's Renaiisance dress, for this purpose, rather than retaining his actual Biblical Garb. It is worth noting this important fact for definitive dress dating purposes of the "JoP."

2. Monogrammes. I didn’t get a chance to show images with the Raphael monogramme “"Rv", reproduced in GC’s book- so here they are.

Monogrammes from GC’s book.

Ditto

3. Physiognomy and Identification.

“It's perhaps worth adding to the remarks on physiognomy, that proof of the difficulty of rendering on a small scale an accurate likeness of young "Fornarina" was a very skilled task for Raphael, as some of the poorly rendered faces of some of the versions in these images attest. In the case of the versions, it is clear the Malmesbury prototype alone has these pivotal physiognomies of Fornarina and Raphael, whilst they all vary in both the quality and "type" of their respective renditions, but obviously have all derived from it, either as a versions or variants.

These images are "Age & Date Specific" with Fornarina's the youngest known image of her.

Raphael's Physical Concordances at various ages.

The comparisons show clearly "Age/Date Specific Physiognomic Concordances" which are entirely unique to the Malmesbury work, providing both dating confirmation and direct evidence of the 1512 evolution of this composition and of Raphael's certain involvement in its "original" creation in Rome at that time. These are in fact actual portraits of both Fornarina and Raphael, albeit small, yet so accurate in their Age and Date features, they could only have been painted from "life" sittings in Rome in 1512. The Fornarina is clearly a more naive and youthful portrayal than any previously known image of her and is therefore neither a copy nor any "chance resemblance", but a unique visage of her in 1512. It is self evidently an "Age and Date specific portrait, which most accurately records her actual physiognomy at that time, which may well include her naked countenance, from this original sitting. Accurate portraits are difficult enough to create, yet both these are finely wrought, true to life renditions and dateable to Rome in 1512. Likewise Raphael's countenance, which as proven by its subsurface pentimenti, was added into the composition to join that of Fornarina, and is also a unique portrayal, in that it is not a copy of any previously known image of him, either in its dress or "type", It too is an "Age and Date specific "original" portrait like Fornarina's of 1512. His physiognomy is consistent with with that of "Stanza" version, with the garb datable to this period, however he is clearly younger and in better health than seen in the 1519 joint portrait. None of these could be claimed as "chance" likenesses but were purpose created portraits for this painting.In the case of the versions, it is clear the Malmesbury prototype alone has these pivotal physiognomies of Fornarina and Raphael, whilst they all vary in both the quality and "type" of their respective renditions, but are obviously all derived from it, either as a versions or variants.”

	Three Graces, J of P and Farnesina nudes.

4. Poses, Sources and Copies.

“This image above shows Raphael's unique "Contrapposto" pose shared between all three compositions, from the earlier 1508 Venus, to the 1512 JoP. These anatomical pose Hallmarks are quite distinctive to his oeuvre. “

J of P and Entombment sketch

A further "Raphael "cut & Paste compositional source for the painting showing direct links & concordances evident between his earlier 1508 'discarded' Entombment Sketch and the later 'recycled' 1512 'JoP' figure group.”

Copies. See post 1 for details.

“Comparison with the Copies & Versions show the precedence of The Malmesbury original viz a viz the versions.”

5. Quality Issues and Connoisseurship.

“Not just Waagen & Eastlake, but other great connoisseurs, Ridolfi, Passavant, Sir Martin Conway, and Millions of admirers at two major National Art Treasures Exhibitions at Manchester & Leeds, & in was singled out for praise in subsequent Press Reviews. Also at the two Royal Academy Exhibitions it was greatly admired as a Giorgione and even given the privilege of a Full Page Engraved Plate. Its qualities were so self evident, as indeed they still are today, that The Louvre was honoured to exhibit it in Paris, and later many visited Lord Mamesbury's Mayfair mansion just to admire it as well. Therefore those who are unable to appreciate its inherent beauty are obviously in the minority, as the majority always appreciated its qualities.”

6. VegaScan and “Vested Interests.”

I did ask Graeme Cameron if he had anything further to add on the VegaScan issue amid concerns about “vested interests.” He referred those concerned back to the technical blog's images, “where the capabilities of the VegaScan process, in regard to the effectiveness of its image penetration, compared with Infra-reds, provides the most self evident demonstration".

In response to concerns expressed about the “vested interest” issue, GC said:

"How it (VegaScan) achieves this is presently subject to confidentiality provisions, whilst the necessary proprietary measures are being determined".

This is the situation at the present- that’s all I can report.

7. The Next Book.

Finally, Graeme tells me that in Volume 2 of his series, “that not only will an important new direct link back to Raphael and his "Judgement of Paris composition be revealed, confirming it has everything to do with Raphael and Rome, with only its palette and Piombo/Macantonio's ( Giorgione) "influence" representing its earlier explained Venetian elements, but not its actual origin”.

AHT’s Final Thoughts.

For myself, I think this case raises four important questions:

1. If this wasn’t painted by Raphael, then why are there physiognomic, stylistic and iconographic links between the Malmesbury painting and designs produced by his own hand, e.g. the Adam and Eve, and now as we can see above, the Entombment sketch?

2. Can we accept that Raphael- with all his exposure to Venetian painting- may not have sought to fashion a personal, erotic subject based upon some of Giorgione’s pastoral mythologies?

3. Leaving aside the issue of its authorship, and turning to the issue of quality: why was it endorsed by connoisseurs of the first rank like Waagen and Eastlake, not to mention good enough to go in the Manchester Art Treasures exhibition? See GC’s comments above.

4. How do we explain the facial resemblance between the left goddess in the Judgement of Paris and portraits of Fornarina; the same goes for portraits of Raphael and the “Paris” figure? Again, see above.

As for the attribution, the main bone of contention, I fully understand that people are protective of Raphael, but I’m a huge fan of the painter too- and I would never do anything to harm his reputation. I appreciate that it’s important to give a balanced, objective view of a painters development, weeding out the copies and variants from the true originals, which I’ve started with the Poussin project. In my own speciality as Poussin scholar I’m learning all the time, especially about the question of Poussin copies, which is clearly an emerging concern over at the PCP. We don’t yet have the “full picture” of Raphael too, which is a point that I’ve stressed again and again throughout the series of posts.

Perhaps the Malmesbury case illustrates the adversarial nature of attribution culture, and I’ll put my hands up and say that I've been guilty of rubbishing somebody’s attribution in the past. This time I’ve used my knowledge and judgement to try to negotiate between those who agree with the attribution and those who resist it. Everybody is entitled to their view, but I have to say that I think this case should be less a judgement on Graeme Cameron’s connoisseurship and the technology he uses, and more about the issues it raises for studying Raphael in the 21st century.

Stressing the positive, which I’d rather do, it’s interesting that the appearance of the Malmesbury picture has set some scholars on new paths of investigation. Though wisely keeping out of the attribution debates, Frank DeStefano has incorporated the Malmesbury painting into his thinking on Giorgione. I think that is the spirit in which to approach the problems surrounding this controversial canvas.

Many thanks for reading the posts and commenting on them.

Thanks of course to Graeme, and Norm Cameron for plentiful material,images and supplying answers to all my queries.

We now wait for GC’s new findings in the next volume of his research.

Poussin Connoisseurship Project

" As long as our school follows in your footsteps, it will be esteemed in spite of its faults; when it ceases to appreciate you, art will fall into decline.”

As Bendor said yesterday, I’ve started another blog devoted to Poussin matters alone: mainly connoisseurship issues, inspired by GAP, PCF and others.

You can access it here, or via the link on the sidebar.

The aims of the project are briefly explained over there, as well as the format I’ll be using; the first entry on the Birmingham copy after Poussin’s Christ and the Blind will be up in a few days.  Just need to check some more sources.

 

Some Problems in Poussin Connoisseurship via the Google Art Project.

Poussin gallery at GAP

Although I’m sure that this wasn’t in the minds of the people behind the Google Art Project (GAP),it may turn out to be quite a useful tool for connoisseurs. For one thing it makes a lot of obscure pictures visible, some of which I have never encountered as a Poussin scholar; so GAP throws up opportunities for considering, and in some cases re-considering some connoisseurial  problems in Poussin. It also highlights some of the problems in using reproductions to judge colour and style, a huge topic which I can’t do justice to here. Maybe another post sometime?

The main reason for this post is that out of the 36 high-resolution in the Poussin archive of the GAP, a few trouble me. I hasten to add this isn’t a criticism of GAP  whose resolutions are immensely useful to professional art historians like myself, which allow us to “drill” down to the detail of a picture. At the same time I’m a Poussin scholar and I feel duty-bound to highlight certain difficult pictures to anyone using the tool.

Capitoline Museum, Rome.

Capitoline Museum, Rome.

Here is one that has to be rejected, no doubt about it. The Camillus and the Schoolmaster of the Falerii. looks like an eighteenth-century pastiche of a famous Poussin subject known through several versions- see below. Camillus the Roman general punishes a schoolmaster who sought to betray his pupils by offering them as hostages; Camillus is indignant at this perfidy and has the miscreant stripped naked and beaten back to the Falerii by his charges. I’ve never seen this version before- and now unfortunately I have. I have no idea why the Capitoline have labelled this picture- here seen in situ- a Poussin. Like many of his paintings of the late 1630s, Poussin creates a firm, relief-like picture that usually unfolds from left to right. The colours, the poses, especially the foppish gait of Camillus have absolutely nothing to do with Poussin, or indeed the 1630s. Instead of thrashing the disgraced schoolmaster out of the village, the children seem to be leading him out to a picnic.Compare this with one of Poussin’s stern versions shown here.

Poussin, Camillus and the Schoolmaster of the Falerii, Louvre, Paris, c, 1637, oil on canvas, 252 x 268 cm.

I should advise the Capitoline to look for their painter in early 18th century France, a rococo painter with classical pretensions- but no means of putting them into practice. Let us not look but pass on.   

Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio.

Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio.

Then there are paintings that have always been problematic. An excellent example of this is a painting at Toledo, a mythological or poetic work which traditionally provoked debate until everybody lost interest in the work. Nobody can even agree on what the subject is, let alone who painted it. Is it “Dido and Aeneas”, “Mars and Venus”, or “Rinaldo and Armida”? It’s on GAP as “Mars and Venus”, though there’s no conclusive proof that it is that subject. Checking Christopher Wright’s 1984 catalogue raisonné, he says that it fits neatly into Poussin’s development and places it in the late 1630s, though traditionally it’s been dated to the early 1630s or even 1624. Leaving dating aside for the moment, let’s consider what we have here.

Mars and Venus, or Dido and Aeneas, or Rinaldo and Armida, Toledo Museum of Art, c. 1638-9 (?), oil on canvas, 158 x 190 cm, right-hand side autograph, left-hand side over painted?

We have a painting that may be 60-70% by one of three other painters, and 30% by Poussin himself. This view might not be as bizarre as it sounds: three famous Poussin scholars (Blunt, Thuillier and Wild) attributed the work to three different painters, and Wright says that the museum, (presumably  hedging its bets) attributes it to three other painters- and Poussin. There’s no discussion of that on the GAP entry, nor on the museum’s website, though more information, or links to more information might come in time. The entry reads:

“In a lush landscape, Venus, Roman goddess of love and beauty, is attended by her handmaidens, the Three Graces, while Mars, the god of war, stands enraptured by the sight. The figures are inspired by Nicolas Poussin's study of ancient classical sculpture. He derived his theme from classical literature, combining the Toilet of Venus, in which Venus makes her morning preparations while gazing into a mirror, with Mars "disarmed" or "unmanned" by Venus—a symbol of love's power to vanquish war. To illustrate this idea, Poussin shows Mars's weapons and helmet cast aside, while he holds his shield to serve as Venus's mirror. Its oval with her reflected image ingeniously links the two principles and marks the change in pictorial key from the quiet, coolly lit group of women composed in profile-like relief sculpture to the warmer tones of Mars's shadowed figure and the flickering movement and lighting of the two cupids. The landscape sustains this shift, the stately trees and constricted foreground opening out to a spacious vista toward snowcapped mountains. By the time he painted Mars and Venus, Poussin had lived some ten years in Rome since arriving there from France in 1624. Rome was to be his permanent home. Poussin's clients were cultivated men who shared his intellectual interests and valued the harmony he achieved between poetic content and rigorous clarity in his paintings of mythological and religious subjects. Poussin absorbed ideas from many sources, including the monuments of antiquity and the work of Renaissance painters Raphael, Giulio Romano, and Titian. But from the force of Poussin's artistic personality and his astonishing ability to invent solutions appropriate to each subject's mood came an artistic language, both incisive and sensuous, that broke new ground.”

Well, let’s assume it is “Mars and Venus” for the moment, though it seems an iconographic mishmash for Poussin, completely unlike his usual clarity in dealing with subject matter. The male figure and putto look Poussinesque, but they don’t seem that well-painted. And then there’s the landscape whose colours don’t seem typical of Poussin: that deep indigo seems uncharacteristic of his palette. At the same time I should stress that I’ve never actually seen this picture, as it’s seldom exhibited because of doubts over the authorship, and I’m having to study reproductions. It was exhibited in 1960 and here is a newspaper article recording its passage to Paris in that year! The river god in the water, if that’s what he is, seems summarily painted, though I will concede that the pose is found in other of Poussin’s works. The ground seems to be showing through in large parts of the painting, though they might to be due to paint loss- a technical report might help here. For the purposes of balance I’m going to quote Christopher’s Wright’s comments on the picture:

“It is difficult to see why there should have been such a conflict over the status of this picture. As Four painters are currently involved and each one advanced by a distinguished specialist there is reasonable certainty that at least three of them are wrong (Blunt initially accepted the picture in 1960, but re-assigned it to the “Hovingham Master” in 1966; Thuillier said it had been painted by Charles-Alphonse Dufresnoy; finally, Wild rejected it and gave it to Poussin’s friend, Jacques Stella). In considering the old attribution to Poussin the picture fits quite easily into the artist’s development in the later 1630s (on stylistic grounds, this makes sense to me, but only the right-hand side) and the whole of the right hand side of the composition is close to the Toronto Venus Presenting Arms to Aeneas.  The problems arise with the treatment of the naked figures on the left which seem far too realistic and even anecdotal for Poussin. Careful examination of the picture reveals that they may well have undergone some later “improvements”. It is hoped that a cleaning of the picture will establish this hypothesis (I do not know the condition of this picture nor have I seen a technical report on it, so it’s impossible to prove or refute this. Has the picture been cleaned since Wright made his observations?). (Wright, no. 94, 183)

Earlier in his catalogue Wrights has this to say:

“The Toledo picture has been subject to many doubts. It was originally thought to be one of Poussin’s early surviving pictures, then because it did not seem to fit into the artist’s early development, it was rejected altogether by many authorities. The right hand half of the picture clearly fits into the style familiar from the mid 1630s (no argument there). It is not dissimilar in treatment to the work in Toronto. The problem arises for the grouping of four nude female figures on the left which seem both in drawing and composition to be quite unlike Poussin. It is just possible that they may have been re-painted at a later date and it is hoped that a future cleaning of the painting will resolve the problems.! (Wright, 60-1)

As Wright says, the real problem is the left-hand group of three women who seem entirely untypical of Poussin. The strange and infelicitous admixture of large hips, small breasts and thinly tapered legs seems to indicate a different hand here. I would say that look mannered as well as realistic. Also, the kneeling woman is a direct quotation from a Crouching Venus, and Poussin doesn’t make his antique quotations so conspicuous; nor to my knowledge does he use that source in his art. So, if more than half isn’t stylistically typical of Poussin- though Wright still doesn’t reject it- then I’d be uncomfortable giving it totally to Poussin. I can see why Wright is happy to see it as a Poussin, but that left-hand female group is so at variance with Poussin that  I can’t comfortably accept it as autograph. On the other hand I can’t completely reject, as parts of it seem consistent with Poussin. What a dilemma!

	Poussin, Pan and Syrinx, Staatliche Gemaldergalerie, Dresden, oil on canvas, 106.5 x 82 cm.

In his catalogue, Wright reproduces it next to the Pan and Syrinx (Dresden) and you can immediately see what Blunt called a “blonde” colour that is typical of of a group of pictures in the late 1630s. In Wright’s catalogue, the colour of the Toledo painting is closer to this “blonde” group, not the GAP colours, including that horrible blue. Sorry, my scanner is broken so I can’t put up an image of the reproduction in Wright, but within this group fall pictures like the St Rita of Cascia (Dulwich), St Margaret (Turin), Pan and Syrinx (Dresden), Venus and Aeneas (Toronto), Rinaldo and Armida (Bode Museum, Berlin). Maybe this case highlights the danger of using reproductions, especially digital to make assessments about art, though there’s a tradition of using them in connoisseurship. Here’s an excellent article that explores the topic of colour in museum photographs and the problems when using them.

If I compare the Toledo canvas with the Pan and Syrinx, I might accept a tentative attribution, though that depends on working from Wright’s reproduction. If the museum colour is right, then the picture would not fit into the late 1630s, and indeed we should put it back to the early 1630s, when works with similar colours were done. However, the problem remains of certain figures and motifs in the Toledo picture consistent with autograph works from that period.

I’m still deeply troubled by the non-Poussin elements in the Toledo canvas, and of course there is the colour problem, which is going to be difficult to resolve without me actually seeing the painting. Some of my Poussin colleagues have written about the Toledo painting assuming it is totally autograph, but I couldn’t until I’d satisfied myself about these doubts. I have e.mailed the museum with my concerns, but so far no answer. It would be good to hear from them in order to see if Wright’s hypothesis held water, which I think it might.

Dulwich Picture Gallery.

Dulwich Picture Gallery, Dulwich, London.

Then there’s an interesting cluster of paintings at Dulwich. Firstly, a canvas of putti or children playing, which I vaguely know about. “Putti in a Landscape” has been labelled “17th Century French”, though it’s still in the Poussin section. This has a bearing on the last problem because if Blunt saw a Poussin picture with non-Poussin elements, then he would invent another master to explain that incongruity. Not that he needed to as there  are lots of candidates for copyists after Poussin’s Bacchic children, but Blunt memorably invented one painter called the “Master of the Clumsy Children.” Then there were painters in Rome like Podesta who is known to have copied Poussin’s bacchanals of children; still more enigmatic artists like the aforementioned “Hovingham Master” who’s crossed my path from time to time. I don’t know who painted the Dulwich putti, but this cannot be attributed to Poussin: the putti are badly drawn, no anatomical realism at all.

There’s a mysterious canvas called “Landscape” which could mean anything. It has figures lounging in leafy groves or strolling through the landscape, which you find in the artist’s work in the 1640s, but that kind of landscape was much imitated. The artists’ brother-in-law, Gaspar Dughet might be a better candidate than Nicolas himself. This vague landscape is in even worse condition, unable to penetrate beneath the layers of dirt and possibly over painting, but not by the master.

Lastly, there’s a  kind of Bacchic family group consisting of satyr, nymph and putti, very common in Poussin’s oeuvre. This picture is a deplorable condition, and if you zoom in you can see the craquelure and dirt, and god knows what else. But even though this hasn’t been restored, I think there’s no doubt we’re dealing with an imitator of Poussin’s Bacchic groups here.  All these three were in the Bourgeois bequest, but they’ve hardly attracted much interest, hardly surprising given their woeful state.

Albertina, Vienna

There are only two Poussin drawings on GAP, one of which I know is autograph as I’ve inspected it closely on the study table at Windsor. The other of a broken silver birch tree, or two trees, in the Albertina, perturbs me, though I have to say I haven’t seen the sheet itself. There are crude transitions between different densities of the wash; form isn’t modelled well, and frankly the application of the wash isn’t typical of Poussin. It appeared in an exhibition of 1984 curated by the late Konrad Oberhuber who actually used to work at the Albertina until he moved to the USA. As Oberhuber notes in that catalogue, it was rejected from the early 1960s onwards, given to Gaspar Dughet. Only Wild supported the attribution to Poussin in 1980, and  Oberhuber was emboldened by this to present it as a Poussin drawing of around 1630. The trouble is his argument depends on comparing it to a whole cluster of drawings which manifestly aren't by NP. Who’s it by? Well, we could maybe accept Gaspar, but it might be too early for him; Jean Frangois Millet (possibly); Jean Lemaire, who would be working with Poussin at this time. There is also the appropriately named “Silver Birch Master” a landscape painter invented by Blunt in 1950. It used to be thought that a painting in the National Gallery, a Landscape with A Cowherd, was by the SBM, but Blunt changed his mind and re-attributed to the young Gaspar in 1980. Although there have been attempts to move it back to Poussin, it has stayed with his brother-in-law, which makes perfect sense to me. The attribution also helps to elucidate the Vienna drawing because the treatment of the trees in the London painting are similar. So I think both drawing and painting are the work of the young Gaspar Dughet.

Maybe all this highlights the need for professional art historians and specialists to consult with the GAP on issues of attribution and connoisseurship, though overall it’s thumbs up for a very useful resource. 

Sources.

Anthony Blunt, 'Poussin Studies V: ‘The Silver Birch Master’. Burlington Magazine, 92 (1950), pp. 69-73.

Anthony Blunt, Poussin Studies XIII: ‘Early Falsifications of Poussin’, Burlington Magazine, 104, (1962), pp. 486- 498.

Konrad Oberhuber, exh. cat., Kimbell  Art Museum, Fort Worth Poussin: The Early Years in Rome, (New York, 1988).

Humphrey Wine, The Seventeenth-Century French Paintings in the National Gallery, (New Haven and London, 2001).

Christopher Wright, Poussin Paintings: A Catalogue Raisonné, (Jupiter, 1984).

Toledo entry on painting. http://classes.toledomuseum.org:8080/emuseum/view/objects/asitem/117/12

Aesthetic Appraisal and the Restoration Process.

St Anne, pre-restoration.	St Anne, after cleaning.

I’m looking with growing horror at images of pre and post restoration images of the Leonardo Virgin and St Anne in the Louvre. They can be found here, in an article by the head of ArtWatch, Michael Daley. In a balanced and thoughtful post on restoration culture, Michael Daley highlights its real dangers, clearly evident in this latest example. These sections are especially relevant I think..

“All cleaning controversies turn on the extent to which pictures suffer during restoration. Even among those who authorise restorations, some concede that there are losses as well as gains and frankly admit to seeking the best trade-off between improved legibility and pictorial injury. Defensive restorers insist that pictures cannot be harmed by their own “advanced”, “gentle” and “scientifically underpinned” methods. Making a fetish of the “safety” and the “science” of restoration methods attempts to shelve restorers responsibility to identify and account for all material and aesthetic changes. Given that all restorers’ methods cannot be superior, none should be held beyond question. With the physical alteration of art, aesthetic appraisal is essential to scholarship and art’s protection. In appraising restorations, the comparison of like with like is of the essence.”

“In visual arts, appraisals are necessarily made by visual comparisons. Pictures are made by eye, hand and mind, to be viewed by eye and mind. Because each cleaning destroys the earlier state, comparisons can only be made between pre and post-restoration photographs. While straightforward cleaning might always be expected to achieve a greater vivacity of pictorial effect, it should never be made at the expense of the pictorial relationships, patterns, or gradations made in the service of modelling, that can be seen to reside in the uncleaned work. If the relationships can be seen it is because they are there – whatever chemical analyses might suggest to the contrary. The aesthetic production of pictorial values by artists is the proper science of art. Unfortunately, in such terms, the values that were formerly evident in this great picture seem not to have fared well in this last cleaning.”

Putting my two pence in, I don’t see how a restorer can proceed without an aesthetic sense, or some knowledge of the protocols of traditional connoisseurship. As art historians, we’re trained in the comparative method: to look at images side by side with a view to determining differences and similarities; the tonal differences, variations in colour, light and shadow etc. A restorer should be sensitive to the operations of the painter, the passage of their brush, their painterly presence, which they can check by reference to the historical visual record; but MD is right, restorers seem to make a fetish of their scientific methods with disastrous results. Surely there’s a balance to be struck between preserving pictures  that are “sick”, whilist retaining the original intentions of the artists. While some individuals decry traditional connoisseurship and stylistic analysis, it’s just as essential to restoration as the chemicals and test tubes. As for using medical metaphors to describe the restoration process, I’m tempted to say that in the case of the Leonardo, the operation was successful but the patient died. 

Just compare figs 5 and 6, (shown above). Where are the those Leonardo shadows? This is a travesty- it’s not the same picture anymore. This will undoubtedly happen again, which is why ArtWatch exists.

 

The Malmesbury Judgement of Paris: the Full Picture: Updated Research Report 4.

This is the final post in the series of research reports on the enigmatic and controversial Judgment of Paris- apologies for the delay. The technical research is organized under various headings, some with sub-divisions.

Judgment of Paris, att to Raphael, 1512, Private Collection, U.K.

1.  General introduction to technology used in scientific examination of Judgment of Paris

As this is a scientific report, and in order to establish the credentials of the author of the report, I think it’s only fair to introduce the post with a statement about Graeme Cameron’s professional background, and his expertise in the technical examination of paintings, which seems to have been questioned in some quarters. What follows is guided heavily by Graeme's scientific expertise, and is virtually verbatim. I don’t have anything like Graeme's technical expertise, just quietly added my voice at times, when I thought it appropriate.

Graeme Cameron’s Technical & Scientific Research Background

The scientific and technical investigative analysis of Old Master paintings in research projects, was an important specialty of the author’s multi-disciplinary background, complimenting his documentary and connoisseurship approach to the restitution of lost art works. This commenced in the United Kingdom in the late 1970’s, where he was much assisted in this area by the facilities of the University of London’s, noted Courtauld Institute, through the auspices of the leading British scholar, Mr. Christopher Wright FRS and by Sir Robert Bruce Gardner, the head of the institute’s Conservation Department.

Graeme Cameron also conducted additional independent scientific investigations using X-Radiography, infra-red, microscopy, macro photography and paint chip section analysis, etc. whilst in the United Kingdom over four years, which continues today.

As a consequence in the mid 1990’s, he was invited by Professor John Miller of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University’s Department of Physics, to perform a senior guest lecturing role in this specialist area of the sciences, conducting tutorials and subject exams in the methods and developing role of scientific techniques employed in today’s art research and attribution investigations.

He was earlier Conference Guest Speaker on this topic of “The Use of Scientific Techniques in Art Research”, at the International Conference of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons in Sydney, Australia in the late 1990’s, by invitation of its Professor President.

 Surface probing systems

Two scientific technologies were employed to analyse the painting’s sub surface, which revealed extensive compositional alterations, as noted in the volume, The Secrets of Leonardo da Vinci, Vol. 1.

These revealed not only the usual few “pentimenti”, but many major changes of Raphael’s created whilst refining his original concept of the legend. These findings eclipsed any that Cameron had witnessed over the past four decades conducting such investigative research. Such significant compositional changes confirmed the artist had used the sub surface of his composition as he would a sketching board. Only through technology can we now view his unique, multi- staged original creative development of this pivotal composition.

This extensive development of the composition from its initial concept, comes direct from the great artist’s mind, and is a rare event to witness in the field of Renaissance paintings research.

Infra-red Reflectography Scanning

In 2002, twelve detailed scans were undertaken at The University of Melbourne’s, technical analysis facility for art works, providing some remarkable findings of the painting’s sub surface, which first revealed this unique staged genesis of the composition.

Both Infra-red and Vega Scans of sections, whole image showing the many significant head, garment and hand compositional changes.	Both infra-red and Vega Scans of Goddesses body sections.

Two infra-red sections of Goddess Body Sections.

The most significant of these were the four major changes of both the position, dress and of the physiognomy of the face, of the seated figure of “Paris”. Likewise those of three significant changes to the dog’s position and other primary alterations were observed, including those to both of “Paris’s hands. See detailed discussion and other images of scans below.

VegaScan Deeper Sub surface Scanning

VegaScan of pentimenti of 4 body position, dress and face changes to Raphael figure.

A decade following the Infra-red reflectology scans, an advanced new scanning method developed by Cameron, the VegaScan system, was used to further reveal these known sub surface features, and search for further alterations.

Whilst the technology is still subject to proprietary restrictions, this adaptive scanning process, achieves the spectral sublimation of a primary image’s layers, by sequentially dissolving from the surface image, through its various constituent layers, to reveal its original deep sub surface base components. In simple terms, it is a technical way of peeling off the various upper layers of the paintng, (like an onion), to reveal the compostion’s deeper sub surface features.

These clearer scans further assisted the viewing and interpretation of the known major creative changes and importantly revealed that “Mercury”, in the top right corner, was originally lower and only one third of the size, than seen today on the finished surface.

location of inverted modello.

Further, a fascinating small fully completed “Modello”, also in oils, of a “Study for a Madonna & Child”, was also discovered, in a reverse mode in the upper right section of the work, an earlier trial study “pentimento. Further research indicates this to be slightly different to any extant version, of these subjects, but certainly has Raphael’s imprimatur, and is thus a previously unknown study for a future uncompleted work. For further observations on this hidden “modello”, see below.

2. Condition of Painting.

Examination of craquelure reveals

detail showing craquelure

There is volume loss present, consistent with 16thC Renaissance works; there is also shrinkage, very fine rectangular 16thC cracquelure, again consistent with works from this period.Initial Glazing layers are the original layers.

In 1980, ultra violet testing in London likewise confirmed there has been no alterations or intrusions or retouching performed and that the time yellowed balsamic glazes exhibited the usual indications of the deep opaque green of original varnish.

It should also be noted that for approximately two centuries or possibly more, this painting remained fully protected behind a framed glass surround, quite rare method usually reserved for watercolours rather than protecting oil paintings. Thus the vanish darkening effects, especially of 19thC Victorian coal fuelled fires has been averted.

Ultraviolet test reveals

Additional to remarks on varnish. This examination confirmed a dense cloudy green layer of extremely aged varnish over the entire surface of the painting with just a few tiny incidental losses having earlier been inpainted. This affirmed the physical observation that the work’s final surface glazing(s) had experienced minimal past cleaning or other interference, and are remarkably close to their original status.

Giorgione/Titian, Concert Champetre, Louvre, 1508-9.

The aged varnish imparts a patinated hue to the painting’s s surface and is particularly evident in the golden glow of the nude goddesses' bodies. In 1854 Gustave Waagen referred to this as,“the warmest golden tones”. Through this craquelure however other fresher colours and more natural pink flesh tones are readily discernible. In his Titian to1518, pp 99, Joannides had observed a very similar phenomenon in respect to the broadly contemporary Giorgione/Titian “Pastoral Concert” painting, where he refers  to, “layers of dirty and coloured varnish give it crespuscular warmth and subdued harmomy”.. “and its colour relations were once sharper brighter and more emphatic..” Over the considerable period since such finish(es) were finally applied, they had developed the expected fine, regular pattern of craquelure, resultant from their gradual hardening and consequent shrinkage from volume loss, of their naturally derived volatile balsamic constituents. Beneath these, can be evidenced the deeper, wider craquelure and fissuring of the original painted surface, caused likewise by this ageing process. Thus it still remains as Waagen had earlier noted in 1854, “in excellent preservation”, much due to its long unbroken provenance from 1770 – 1952 with successive Earls of Malmesbury whilst also having been protected behind glass, from 18^th -19thC coal laden city atmospheres, in provincial Malmesbury.

3. Pigment Analysis.

Microscopy

It is intended for gas chromatographic pigment analysis to be performed, as with the Holbein, however earlier attempts to have this arranged were unable to proceed due to prior commitments of the laboratory contacted. Initial microscopic visual analysis at 250x revealed crystalline structures of the pigments, consistent with those of other early 16thC works.

Lapis – not yet determined but is either this or Azurite.

Azurite – not yet determined but is either this or Lapis

Perhaps glass powder – It should be stated that glass powder appears restricted to Raphael’s earlier Florentine works, and it is recalled that Jill Dunkerton (of the scientific dept. at the NG)  actually admitted it was not definitive, as both this pigment and Raphael’s base grounds were both widely variable.

Ridolofi’s remarks.

Ridolfi, Title-page Le maraviglie dell’ Arte ovvero, Le vite degli Illustri Pittori Veneti and dello Stato, 1648.

Ridolofi’s citing is critically important as few paintings carry Ridolfi’s rare imprimatur and connoisseurship expertise. There is the other conjoint fact well worth citing that just as today in 2012 we can quite easily determine an 1850’s Victorian painting by its cracquelure and aged appearance, so in 1648 it would have been just as easy for Ridolfi to discern the painting had all the same age characteristics of a circa 1510 example.

Secondly, any advanced pigment testing would still only age the painting to around Ridolfi’s 1648 period and backwards, as the same pigments were used over that same 150 year period, and no test can yet differentiate within that one and a half century timeline. Therefore his unique visual 1648 on site evaluation is a more valid confirmation of this painting early 16thC dating, with the additional imprimatur of his acknowledged connoisseurship credentials of knowing many significant master’s paintings, and attesting to their primacy, even if he understandably gave this in Venice to Giorgione and not Raphael, for the earlier mentioned valid reasons.

4. Alterations and substitutions

Underdrawing

Vega Scans revealing a “modello” of a Madonna. below, magnification of vega scans revealing different layers.

 

A fascinating additional subsurface feature of significance was also revealed during these investigations, which would further support Raphael’s authorship of the painting. This is a finely detailed Study, Modello colorito, albeit just 12cm sq. approx, in an inverted position at the end of the right goddesses robe, for a exquisite Madonna and Child composition. The Madonna has her hair half covered by a light headdress, with a trailing piece to the rear, and is garbed in a white blouse with ballooning shoulders, contrasted with darker armbands over the upper arms, (which from the density scale of its Infra-red colour values are most probably in red). Over this white blouse is a darker “V” necked tunic, (which due to its much darker colour value is probably in the blue range), with white ballooning sleeves at the Virgin’s wrists.

magnification of Vegascan showing buried modello.

She cradles the figure of the infant Christ against her right breast, but significantly, it can also be discerned that she is holding a small darker rectangular (Bible) book in her right hand, which she is reading from, perhaps whilst suckling the infant Christ. The composition has a distant city background with walled buildings, one larger one with a dome and tower with a spire, and also a broad sky. Her exposed left arm comes up under the infant’s right arm, whilst her Right hand is just visible above his left shoulder, holding the book. It appears this fully painted study was for an unrealised Madonna and Child project as it differs from any of Raphael’s known executed Madonnas.

Alba Madonna, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1509-10.	Colonna Madonna, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, c. 1507.

The various deep subsurface “invisible” images captured range between just 2 and 12 kb in size and are in a very deep nanometer 25,000+ range, being reproduced through combined Infra-red with advanced surface scanning technology, and the resultant composition is only just discernible through, the final scans offering the best image resolution. Its detailing and qualities appear quite consistent with Raphael’s other productions from this period. The composition shares similarities with the contemporary, Alba Madonna, and since she is holding the small Bible, also has links with his earlier 1507 Colonna Madonna, now in Berlin. However in this rendition the Madonna is portrayed in a different posture to either of these, which suggest it represents a unique new creation from Raphael’s early Roman period. There is a separate seated Infant study to the Left of this, looking away from this composition, and various other minor pentimenti and alteration

Its existence on this work’s sub surface indicate it to be an original draft composition for a Madonna & Child subject from the period. Interestingly, under infra-red the inverted foreground robe reveals an underlying boat, scoop or cradle shape.

The under drawing is substantial and quite unprecedented in his oeuvre. This painting represents Raphael’s most innovative example in a ‘private work’ of the “Venetian oil on canvas alteration technique”, as demonstrated in Giorgione’s ‘The Tempest’, eg. where the focal nude figure was substantially shifted. In the Judgment of Paris composition, Raphael uses the original sub surface for both major compositional changes and minor figural improvements, as the concept is developed to its final surface appearance. He would have learned of these techniques from Marcantonio, who had worked with both Giorgione and Titian in Venice, and also from observing Piombo whilst working with him in the Farnesina Gallery.

Major Changes and their Implications.

There are three major alterations and substitutions that Raphael has made to the original conception that were initially revealed by Infra-red spectography carried out at the University of Melbourne’s, Ian Potter Centre for Art Research, by Mr. Sean Loughrey MA and later at the authors advanced scanning facility.

These alterations included:

Vega scans. Section A shows four different face and position changes, as they advance from the tree. Section B shows the two upper and lower hand positions, and a forefinger extension.

Shallower vega scan revealing final changes to the composition, which occur as “pentimenti” nearer the surface than the other three Vega Scans. In section A, the hand has 2 position changes and is downturned with a golden apple partly visible. The four faces changes are also evident. In section B the dog has had 3 very significant changes of its position, moving down with Paris away from the centre, being originally seated right next to “Fornarina.”

1. Changes to the ‘moment of Judgement’ of The Judgement of Paris episode, and consequential changes to the hands, both in their gesture and function, with substitutions of the Golden Apple award. The hand in the original hooded figure- see below for remarks on dress- was originally upturned and offering the Golden Apple seen within it, not pointing as in the last two versions. This means that in the so-called original “Shepherd” images, no “Apple” was in his lower clenched hand.

Detail showing later Mercury departing after Paris’s decision.

This reading is also supported by changes noted to the figure of Mercury who was originally conceived as a small, foreshortened figure in the sky, floating above the “Judgement” scene at right angles to the picture plane. Raphael subsequently deleted this figure, by the addition of a cloud, and substituted it with a far more significant and detailed Mercury figure, in a twisting pose, diagonal to the picture plane, departing the scene below. He looks back across his shoulder to the unfolding drama taking place below. Mercury’s role and depiction has therefore changed from one of observer of the contest, to that of bearer of the news of Paris’s final Judgement decision to Mount Olympus. This substitution also functions as a clever perspective device to accentuate the strong triangulation of the composition, to the sky, while assisting the painting’s three dimensionality and its depth, relative to the planar focal figures.

2. The most important change is one which completely revises the narrative from the classical interpretation of the legend, as in the later collaborative engraving by Marcantonio, (after the antique sculptural friezes), into an early 16thc Arcadian nude posie painting of love, in the contemporary Venetian manner. See post 3 of this series for a detailed discussion of this. This change transforms the painting’s concept from its traditional rendition, into the artist’s personal painting of love, and only known visual declaration of their joint devotion.

5. Dating

Sub-surface-see the above remarks on Ridolfi.

Age and date concordances scientifically confirmed dress by dendrochronology.

Raphael’s portrait. Physiognomic Age specific images. Raphael's countenance, which as proven by its subsurface pentimenti, was added into the composition to join that of Fornarina, and is also a unique portrayal, in that it is not a copy of any previously known image of him, either in its dress or "type", It too is an "Age and Date specific "original" portrait like Fornarina's of 1512. His physiognomy is consistent with that of "Stanza" version, with the garb datable to this period, however he is clearly younger and in better health than seen in the 1519 joint portrait. None of these could be claimed as "chance" likenesses but were purpose created portraits for this painting.

Faces of Raphael. Stanza self-portrait (1509-10); Judgment self-portrait (1512); self-portrait with a Friend, (1518)

Fornarina’s portrait. The Fornarina is clearly a more naive and youthful portrayal than any previously known image of her and is therefore neither a copy nor any "chance resemblance", but a unique visage of her in 1512. It is self evidently an "Age and Date” specific portrait, which most accurately records her actual physiognomy at that time, which may well include her naked countenance, from this original sitting.Accurate portraits are difficult enough to create, yet both these are finely wrought, true to life renditions and dateable to Rome in 1512.It is his first portrayal of the young Fornarina’s portrait image in Rome, completed in the year 1512, but probably commenced in 1511.

Faces of Fornarina. Judgment (1512); Sistine Madonna (1513);  “La Donna Velata” (1516).

6. Forensic

Anatomical

Raphael’s body type; concordant facial Comparisons.

Physiognomic

Ears and feet; physiological concordances.

Craniological

Similarities with Raphael’s exhumed skull and consequently proposed facial features; the ear of Venus is comparable with Raphaels other contemporary portrayal of ears The very distinctive “Raphaelesque Feet’ are quite comparable with his other portrayals and show a remarkable concordance.

Crainiometric comparison and forensic analysis is hoped to be undertaken at a future time to compare the now established visual concordances.  Readers might like to know that interest in Raphael’s skull dates back to the early modern period. What was thought to be Raphael’s skull was adorned with laurels by the Accademia di San Luca, but subsequent investigations revealed it to be that of a sixteenth-century canon at the Pantheon. The search for Raphael’s bones reflected a period interested in the science of craniology and craniometry, a story that David Allan Brown and Jane van Nimmen tell in their book on The Bindo Altoviti portrait, once thought to be a self-portrait, but now known to be a portrait of the renaissance banker.

Costume/dress

Detail of Judgment and Portrait of Agnolo Doni, 1506, Galleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti), Florence.

In addition to linking to the age data, this aspect of the investigation crosses both science and style areas. The scientific examination determined that the “Paris” figure had undergone four changes: an initial garbed figure in a “monk” like black hood, seated next to the tree; then a shepherd figure seated further out; then Raphael introduced his own visage, as “Paris”, as self-portrait, with a comprehensive dress change; a final change where “Paris” is moved further out from the tree, whilist rotating his head towards the viewer. As observed in another post, there are similarities between the dress, “the parti-coloured tights and plumes and slashes of the sixteenth century”, in the Judgment and Venetian paintings like the Rural Concert by Titian and Giorgione. It should also be noted that the sleeve style and pigment directly match that seen in Agnolo Doni’s Portrait, painted by Raphael during his Florentine period.

7. Monogrammatic

It would appear that through his contact with Leonardo during his formative years, Raphael became familiar with Da Vinci’s monogramme signing traits. Some of these are present in the Malmesbury Judgment of Paris. They are manifested as signature devices, being multiple monogrammes and dates for the year 1512. A 1512 date is inscribed within the fabric headband of the central goddess, a method that Raphael is known to have used in another work.

As per GC’s book.

A further group of both 1512 date and monogramme is set within the Golden Apple. Two other “Rv” monogrammes are on the upper chest and within the crotch area of both goddesses, a cogent example of Raphael’s known approach, to his personal relationships as the “lothario” lover.

As per GC’s book.

There appears a just decipherable “R” monogramme or character on the collar of the dog at Paris’s side, along with other “meaningless” decorative inscriptions, (Gould), or perhaps (Cufic) writing as discussed in Rona Goffen’s 2003, “Designer Labels article. It is noted that Raphael’s earlier St George panel (1505), has an inscription on the horse’s bridle.

8. Future technical analysis

It is intended that further X-Radiographic, Spectrographic Pigment Sampling, Macro Surface Studies, and other relevant examinations be undertaken in the near future, to provide additional scientific corroboration to the definitive findings already established from the above examinations.

Canvas support analysis – Future testing handy – but likewise not really definitive. Also needs 1510 comparisons and other museum results support, which is never forthcoming and usually denied.

9. Finishing Up 

Just as a painting is never really finished- you can always come back to it and re-touch it, or re-view it in the light of something new, so this debate is likely to go on. Though this series is officially finished, there will be a unstructured catch-all summary post in which issues raised can be re-visited and  elaborated upon. I know that Graeme Cameron wants to amplify certain points. Likewise, readers of this blog are invited to supply material for this round-up post; if you want to raise anything, offer an insight, a criticism, or anything that occurs to you after reading this or all the posts in this series, then contact AHT via e.mail or leave a comment here and I’ll integrate it into the post.

 

David Brown & Jane Van Nimmen, Raphael & the Beautiful Banker : the story of the Bindo Altoviti portrait, New Heaven [Conn.] ; London : Yale University Press, c2005.

Graeme Cameron, The Secrets of Leonardo da Vinci, Vol. 1, VegaScan, 2011.

Rona Goffen, Raphael’s Designer Labels : From the Virgin Mary to La Fornarina, Artibus et Historiae, Vol. 24, No. 48. (2003), pp. 123-142.

Cecil Gould, Raphael versus Giulio Romano : The Swing Back, The Burlington Magazine , Vol. 124, No. 953. (Aug., 1982), pp. 479-485+487.

Paul Joannides, Titian to 1518: The Assumption of Genius, Yale University Press, 2002.

Carlo Ridolfi, Le maraviglie dell’ Arte ovvero, Le vite degli Illustri Pittori Veneti and dello Stato, 1648.

Patricia Rubin, Signposts of Invention : Artists’ Signatures in Italian Renaissance Art, Art History 29 (4), 563-599.

Dr G Wagen,Treasures of Art in Great Britain, John Murray London (1854) pp. 416.

A Debate in Parliament

As I’m pressed for time I’m just going to post verbatim a report I’ve received from the Camerons about the Malmesbury Judgement of Paris. It is important new evidence, and comes from no other source than Hansard, the record of Parliamentary proceedings. I agree with GC; the timing is weird given that I’ve just posted about connoisseurship, Eastlake and the painting itself. Are the gods looking down on this blog!

 

An example of Hansard from the 19th century.

Verbatim from Graeme and Norman Cameron.

“Important New Research Evidence of Lord Malmesbury's "The Judgement of Paris" involving 'Sir Charles Eastlake' and the painting's 'Louvre Paris Exhibition', and also 'Connoisseurship Matters' in The House of Lords Hansard, of July 1869.

In a fascinating twist of providence, a valuable historical account has now been discovered by art researchers Graeme and Norman Cameron, with direct links to the same Three Topics covered in "Art History Today's" recent Posts. In an amazing coincidence, further significant new evidence as to the distinguished status of Lord Malmesbuy's painting comes from no less than the House of Lords, London Debate Report, in the Hansard of 26th. July 1869..

It concerns the National Gallery London's picture purchases, particularly of a Rembrandt, in the course of which, Lord Malmesbury contributes observations to the Debate. In a lengthy response he refers to a Letter of Attestation he has from the Late Sir Charles Eastlake; ( this Letter was earlier cited in these Posts, but its contents were unknown ). However, Eastlake's letter said, "It was one of the finest Giorgione's he had ever seen". This unequivocal statement from the still revered former the inaugural Director of the National Gallery, London, Artist & Connoisseur, when added to those of Prof. Gustave Waagen, Dr. J D Passavant, and Sir Martin Conway, shows just how acclaimed this painting was in the 19thC.

More importantly, Lord Malmesbury's speech reveals that Eastlake's regard for the painting was such that he arranged for "The Judgement of Paris" to be exhibited at the Louvre in Paris the late 1860's. Interestingly whilst there, a Louvre official expressed "it was not by "Giorgione" but another "Venetian Master", (Titian?)

This adds a most significant previously uncited "foreign" Exhibition credential to this painting's already extensive United Kingdom exhibition record and shows just how acclaimed this masterpiece was by both doyen Connoisseurs and the general public, as confirmed at both Manchester & Leeds Art Treasures Exhibitions and those at the RA's "Burlington House", etc..

Lord Malmesbury's speech also gives fascinating insights into his family's ownership and custodianship of the painting, especially his generous allowing weekly private viewing to art loving admirers at his Stafford Place residence, and gives other rare insights on 19thC collecting and altruism, which are equally relevant even today.”

The relevant section of the debate is below, the reference to the Judgement, its exhibition in Paris, and the Louvre curator’s non-Giorgione attribution  comes right at the end. Here’s a link to the whole of the Lord's debate of 1869, on Hansard’s web site. Now why can’t David Cameron- who studied art history at Eton- start a debate on the merits of connoisseurship and attribution in the Commons!

The Upper Chamber, the House of Lords.

HL Deb 26 July 1869 vol 198 cc651-65 651

Relevant section

The Earl of Malmesbury said, they must all feel obliged to the noble Lord (Lord Overstone) for his explanation, which showed that the Trustees displayed their judgment without fear or favour in choosing pictures for the National Gallery. If, indeed, there were any part of the noble Lord's speech with which he felt inclined to find fault, it was that in which he appeared to be more than displeased at these Questions having been put. The noble Lord must be aware that Questions of this kind, when asked in either House, were not only perfectly fair in a Parliamentary point of view, but were likewise a proof of the great interest felt by the public in the success of the National Gallery. He was sure that the noble Lord himself did not desire that the people of this country should wander in stupid silence through the rooms in which these pictures were hung, and no one with such a liberal mind as his could find fault with the remarks and criticisms, however extraordinary, which those who inspected the treasures of art preserved in the Gallery might make. These were after all, nothing more nor less than expressions of opinion. The noble lord had styled the Questions put to him this evening as ungenerous Questions; but for his own part he (the Earl of Malmesbury) thought they were evidences of the pride and interest which all persons in this country, whatever their rank might be, took in the art treasures which were to be found in our National Gallery. He maintained that it was entirely a matter of opinion as to whether a picture were genuine or not, and more especially must this be the case with regard to pictures painted by the Old Masters. When it was considered that upwards of three centuries had elapsed since the Venetians put their pencils to the canvass, it was obviously impossible to have what in a court of justice would be called complete and positive evidence that such and such a picture was painted by such and such a man who lived in the 16th century; all we could do was to trace the pedigrees and successive owners of these pictures, and to draw an inference from the facts as to whether they were genuine or not. 663 Most of the paintings in the National Gallery had, he believed, passed through that ordeal, and might be regarded with pride and confidence as genuine works of the Masters to whom they were ascribed. If it had not been for the Questions put this evening, the public would not have had the advantage of being acquainted with the complete pedigrees of the pictures to which the noble Lord had referred. Considering the great difficulty of identifying ancient pictures, he could not but admire the characteristic sagacity of a certain class of collectors—he meant those men who, having in the course of a life of practical business accumulated large fortunes, and having great taste and a desire to form galleries of pictures, almost universally discarded the Old School and laid out their money in purchasing modern pictures, the genuineness of which could be ascertained far more readily than the authenticity of works alleged to be by the Old Masters. This circumstance showed that the public were excusable if they were suspicious and timid with respect to purchasing pictures of the Old Masters; and the noble Lord and his Colleagues—for whose exertions he felt assured the country was deeply grateful —must occasionally expect Questions similar to those which had been asked this evening. The noble Lord had quoted various authorities; but it would not be difficult to show that those authorities did not agree among themselves. He himself possessed a picture which for the last 100 years had been deemed to be an undoubted Giorgione. Some lovers of art used to come to look at it two or three times a week, and he had a letter from the late Sir Charles Eastlake, in which he stated it was one of the finest Giorgiones he had ever seen. Yet when he sent that picture to the Exhibition at Paris, a gentleman employed at the Louvre pronounced it to be the work, not of Giorgione, but of another Venetian master. Indeed, he believed there was only one way of discovering the real authors of these ancient pictures —namely, by calling in the aid of spiritualism, and bringing ourselves into correspondence with Mr. Home, who should be requested to interrogate Giorgione, Titian, and other great artists on the subject. Until their Lordships believed in spiritualism, however, they must rely upon opinions such as had been adduced 664 this evening by the noble Lord (Lord Overstone.)

Book Review.Susanna Avery-Quash and Julie Sheldon, Art for the Nation: The Eastlakes and the Victorian Art World, National Gallery Press, Yale, 2011.

I bought this book at last year’s exhibition on Eastlake, but haven’t had the time to read and review it until this year.

 

There are many things that this book does well, but it succeeds above all in giving Lady Eastlake (Elizabeth Rigby) her rightful place at the centre of the whirl of Victorian art and institutional politics, something that previous accounts of the Eastlakes have failed to do. Not only was Rigby a formidable writer, translating such early surveys of Italian art as Kugler’s Handbook on Painting and famously criticising Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, but she drew, and contributed much to the study of art history through her many translations, essays and work for her husband.

Born into a family of middle-class professionals, the daughter of a doctor, Elizabeth took drawing lessons from Cotman, visited Germany and developed an intellectual personality which emerged in her writings for the conservative journal, The Quarterly Review as well as her translations and reflections as a lady traveller in Europe. In 1849 Rigby married the diffident painter and rising star of the London art administration community, Charles Locke Eastlake. Though they were a well-matched couple, there was a hint of pragmatism about the union; she saw it as a form of “rationalised happiness.” Not much is known about the personal side of the Eastlake’s marriage, so it is impossible to know exactly what she could have meant. The authors are probably correct in assuming that Lady Eastlake destroyed this personal material in order to preserve certain aspects of the marriage.

John Partridge, Sir Charles Lock Eastlake,1825, National Portrait Gallery, pencil, 24.1 x18.4 cm.

In the opening section of the book, Charles Lock Eastlake is sketched quickly. Born in Plymouth, destined for the legal profession, but saved from that fate by becoming a pupil to that most eccentric of English painters- Benjamin Robert Haydon. We further learn that the young Eastlake studied anatomy, read Goethe, cultivated a quietly ambitious philosophy, aided by a regime of diligence and perseverance. One of the most intriguing insights is made about how the retiring Eastlake would never affirm himself, but disclosed his character through others. As the authors note, when he describes his friend Sir Robert Peel, he is talking about himself:

“He probably, in early life, began with accurate habits, which make…an attention to details always easy, and which are the best foundation for enlarged experience. A slip-slod workman is good for neither; he can neither be a plodder nor a philosopher. Without attention to the business of the moment there can be no accuracy, without accuracy and industry (the evidence of zeal) there can be no extensive knowledge of facts and details, which are the pabulum of judgement, and the only true groundwork of theory.”

Sir Thomas Lawrence. Maria Graham, Lady Calcott, 1819.

And it is fascinating to learn that Eastlake was not the only individual to indulge in this veiled -disclosure. The Giotto scholar and subject of one of Sir Thomas Lawrence’s paintings, Maria Graham, wrote a life of Poussin whose (supposedly) philosophical qualities and working habits matched Eastlake’s, according to the authors. Maria Graham was the first in a series of lady connoisseurs who gravitated to men like Eastlake, and it would be an interesting exercise to study how connoisseurship worked within 19^th century marriages, or female society. Though connoisseurship is often seen as a predominantly male preserve, instances of famous couples who were leading connoisseurs could be found in the Victorian and later periods. What one would have given to be a fly on the wall at the meeting between Bernard and Mary Berenson and the ailing Lady Eastlake later in the century?

John Prescott Knight, Sir Charles Lock Eastlake, Royal Academy, London, 1857.

Though this book’s purpose is not to discuss connoisseurship per se, it could hardly ignore it completely given Eastlake’s legendary powers of visual analysis and picture expertize. In a chapter on Eastlake as Director of the National Gallery, a model of Eastlake’s working methods is set out, - and it makes for compelling reading. The first stage of what Avery-Quash and Sheldon call Eastlake’s “three protocols of connoisseurship” consists of first-hand and proto-scientific analysis of works of art; a subdivision of this involved taking exact measurements and accurate transcriptions of any inscriptions, dates, signatures, monograms and ciphers. Though Eastlake spent a lot of time in the archives studying signatures, he was the inferior of Otto Mündler, the NG’s travelling agent who was more skilled at the “morphology of artist’s signatures.” Other sub-sections of this first protocol consisted of technical examination involving the use of chemists, which would eventually lead to the establishment of the scientific department of the National Gallery. This is hardly surprising as Eastlake was keenly interested in the materials and supports of artists; he published Materials for a History of Oil Painting in 1847. Finally, staying within the first category, to a limited extent, Eastlake noted “significant forms” in the manner of Morelli, physiognomic details. It is clear that Eastlake was not really sold on the Morellian method, though he did give examples like the “locking inwards of legs” in the paintings of Luca Signorelli.

The second protocol consisted of comparative analyses of a broad range of artworks in Eastlake’s meticulously kept notebooks. Here, Eastlake differed greatly from the likes of Morelli and Berenson who disdained this note-taking activity preferring to use their eyes; but Eastlake was an archivist through and through, and more significantly an administrator who knew the necessity of noting down details. It was noted by one of his contemporaries that Sir Charles wrote brilliant minutes! Where Eastlake gelled with Berenson was in his use of photographic reproductions to aid comparative study of pictures. Interestingly, Lady Eastlake shared the same emphasis as her husband on photography; she even wrote on it and saw its potential for connoisseurship.

At the risk of using a phrase sounding like some dreadful thriller novel, the final protocol made scrupulous use of archival and secondary source material: examination of inscriptions, sometimes in archives abroad. This was supported by what the authors call the “formation of a pioneering private library,” the result of frequenting book shops on the continent. This would eventually form the core of the NG’s own library. For Eastlake, a picture had to be “eligible”, for acquisition by the National Gallery. He would award a positive or negative attribution after weighing up all the facts and possibilities, even re-visiting the picture in the final stages of the process. Above all, he was anxious, to quote his wife, of not “morally or connoisseurially” disappointing in his choices. What Eastlake would have made of today’s market-driven, internet-promoting scramble for attributions and re-discoveries, is anybody’s guess.

John Singer Sergeant,”Vernon Lee”, aka Violet Paget, Tate Gallery, London, 1881.

In the years after her husband died, in 1865, Lady Eastlake continued to write, intent on prolonging Sir Charles’s ideas on art history and connoisseurship. Her later writings coincided with the appearance of the Aesthetic Movement, most famously Walter Pater who poeticised renaissance art and inspired the jeunesse d’oree of the Florentine circle of Berenson, including writers such as Vernon Lee, the pen name of Violet Paget. In 1895 Lee published a dreamy, meandering book inspired by Pater called Renaissance Fancies in which she declared that the business of sorting out originals from copies, and masters from pupils, made us alive to the delight such works could bestow. In this, Vernon Lee made the case for connoisseurship to enhance not only the viewer’s enjoyment of art, but affirm life’s positives. This clearly had the stamp of Berenson who used phrases such as “life-affirming” when discussing attributions and connoisseurship generally, an attitude generated by his study of philosophy and aesthetics at Harvard, later to be supplanted by expertizing and picture valuing. It’s difficult to know exactly what Lady Eastlake made of this “aesthetics of connoisseurship,”, though the authors state that she would have been impervious to this new mode of writing about art. At the same time Avery-Quash and Sheldon concede that Lady E’s comments on Pater, Lee and John Addington Symonds passed unrecorded. Would her meeting with the Berensons have revealed common ground, or would they have remained diametrically opposed about connoisseurship? Her remarks about Crowe and Cavalcaselle, and by extension Morelli, inhabiting “the land of the perpetual perhaps”, suggest that Lady Eastlake lost patience with the new blend of subjective connoisseurship presented in a bouquet of aesthetics and poetic effusion. To be fair to Cavalcaselle though, it was Crowe who went in for the purple passage while the Italian sought facts about the art, something that Lady Eastlake must surely have known. Berenson certainly did.

David Octavius Hill, and Robert Adamson, Elizabeth Eastlake, 1843-8, calotype, National Portrait, Gallery, London,

Another of Lady Eastlake’s stratagems was to try to get Charles Lock Eastlake (the nephew) into the directorship of the NG, in order that he too as another “keeper of the flame” could preserve his uncle’s memory in the new, modernised institution that the ex-Director had created. Despite the fact that he could never live up to his uncle’s reputation and had therefore no chance of getting the job, it is heart-breaking to read this tale of an earnest, capable man enduring his defeat stoically in his retirement amongst his modest pictures and prints,- there’s nothing more sadder than ambition and talent unrewarded. Yet how could the nephew, or how could any of them hope to aspire to the heights of achievement that Eastlake reached? His triumphs are simply staggering. During his three years as Director, Eastlake acquired something in the region of 171 pictures for the gallery; he had transformed a ramshackle operation into a sleek, modern machine that ran smoothly; and he had set down rigorous standards for the studying, cataloguing and presentation of paintings that the museum observes today. Every director that followed him is considerably in his debt.

A rewarding read throwing light on some of the darker corners of Eastlake scholarship. Recommended for those interested in the National Gallery and the culture of connoisseurship surrounding it.  

Subjectivity in Connoisseurship

Some 19th century connoisseurs by Honoré Daumier.

I’ve been fascinated by the debate that is emerging on subjectivity in connoisseurship, but have had precious little time to join in.

Last year we had Martin Kemp expressing this view in Nature, one of the world’s leading scientific journals

“The standard art-historical arguments centre around connoisseurship- the validation of the attribution by an expert’s eye. Although connoisseurship still has a role to play, and many experts depend upon it, it involves subjective criteria that should long have been superseded as the key tool of attribution.”

Unsurprisingly, Kemp was writing about the Salvator Mundi. Similar remarks were made by Bendor Grosvenor on Art History News last week, in response to Charles Hope (and others) “subjective” evaluation of the Salvator Mundi.

“This seems to be yet another case of the Salvator Mundi producing entirely subjective responses. Many of those who have declared it to be either by or not by Leonardo have gone on to describe their reasoning in subjective terms. Here it is too 'dull'. Andrew Graham-Dixon said it lacked 'the spark of inner life and feeling'. Readers will know of other similar views. And I'm sorry, but it isn't good enough. Attributions cannot be made or dismissed on a viewer's own human response to a painting. One person's 'dull' picture can be another's 'magical' one.”

I’m not going to comment on the Salvator Mundi, but I’d love to be present at the forthcoming New York colloquium on it and other works. Sure to be some emotion there.

Finally, Three Pipe Problem had an interesting post on the controversial side of connoisseurship, focussing on Giorgione attributions, and ending on a note of incredulity at Bernard Berenson’s expertizing that consisted of turning self-assured opinion into fact, which this writer still sees in today’s attribution culture:

“Even acknowledging the benefits of hindsight, and modern access to better images and technical data, we must still puzzle at the confidence with which observers make their statements, often written as fact.”

Can an expert’s eye be completely free of emotion, subjectivity, any kind of feelings when making an attribution, or even just contemplating a painting? I don’t know about others, but my eye can’t be completely dispassionate when looking at art.

Berenson again, from his diary in 1890: “First I must keenly enjoy a picture, then I can write about it.” “This, I suppose, is not scientific.”

I think all this comes under what could be called the “aesthetics of connoisseurship,” a theme l’ll return to via a review of a book about the Eastlakes, in due course.

The Malmesbury Judgement of Paris: the Full Story, 3.

Sorry for the hiatus, but one has to earn a living- and this took a lot of time. Be warned; it’s a long post, but I did call this series the full picture.

“But while the process of invention can, to a certain extent, be reconstructed upstream, such is not the case closer to its final issue; unlike other pieces engraved by Marcantonio, the Judgement of Paris left no trace in the painted work of Raphael. This fact merits our attention, given that the comparison of engravings and finished works can often be quite instructive.”

Hubert Damisch.

The Lost Painting.

Marcantonio Raimondi (after Raphael), The Judgement of Paris, engraving, c. 1517-18.

Raphael’s Judgment of Paris has hitherto been known exclusively through the engraving by Marcantonio Raimondi, which has been endlessly emulated. Yet as Lisa Pon has noted, the Judgement of Paris was one of only 5 designed by Raphael and engraved by Marcantonio, to be both named and monogrammed. Amongst these are the Parnassus and St. Cecilia, both after Raphael’s paintings and both varying considerably from his originals.

Raphael, St Cecilia, 1514, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna.	Marcantonio Raimondi, (after Raphael), St Cecilia, engraving, c. 1514.

So, is the design in the surviving print of the Judgement of Paris a record of the final version? And more to the point for the purposes of this particular investigation: does the engraved “final” version have any kinship with the controversial Malmesbury Judgement of Paris of 1512? It’s the contention of the authors of the report on the Malmesbury painting that this could be the lost painting that the engraving is based upon. But, if Damisch is correct about the Judgment of Paris leaving no trace in the painting of Raphael, then is this case closed? Far from it. AHT thinks an examination into the links between the engraving, other sources, and the Malmesbury work is justified, as hopefully will be demonstrated in the third of these research reports. For the record AHT believes that the evidence is mounting that the Malmesbury Judgement of Paris has stylistic, iconographic and maybe even biographical associations with Raphael himself.

Actually Damisch did refer to a painting: a grisaille (monochrome) of the same subject beneath the fresco of Parnassus, which must have some connection with the more celebrated composition known via the engraving, so we can journey “downstream” from this towards the “final issue” of Raphael’s invention. Jones and Penny dated this small painted Judgement 1512-13 and noted it resembled the more classical relief style. Jones and Penny also observed that the “composition of the Judgement of Paris design was expanded, “perhaps in two stages, and certainly with work in different styles.” Gradually, over time, the composition was extended further to include a landscape inhabited by a river god, nymphs, woodland creatures; finally, a celestial vault ruled over by Jupiter and his court was added- all far beyond the basic scheme and demonstrating Raphael’s restless invention.

Raphael, The Expulsion of Heliodorus, 1511-12, Stanza della Elidoro, Vatican, Rome, fresco.

Jones and Penny’s hypothesis was that additions made to the 1517-18 Judgement of Paris, may reflect the influence of figure placement in painted schemes like the Expulsion of Heliodorus. In passing, it should be pointed out that the figure of Heliodorus in the above fresco seems modelled on the celebrated reclining statue of the river Tiber which was discovered in 1512; a river god based upon it later appears in Raimondi’s engraving.

Statue of the River Tiber, discovered in 1512.	Paris from Malmesbury Judgement of Paris, 1512.

Given its date, exact with the Malmesbury painting, it might be the case that the appearance of the river god may also have inspired Raphael to base the pose of Paris on it, in the Malmesbury picture. Returning to the engraving, the later Judgement of Paris composition is nothing less than a composite of different structural units. So, if we take Jones and Penny at their word and agree on a line of development for the Judgement of Paris that begins about 1512-13 and mutatis mutandis, culminates downstream in the surviving print dated 1517-18, then where does the neglected tributary of the Malmesbury picture join with this torrent of compositional invention?

Page from Graeme Cameron’s book showing pentimenti. Instead of pointing as seen in section B, in earlier versions revealed by infra red and vega scanning, the hand was actually upturned and offering the “Golden Apple”seen within it. This means that in earlier images, no apple was in his lower clenched hand, as in the final work today.

It’s logical to assume that changes would have occurred along the way; this is how Raphael thinks with the pen in his hand, even completely transforming designs in mid stream. Assuming that he painted the Malmesbury picture, he may applied his transformative skills in creating that work. In the words of GC:

“In this painting, Paris’s left pointing hand of “Judgement” was altered to portray the immediate moment after his fateful decision of Judgement, rather than as he had earlier depicted it, holding the award of the Golden Apple towards Venus as more traditionally seen, such as in the Marcantomio engraving. Accordingly the Golden Apple has been transferred to his clenched right hand, whilst the originally clenched left hand has been re-modelled to a pointing gesture, with a further later extension to the length of the left index finger.”

In considering these pictorial manoeuvres, it is worth bearing in mind a critical statement concerning gesture and pose in Raphael’s drawings, made by John Shearman – “Raphael learned the expressive possibilities of the slightest modification of pose, the potential of movement and the arrangements of the hands as indicators of character and mood.” Lisa Pon coined the term “graphic intelligence” to explain Raphael’s compositional processes where he seeks for a solution through his restless striving for the perfect composition. “Graphic intelligence” was derived from Svetlana Alpers and Michael Baxandall’s “pictorial intelligence”, which Pon defines as “Resolutely visual and independent of textual concerns, a given artist’s pictorial intelligence shapes the decisions he or she makes in producing a picture, and even frames the alternatives from which these choices can be made.”

Drawing into Engraving.

Luca Penni (after Raphael), The Judgement of Paris, Petit Palais, Paris, c. 1517?

Only one drawing for Marcantonio’s engraving seems to have survived; this is attributed to Luca Penni, and is in the Petit Palais, Paris. Executed in pen and wash, this has occasionally been assigned to Raphael too The engraving may be based on the drawing, but this must remain a matter for speculation. A major change between print and drawing is Penni’s relegation of the reclining river god group to the background, which serves to emphasise the central Paris/Goddesses group unlike in the engraving where no detail is privileged over another.

Penni entered Raphael’s studio in 1515, and according to John Shearman his job was to act in a “secretarial” capacity, making visual records (ricordi) of Raphael’s compositions. Raphael would eventually trust Penni to draw the important modello for the Transfiguration, based presumably on the master’s original thought for that painting. Penni’s drawing might be considered a compositional study for the Judgement of Paris print, but that’s probably not the case. It might be better to regard Penni’s drawing as a record of the print albeit with his own stylistic flourishes, like the mannerist, tapered limbs of the women which are as far from Raphael as one can get.

Detail of Raimondi’s engraving.

There are definite similarities between the positions of the three goddesses in both drawing and engraving. In Penni’s drawing, the women closely match those in the engraving although interestingly, Minerva- with her back turned towards the spectator- is different in attitude. Her lower legs cross over each other unlike the Minerva in the engraving, whose legs are apart. This is significant because the drawing betrays Raphael’s study of contrapossto, counter-position to the un-initiated, where most of the weight is placed on one foot. There exists another drawing by Penni of a “Toilet of Venus”, in the British Museum, which has the goddess’s lower legs crossed again. Again, it was previously attributed to Raphael, but Pouncey and Gere note it’s typical of Penni’s phase when Raphael’s influence was wearing off. Penni seems to be forging his own style in these drawings, although Raphael provided the baseline. To AHT’s eye, the sharp pen line and faint hatching of the British Museum sheet – sorry, don’t have an image-recall Raphael’s treatment of the Leda on a sheet at Windsor, and the figure in the BM drawing manifestly has some lineage with (a) Minerva in Penni’s drawing and (b), the Eve in the print by Marcantonio Raimondi of Raphael’s Adam and Eve, viewed by Joannides as resembling the central figure (Venus) in the Malmesbury Judgement of Paris.

The Leda Factor

“Raphael was more interested in Leda’s pose….the extreme contrapposto which he was able to study in the works of Leonardo and Michelangelo. It had an instantaneous and lasting effect on his art.”

Tom Henry, Raphael exhibition, 2004.

Raphael, (after Leonardo da Vinci), Leda, Royal Library, Windsor, c. 1508.

The results of Raphael’s researches into Leda can be seen in such paintings as the London St. Catherine (1507) and the Rome Galatea (1512), but can the spirit of Leonardo’s Leda also be discerned in the Malmesbury painting, as the authors state in their report? According to Paul Joannides, the central woman in the Malmesbury painting has the same contrapossto pose as the figure of Eve in an engraving by Marcantonio Raimondi, dated by Joannides to 1510- see below. AHT doesn’t see any reason to doubt a connection between the Malmesbury Venus and the print of the Adam and Eve. The undulating curve is the same; the position of the feet and the legs match.

 

Marcantonio Raimondi (after Raphael), Lucretia, c. 1510-11.

Thanks to the work of Raphael scholars, especially Lisa Pon, we know more about the working relationship between Raphael and Raimondi at the time that the Adam and Eve print was created. A number of engravings by Raimondi (based on Raphael’s designs) from the same time –1510-11-show tragic females from history, Lucretia and Dido, and they also betray Raphael’s study of Leonardo’s Leda. The crucial question to be posed here is whether the Leda pose of Eve, which is clearly a result of Raphael’s researches into that subject, and given the matching pose of Venus in the Malmesbury picture, supports the attribution. At the very least it reinforces a link between the painting  and Raphael’s workshop. A counter-argument would be that Raimondi’s Adam and Eve print was made without Raphael’s involvement, in which case the printmaker brought the design from Venice where he might have detected it in examples of mythology in that city, although as pointed out in the first post, there aren’t many painted examples of the subject in Venice in the early 1500s for Raimondi to have known. What also undermines that argument is that it was Raphael who became fixated on the Leda as a way of exploring the poses of his protagonists, not Raimondi. And for what it’s worth, AHT has always believed that these nudes didn’t originate in Venetian art.

Marcantonio Raimondi (after Raphael), Adam and Eve, 1511-12., engraving	Malmesbury Venus compared to physiognomy and pose of Eve.

Profile comparisons of the two goddesses in print and painting.

Graeme Cameron also states:

“It should also be noted that the physiognomies and juxtaposition of the two focal Goddesses (Hera and Venus) nearest to Paris, in the engraving are clearly comparable and share related physiognomies to those of the women in the Malmesbury Judgement of Paris, more so than any other known source. The engraving also shows the Paris figure seated in a higher position with a more severe contrapposto, as derived from a classical Medici relief. By contrast, in the painting Paris adopts a very similar pose and position to that of the engraving’s “River God”, but in the opposite corner and in reverse.”

Finally, despite the “Venetian” character of the Malmesbury Judgement of Paris, it has a general relief-like style which is consistent with the more well-known engraving.

Morphological analysis

“This same concern over distinguishing, within the body of work bearing Raphael’s name, between its autograph portion and that executed by assistants would lead connoisseurs- beginning with the most prominent among them, the celebrated Morelli, whose work and methods were of interest to Freud- to considerably reduce the number of works distilling, in its pure state, the essence of his art, a matter that would largely reduce itself to the question of “hands.”

Hubert Damisch.

It is significant that when the name of Morelli is invoked by Damisch, it is both a sign of connoisseurship and an expression of the artist’s working practice, as transmitted through the agency of the hands. Hands within Raphael studies can allude to the method of disentangling Raphael’s own productions from his pupils and followers-connoisseurship; or hands can also refer to the parts of the body that produce the art through “graphic intelligence.” Perhaps this re-configuration of Morelli suggests that his morphological approach- memorably called by one wit, the “ear and toenail school”- has little currency in Raphael studies today. In any case the Morellian method is too schematic and ineffective given the broad physiognomic variations between figures in renaissance painting. It is not flawless as was revealed with a Morellian analysis applied to the Malmesbury Judgement of Paris over on Three Pipe Problem recently.

“Some visual nuances are keenly observed in the article at Art History Today. What is omitted however are some smaller anatomical and compositional nuances. These need to be mentioned as potentially uncharacteristic of Raphael, so consistently astute in rendering models. Looking specifically at the semi-nude on the far right, the two points worth drawing attention are the rendering of head in profile compared to the rotation of the trunk, and the left foot, whose scale seems disproportionate. The overall harmony of the grouping is pleasing enough, but arguably lacks the grace Raphael was able to accomplish at this stage of his career.”

Raphael, The Three Graces, Museé Condé, Chantilly, 1504-5.

To address this issue of disproportion in the Malmesbury Judgement of Paris, it should be noted that focusing on an anatomical detail, a foot in an autograph painting by Raphael, the Chantilly Three Graces, the foot of the central Grace, reveal that it is self-evidently proportionally far smaller and also more anatomically 'deformed', than any of the Judgement of Paris examples.

Comparison of respective foot depictions and modelling of bodies in Three Graces and Malmesbury Judgement of Paris.

So if we followed the Morellian method here, we would have to eliminate the Chantilly Three Graces from Raphael’s oeuvre, which incidentally would be eliminating an important clue- see below. As to TPP’s claim about an "out of proportion foot" and other anatomical deficiencies, it appears quite within the range of "natural foot size variation", and may well have been chosen by Raphael to accentuate the large "well-turned thigh and calf" muscles of that figure.

Drawing comparison with Raphael’s distinctive rendering of feet.

It therefore seems wrong to deem it "deformed" or physiologically invalid. Raphael actually has a very distinctive manner of rendering feet, which also fully accords with those found in this work, an example here proving it.

Preparatory Studies?

“We in the digital age would metaphorically call this procedure of reusing figures from one drawing to in another one “cut and paste.” In fact that metaphor comes from our process of literally cutting or tearing apart a sheet of paper and gluing it onto another surface. This process first became widely practiced in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when printed images were often silhouetted and passed into books, boxes, or walls…Raphael actively cut or tore his drawings to advance his compositions.”

Lisa Pon.

Another concern of TPP was the absence of a preparatory study for the Malmesbury painting, which is fair comment as any art historian worth their salt would try to substantiate an attribution claim with relatable drawings. Well, it’s probably unwise to regard Penni’s individualistic drawing as a preparatory study- see above. However, there are drawings of female nudes, Venus, some based on the Leda, in existence. One of these is the so-called “Venus and the Vintagers”, a nude trio drawing in the Ashmoleon in pen with plumb lines. Unfortunately this sheet is difficult to read, either due to its state or the reproduction. It isn’t reproduced here as it’s too faint, but Joannides catalogue can be accessed here. It would be interesting to go to Oxford to see it. To quote from Joannides’s catalogue raisonné of Raphael drawings: 

“Presumably en suite with cat. 135 r. (Three Musicians, a satyr playing a horn, a muse (?) playing a harp, Apollo ( ?) playing a viol da braccio) for a decorative panel, perhaps for a piece of furniture. The accent is very much on the contour and the rhythmical relations of the figures. The nymph on the left echoes Leda (cat. 98, the Windsor drawing of Leda), the movement of that of the child on the right in cat. 120 (Louvre study for Belle Jardinière). The faun in the centre is reminiscent of Signorelli’s Kingdom of Pan” [sadly lost].

Clockwise from centre top: Malmesbury nude group; Posed nude girl with mirror,  Louvre, c. 1518; Venus, British Museum, 1512; Female nude posed as Venus, Budapest, c.1512; Standing nude Venus, Uffizi, c. 1508-9; Leda, Windsor, c. 1508;  Bust of Venus and lower half of Venus, Harvard and Bayonne. (These last two were originally “cut and pasted” together.

Inserted here is a composite of a variety of nudes in Raphael's drawings. According to Graeme Cameron, the characteristic Venus pose and the evolving, interlocking and rhythmical nude figurative group arrangement, generally echo those of the trio within the Judgement of Paris painting. What might work against a link with the Malmesbury three nude group is the date of the Ashmoleon “Venus and Vintagers”, 1505-6, well before the Malmesbury picture. However, we do have a drawing of a “Female Nude posed as Venus” (Budapest), which Joannides affirms is “close to the pose of Venus in the Judgement of Paris engraved by Marcantonio Raimondi” but Joannides adds that it was “probably not preparatory [for the engraving] “but simply an experiment in posing a model…as the Cnidian Venus.” Graeme Cameron believes this drawing has other links with other extant drawings of nude Venus subjects in Joannides’s catalogue 194v / 195v and 202r, which the cataloguer proposed as “studies for a painting” or for a “lost or unexecuted easel painting.” The authors of the Malmesbury report venture that these drawings are also linked to the “Venus and Vintagers” drawing; they also propose at least 194v / 195v (Harvard and Bayonne sheets), as the related “functional” nude drawings. These, they believe are from life, of Raphael’s studio models for the face and shoulders of his Fornarina lover, and for Venus’s body, (likewise cut and pasted), portrayed in the rediscovered Raphael Judgement of Paris painting. This obviously brings us to one of the most inflammatory parts of the attribution, the claim that Raphael inserted an image of himself and his lover, “La Fornarina” into it.

Cherchez la femme.

“To paint a figure truly beautiful, I should see many beautiful forms, with the further provision that you should yourself be present to choose the most beautiful. But good judges and beautiful women being rare, I avail myself of certain ideas which come to my mind. If this idea has any excellence in art I know not, though I labour heartily to acquire it.” Raphael in a letter from Rome to Baldassare Castiglione, 1514. Quoted in Rachel Le Goff, formal research on The Dream of Joseph, 2011, italics mine. Le Goff notes that “here Raphael is speaking in relation to a female model for his Galatea in the Farnesina…”

Raphael, Portrait of a Young Woman, “La Fornarina”, 1518-19, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome.

The question of Raphael’s relations with women has not been resolved though scholarship has progressed beyond Vasari’s risible claim that Raphael died of lovemaking. Yet Vasari’s comment has been useful in prompting inquiry into how Raphael’s amorous activities impacted on his workshop procedures and vice versa. Focusing more on the relationship between Raphael’s loves and the workshop, Konrad Oberhuber has pondered the problem of Raphael’s models, not least the “social problem of seeing a female body in the nude within the culture of 17^th century Rome.” As noted above there is a drawing in which a female model is posed in the manner of a classical Venus, which the authors of the report maintain has connections with the Malmesbury nudes. Assuming that the Malmesbury painting is a product of Raphael’s workshop protocols- and the evidence is mounting that it is- it wouldn’t be out of place to connect the drawings of nudes catalogued by Joannides with the painting. However, the real test comes with the assertion that one of the women in the Malmesbury painting has the features of “La Fornarina”, Raphael’s famous inamorata, immortalised in a painting which Joanne G. Bernstein calls the “most extraordinary” result of Raphael’s studies into the female model, accounting for “ the physicality, fullness and sensuality” of the woman. As Bernstein also observes, “La Fornarina” is a type as well as a portrait that derives from classical mythology. The raised hand and the lowered hand refer to her gender, and more specifically the antique statue of the Venus Pudica. The Pudica pose is hinted at the Malmesbury picture with the woman (Juno), the figure said to have the features of “La Fornarina”, who raises her hand up to her breast.This arm pose pose occurs in other Raphael works shown here for comparison.

Left, study for St Catherine (Louvre, c. 1507) ; bottom, study for St Catherine (Louvre, c. 1507); top right, Faith (Vatican, c. 1507), bottom right, Study for St Catharine (Ashmoleon, c. 1507).

 

Though she doesn’t have the dropped arm, her companion Venus, does. Combined, they make a Pudica figure although Venus herself – in the centre- turns her body slightly towards Paris.* This merging of the two focal goddesses may be significant since it gives the impression of intimacy between Juno and Venus which might suggest that Juno is congratulating Venus on her triumph, whilist the third goddess, Minerva, seems distinctly unimpressed. AHT’s initial reading was that the figure nearest the viewer was actually Juno since she is -traditionally- the most upset at Paris’s decision to award Venus the prize; but this opinion surely has to be revised because in one of the copies of the Malmesbury Judgement, the artist gave this figure the attributes of Minerva, armour and weapons discarded on the grass. He clearly was of the opinion that the goddess further away was Minerva.

Copy after Malmesbury Judgement of Paris, 16th century, National Gallery, Sweden.

It’s also worth pointing out that this copyist seems to have had Marcantonio’s engraving in mind, not just because of the addition of Minerva’s armour, but because he included Cupid clutching Venus’s legs, a detail that occurs in the print. The 17^th century imitator was thinking of the Malmesbury Judgement in terms of Raphael’s design, although admittedly his language of the nude is very different to the figures in Lord Malmesbury’s canvas.

Fornarina comparisons: Malmesbury Juno, La Donna Velata and Sistine Madonna.

Returning to the La Fornarina issue, it simply comes down to whether you believe that there is a facial resemblance between the Juno figure and portraits of Raphael’s women, like “La Fornarina” and “La Donna Velata.” There seems to be physiognomic concordances, but the option is with the viewer to dismiss it as “coincidental” or intentional. The Juno figure in the Malmesbury Judgement does bear a resemblance to both “La Fornarina” and “La Donna Velata”  who are supposed to be modelled on Raphael’s inamorata. There are also the links between these women and drawings of women with antique poses in Raphael’s oeuvre to consider. According to Graeme Cameron, Raphael took care to paint a conjoined monogramme and date (1512) on the headband of the central figure- Venus, which is a subject to be returned to when the technical evidence is presented in the final post. If this is consistent with Raphael’s practice of “labelling” his women, of imposing his “brand” on the model, then that needs to be evaluated in the context of Rona Goffen’s work on so-called “designer labels” in Raphael. Labelling a work meant it had both professional and personal significance for him; should the labelled nude in the Malmesbury painting be seen in that regard?

The Source?

“For his painting “Les Trois Graces” Raphael took his inspiration from an antique marble. …originally .only the woman on the left holding an apple. It was therefore a portrayal of The Judgement of Paris, the shepherd shown in a painting of comparable size in The National Gallery, London, with the title The Knight’s Dream. Later Raphael changed his mind and put an apple in the hands of each of the women thus making them Hesperides…”

Nicole Garnier

Raphael, The Dream of a Knight, London, National Gallery, c. 1504.

The Malmesbury picture may not have been the first time that Raphael personalised a mythological painting with beautiful women. According to Linda Borlonton, Raphael’s Dream of a Knight should be seen as “a spiritual self portrait of Raphael, torn always between two opposing types of women”. The Choice theme was used as a biographical marker in the renaissance, particularly Dὕrer, who used the Choice of Hercules as way of representing himself at a crossroads, a life crisis.* As Damisch observes, it was Panofsky in his ground-breaking work on “Hercules at the Crossroads” who said that the labours of Hercules were sometimes conflated with the story of Paris in Attic vase painting. Damisch sees this confluence of Paris in the painting thought to be a “pendant” to the Knight’s Dream, the exquisite Three Graces, already mentioned, in the Museé Condé at Chantilly, which may have iconographic links to the Judgment of Paris theme. In the words of Nicole Garnier, a curator at Chantilly:

Composite of Knight’s Dream (Scipio’s Dream) and Three Graces, according to GC showing the genesis of the later painting is evident in these earlier compositions.

“For his painting “Les Trois Graces” Raphael took his inspiration from an antique marble. …originally .only the woman on the left holding an apple. It was therefore a portrayal of The Judgement of Paris, the shepherd shown in a painting of comparable size in The National Gallery, London, with the title The Knight’s Dream. Later Raphael changed his mind and put an apple in the hands of each of the women thus making them Hesperides…” We could regard this as an early example of Raphael’s “pictorial intelligence” on this subject, which he was to hone right up to the version of 1517.

A Precedent Composition? 

“The position of the river god in the Judgement of Paris [engraving] is echoed in reverse in Joseph Dreams and there is something of the younger god seated at the foot of Minerva recognisable in the brother closest to Joseph in the group on the left who listens intently with his head resting on his right hand. The setting is similar too to the Paris engraving, with the hillock to the left, an expanse of water in the background and foliage to the right. However, the progression from this work to the design for Joseph Dreams despite all similarities, was not a direct step. The figures had been used by Raphael when designing a basemento grisaille for the Stanza della Segnatura circa 1512.”

Racihel Le Goff.

Raphael, Joseph Reveals His Dreams, Loggia of Leo X, Vatican,

As we’ve journeyed far upstream to these early paintings,to what could be the source of the Judgement of Paris in the Dream of a Knight and Three Graces, let’s now change course and move in the opposite direction right up to the period when the engraving was made, a period when other works were created that, according to the supporters of the Malmesbury attribution, have compositional and spatial similarities with that picture.

One of these images, Joseph Reveals His Dreams forms part of Pope Leo’s loggia- the “Raphael Bible”- painted by Raphael and his workshop between 1518-19. Examining the claims of the Camerons, namely that this composition (traditionally given to Guilio Romano) proves Raphael’s definite involvement in the Malmesbury painting of 1512, AHT believes that they have a very good case. Not only do we have a figure based on a reclining river god, and one which resembles Paris in the English painting, but the group nearest to Joseph is composed of three interlocking figures which echoes the configuration of goddesses in the Malmesbury painting. A scholar at Oxford University, Rachel Le Goff, noted that the figure of the river god in the Judgment of Paris print was “echoed in reverse” in the pose of one of the brothers.  Le Goff also noted that there was something of the younger god seated neat to Minerva in the brother close to Joseph with his head on his hand. Le Goff further read the imprint of the Judgment of Paris through Marcantonio’s engraving as she was unaware of the Malmesbury painting; but can that work continue to be left out of account given the stylistic, iconographic and artistic associations explored in this post? Doubtless there will be those who know the Malmesbury painting that insist that any similarities between relatable works such as the Joseph reveal the influence of the print, not the painting.

Comparison of Judgement of Paris and Joseph Reveals His Dreams.

Yet, the figurative elements and spatial organisation resembles the Malmesbury version more. The onus is on the nay-sayers to show where the group of brothers to Joseph’s left originate because this interlocking group is not derived from the print, so there must be another source. Is this group an echo of the three goddess group in the 1512 painting?

Raphael and workshop, Cupid and the Three Graces, c. 1518, Farnesina, Vatican, fresco.

Implicit in this motif hunting, stylistic analysis and source-matching is the issue of whether the Malmesbury Judgement of Paris is the precedent composition for all such later narrative compositions such as the female nudes in the Villa Farnesina  loves of the gods?

The final instalment will present the scientific and technical data on the painting, probably within the next two weeks. Phew!

Notes.

Peter Paul Rubens, The Judgement of Paris, 1630s, National Gallery, London.

*In his Recollections of Rubens, Jacob Burckhardt says that Venus’s triumph over Paris is assured by the fact that she presents her body towards Paris alone: “Venus takes the centre of the three goddesses, and since she is also presented in profile, she alone can be seen full face by Paris, which means that she is victorious.” Damisch comments that the shepherd Paris is situated so that Venus can only be seen from the front whereas Minerva and Juno present themselves to the judging eye of Paris in profile, which means there is no chance of him seeing their genitals, which Damisch regards as the implication of Burckhardt’s statement! I’ll say more about post-Raphael treatments of the subject in a future blog post, not exclusively related to the Malmesbury picture.

·**I won’t write anything more on this here as I’ve got a publication in press where I discuss Raphael’s Dream of a Knight in relation to dreams and invention.

Sources

Joanne G. Bernstein, “The Female Model and the Renaissance Nude: Durer, Giorgione, and Raphael”, Artibus et Historiae, Vol. 13, No. 26. (1992), pp. 49-63.

Phyllis Pray Bober, Renaissance artists & antique sculpture: a handbook of sources / Phyllis Pray Bober and Ruth Rubinstein; with contributions by Susan Woodford, London, England: H. Miller; Oxford: Oxford University Press, c1986.

Linda Borlonton,The Life & Times of Raphael , 1968.

Jacob Burckhardt, Recollections of Rubens, Phaidon Press; London, 1950.

Graeme Cameron, The Secrets of Leonardo da Vinci, Vol. 1, Vega Scans, 2011.

Graeme and Norman Cameron, unpublished research report on Malmesbury Judgement of Paris, 2011.

Martin Clayton, Raphael and his Circle Drawings from Windsor Castle, Merrill Holberton, London, 1999.

Hubert Damisch, Judgement de Paris. English, The Judgement of Paris; translated by John Goodman, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, c1996.

Rona Goffen, “Raphael’s Designer Labels: From the Virgin Mary to La Fornarina”, Artibus et Historiae, Vol. 24, No. 48. (2003), pp. 123-142.

Paul Joannides, Drawings of Raphael, Berkeley Press, University of California, 1983.

Paul Joannides, “Titian, Giorgione and the Mysteries of Paris”, Artibus et historiae, no. 61 (XXI), 2010, 99-114.

Roger Jones and Nicholas Penny, Raphael, New Haven [Conn.]: Yale University Press, 1983.

Claudia Lazzaro, “River gods: Personifying nature in sixteenth-century Italy”, Renaissance Studies, Vol. 25, 1, Feb 2011, 70-94.

Racihel A. Le Goff, “Joseph Reveals His Dreams to His Brothers”, Formal Research, Oxford University, 04/07/2005 http://raichel.org/articlesRaichel/Art-Research/GiuiloRomano.htm

Konrad Oberhuber, Raphael: the paintings, Munich; New York: Prestel, c1999.

Lisa Pon, Raphael, Durer, and Marcantonio Raimondi: copying and the Italian Renaissance print, New Haven: Yale University Press, c2004.

Philip Pouncey and J.A. Gere, Italian Drawings in the British Museum: Raphael and his Circle, British Museum, London, 1962, 2 vols.

John Shearman, Raphael in early modern sources (1483-1602), New Haven; London: Yale University Press, c2003.

John Shearman, “The Organisation of Raphael’s Workshop”, Art Institute of Chicago Centennial Lectures: Museum Studies 10, (1983), 40-57.

Various, Raphael: from Urbino to Rome, Hugo Chapman, Tom Henry and Carol Plazzotta, London: National Gallery Co., c2004.

Edgar Wind, “Virtue Reconciled with Pleasure” in Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance, Oxford, OUP, 1950, 81-96.