1540
Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, no. 54.6.
Oil on poplar panel, 160.7 x 117.5.1
Fig.P.24a color
Fig.P.24b bw
Fig.P.24c detail
The most extensive account of the condition, conservation, and color of this picture is contained in Kolch, 1983, which should be consulted.2 From this article and my own observations the following brief description is given. The painting is unfinished and is in very good condition. As seen from the back the panel is composed of three planks, the center one slightly narrower than the side ones of equal width. From the front a vertical crack about 38 cm from the left edge between the first two planks can be seen to run the entire height of the painting. It has been filled and inpainted. A second crack about 15 cm long between the second and third planks is visible at the bottom about 38 cm from the right edge. A third crack of about the same length is visible at the upper right about 10 cm from the right edge. This crack is approximately in the center of the third plank. Both of these cracks have also been filled and inpainted. There are two small inpainted scratches in Christ’s left foot, and a small repaired crack behind the Virgin’s thigh. A small damaged area in the forehead of the second angel has also been repaired, as well as a small passage on his chest just left of his armpit. There are small paint losses at the edges and at the left of St. John’s right arm which have been repaired. Very simple and in places very light charcoal outlines are visible as well as a few internal lines of an underdrawing. The underdrawing shows a different placement of Christ’s genitals. There is a pentimento along the inner side of Christ’s right leg.
The painting received limited conservation treatment before it was exhibited in Paris in 1972. It was more fully treated between November 1981 and February 10, 1983.
The ground of the picture is yellow-tan, visible not painted over within the silhouette of the Virgin’s unpainted foot; this ground has been lightly and variably hand rubbed or brushed creating a faint ripple pattern as the background of the picture. The flesh is generally grayish tan which is quite pink in places, as in the Virgin’s fingers and the cheeks and lips of the angels, but especially in the body and even more in the face of St. John. The Christ Child is more tan. All the hair is dark tan. The large wings of the angels are dark blue green above with some white at the upper edge of the right wing; the lower feathers are lavender brown. The tip of a pale gray-pink wing is visible at the right and there may be, according to Kolch, indications of another wing between the heads of the angels. The Virgin’s turban and dress are a very dark green—like that of the angels’ wings—becoming very dark behind her elbow and upper arm and with white highlights on the turban. She wears a dark crimson sash. St. Anne wears a lavender-gray dress, similar in color to that of the angels’ wings, with light wine red sleeves. The mantle over her head is greenish blue over the left side of her head but is blue overpainted with rust behind her head and body. Her skirt is tan; her book dark brown, which Kolch pointed out was originally green. The over-all effect of the color is very subdued, even somber, and it is more consistent tonally than some black and white photographs, with their strong contrasts, make it appear to be.
PROVENANCE: The information on the provenance of this picture was discussed by Kolch, 1983, and mentioned by Schaefer, 1986, 32. The files of the museum and photographs of the back of the panel have also been studied.
There are four wax seals on the back of the panel. Two, near the center and at the bottom, are identical, showing the tasseled hat of a cardinal and a shield with a small rosette in the center of a horizontal band above three vertical stripes. A note in the files of the Frick Art Reference Library states that this is the seal of Cardinal Domenico Tusco (1598–1620) as it appears in the top left corner of his portrait in Vienna (no. 302), which has been attributed to Leandro Bassano (E. Arslan, I Bassano, Milan, 1960, I, 382, as not Bassanesque, and the sitter’s name given as Tuscu). I have not been able to verify this identification. At the far right and slightly above center is the wax seal of a shield surmounted by a plumed helmet and with a coat of arms in an oval showing one or two sunbursts or flowers but otherwise not legible; Kolch thought it “stylistically close to sixteenth century heraldry.” Better impressions of both these seals appear on the back of the St. Michael attributed to Pontormo and Bronzino in the Museo Civico in Turin (R. C. Prato Pisani, in Pontormo a Empoli, 1994, 114, 116, no. 23, with Figs., as Bronzino, where the second seal is described as showing “un campo caricato di una pianta di girasoli fioriti di due terzi stelata e fogliata movente da una terrazza.” This picture may also bear the inscription: “Gallery Magri 1836,” which Franklin, 1995, 49, thinks indicates that the Rosso picture was in Italy also by this time.) At the upper left is the fourth very broken wax seal with an unclear device containing the letters B and C (or G) and with an inscription around its curved border containing the letters: AN…DI TE…A.. Near the center of the panel (above the cardinal’s seal) is written in ink: Collezione / … (Kolch reads : Ales.) Del [or Dal] Magno; and elsewhere, as reported by Kolch (at the bottom?), in graphite: Collezione Ales.dro Del Magno with the date: 1854. Kolch also reported that on the front of the panel, in the lower right corner, there was revealed during the cleaning the word: Magno. Schaefer, 1986, 32, thought this name other than that of a collector could be that of a dealer. Toward the upper right there is a circular ink stamp with the inscription: UFFICIO / ESPORTAZIONE / DI / OGGETTI D’ARTE / ROMA, the last probable word very poorly stamped. Kolch pointed out that while this office was established in 1909, stamps were not applied to works of art until 1947. Below this stamp is written in ink a very large: 6. The name: Gambi is written in ink just above the center of the panel. An illegible inscription in ink appears next to the cardinal’s seal toward the bottom.
Longhi, 1951, 61, reported that early in this century (prior to 1931) the picture was in a small collection in Rome with an attribution to Michelangelo. Kusenberg, 1931, 127, stated that it was in the Ernst Remak Collection in Berlin, where, according to the museum, it remained until 1937 or 1938, and then, again according to Longhi, in the same collection in Buenos Aires where it still seems to have been in 1951 when Longhi wrote. (It is not clear how the Italian export/import stamp on the back of the picture is related to this history of the picture but it might suggest that the picture went to Argentina via Italy.) Subsequently, according to the museum, the painting was in the Herbert T. Kalmus Collection in Massachusetts and in Los Angeles. Given to the museum in 1954 by Dr. and Mrs. Kalmus. It was on loan to the Pomona College Art Gallery between November 1963 and October 1964.
LITERATURE
Kusenberg, 1931, 127, as Rosso, but only listed with the comment that it was reported to him by Friedrick Antal who dated it a little before the Volterra Deposition.
Kusenberg, 1935, 62, as still in Berlin, Ernst Remak Collection, and as unfinished, and of around 1521.
Barocchi, 1950, 249, repeats Kusenberg.
Longhi, 1951, 61–62, Pl. 31 (1976, 101–102, Pl. 85), as formerly attributed to Michelangelo; he gives it to Rosso at the time of the Volterra painting.
Briganti, 1953, 51, mentions Longhi’s attribution.
W. R. Valentiner, “An Unfinished Altarpiece by Rosso Fiorentino,” Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Bulletin of Art Division, VI, 3, 1954, 3–6, as by Rosso, around 1518–1519; he identifies the old woman as St. Anne.
Baldini, in Mostra del Pontormo, 1956, 128, no. 160.
Sanminiatelli, 1956, 241, as datable close to the Villamagna altarpiece of 1521.
Oertel, 1956, 217, Fig. 2, about the same time as Villamagna picture.
Shearman, 1957, I, 223, 230, II, 220, no. 28, 229, n. 69, as associable with the Eliezer in Pisa, and as derived from Raphael’s Madonna dell’Impannata. He also believes he sees two color notes on the panel, Ross[o] on “St. Elizabeth’s” muted rose-red sleeve, the o being hidden beneath the opaque contour of the Child’s shoulder, and Grigio on her faintly bluish gray cap, near the vertical crack in the panel.3
Barocchi, 1958, 236, as near to the time of, but before, the Volterra Deposition.
Béguin, L’Oeil, 72, Dec. 1960, 58, as done in the French period. She speaks of it as Rosso’s meditation on Leonardo’s St. Anne and Sarto’s Holy Family, and relates it to Rosso’s Religious Allegory etched by Fantuzzi, to the Loss of Perpetual Youth in the Gallery of Francis I, to the Judith engraved by Boyvin, and to the Louvre Pietà.
Lavin, 1961, 324–326, relates the iconography of the picture to Leonardo’s compositions of the Virgin and St. Anne, with their reference to the Immaculate Conception in the figures of St. Anne and to Baptism in the figure of St. John. She sees the pose of Rosso’s St. Anne as related to Leonardo’s in his Louvre picture. Recognizing this iconography also in Rosso’s painting, she sees the St. Anne as also referring to the Prophetess Anna, and St. John as indicating also the New Adam. Quoting from the fourteenth century Vita di Giovanni Battista, Lavin recognizes St. John as experiencing “the full burden of being Christ’s precursor in death, as well as in life.” She further suggests that the angels may be Uriel and Raphael.
Briganti, 1961, 1962, Pl. 15, implying an Italian date.
Berenson, 1963, 195, Pl. 1462, as Rosso.
Carroll, 1964 (1976), I, Bk. I, 263–265, Bk. II, 164–167, P. 26, II, Bk. III, Fig. 137, as around 1539–1540.
Borea, 1965, as about the time of the S. Maria Nuova altarpiece or shortly thereafter.
Hauser, 1965, II, Pl. 59.
Shearman, 1965, I, 36f., n. 2, 167, II, 228, as done around 1520, and as a variant of Sarto’s Holy Family in the Louvre, no. 1515; he identifies the old woman as St. Elizabeth.
Monneir, in Seizième Siècle…dessins du Louvre, 1965, 62, under no. 137, thought the old woman resembled the one in Rosso’s Vertumnus and Pomona [D.46].
Freedberg, 1966, 583, Pl. 77, as done around 1532.
Shearman, 1966, 169, n. 10, as 1521–1522; he mentions color notes on the panel.
Carroll, 1966, 179–180, as done in the French period, with the figure of the Virgin related to that in Raphael’s Holy Family of Francis I in the Louvre, and the St. John to one of the figures in Sarto’s Caritas, also in the Louvre.
Clark, 1967, 18, Pl. XII, discusses the picture just before the Volterra Deposition and sees it as “a half-crazy caricature of an Andea del Sarto.”
Christopher Lloyd, “Drawings Attributable to Niccolò Tribolo,” Master Drawings, VI, 3, 1968, 243–245.
Wolfgang Demmel, “Rosso Fiorentino’s Holy Family” (unpublished paper), Los Angeles, University of California, 1969, as done in France between 1537 and 1540. His paper explores the picture as “a religious conceit that can be tied with maniera” and one that “requires Rosso’s entire career to explain its stylistic and thematic innovations.”
Béguin, Revue de l’Art, 1969, 105, as from the French period and related to Fantuzzi’s Holy Family (Zerner 74) after Rosso’s design.
Béguin, 1969, 43, 139, n. 32, suggests that it may have been done in Rosso’s French period.
Freedberg, 1971, 485, n. 37, as done in the French period and parodies Sarto’s picture in the Louvre, no. 1515.
Fredericksen and Zeri, 1972, 179, 592.
Béguin, in EdF, 1972, 178, no. 201, 179, Fig., as done in France.
Miles, 1973, 32, states that the arguments for a French date, “if not conclusive, are nonetheless persuasive.”
Passavant, 1973, 98, argues against a French date for the picture.
Dumont, 1973, 341, as close to the Volterra Deposition.
Raggio, 1974, 74, states that the influence of Pontormo argues against a French date for the picture.
Laskin, 1974, 256, as datable in the early 1520s, and clearly related to Sarto’s Louvre Holy Family, done around 1515, that Rosso could have known in Florence.
Carroll, 1975, 22, 24, Fig. 9, 25, as done in France and Rosso’s latest work, possibly being executed at the time he died.
Carroll, 1978, 24, Fig. 2, 25, 34 42, 46, n. 2, 48, n. 42, as 1538–1540.
Darragon, 1983, 26, as dated at widely separated times.
Kolch, 1983, on its conservation.
Fredericksen, 1984, 331, n. 1, as probably painted about the same time as the Volterra Deposition.
Lévêque, 1984, 176, 178, Color Pl.1 as Rosso, and by implication done in France, the old woman identified as St. Anne.
Wilmes, 1985, 111–116, 124, 132, 174, Fig. 15, as “Hl. Anna Selbdritt,” unfinished, and done around time of Volterra and Villamagna pictures, its theme going back to Sarto’s handling of same subject.
Schaefer, 1986, 32–33, with Color Plate, as by Rosso, and as probably painted before 1523; he identified the old woman as St. Elizabeth.
Franklin, 1987, 658, n. 54, as unfinished.
Carroll, 1987, 32, as late in French period.
Davis, 1988, 201, Fig. 86a, as an Allegory of Salvation, and dating around 1521.
Hamburgh, 1988, 597–599, Fig. 6, recognized the redemptive connotation of the picture.
Zafran, 1988, 52, under no. 17, as Rosso and done around 1521.
A. Giovanetti, in Pittura, Cinquecento, 1988, II, 826, suggested that the unfinished state of the picture might indicate that Rosso was working on it when he died.
Rosand, 1988, 32, as late and unfinished.
Béguin, 1990, 165, n. 2, as very possibly of the French period.
Ciardi and Mugnaini, 1991, 17, 18, 56–57, no. 6, with Color Pl. 59, 62, as related to Raphael’s Alba Madonna and Madonna del Cardellino with the figure of St. John similar to that at the lower left of Rosso’s Rebecca and Eliezer [P.15]; hence the implication of a date before the Moses picture [P.14] and even before the Volterra paintings of 1521 [P.9 and P.10]).
Joukovsky, 1992, 37, n. 1, 181, n. 1, as French, the old woman as in the Lost of Perpetual Youth in the Gallery of Francis I, the picture itself related to the evolution of Rosso’s religious sensibility as remarked by Carroll.
Pinelli, 1993, Fig. 10, as Rosso, c. 1520.
Marchetti Letta, 1994, 29, fig. 34, 30–31, discussed in the context of the S. Maria Nuova Sltarpiece and Rosso’s Macabre Allegory (Disputation of the Angel of Death and the Devil) drawing of 1517 in the Uffizi [D.1].
Mugnaini, 1994, 108, notes the importance of the glances among the figures.
Ciardi, 1994, 36, 39, 50, 51–52, Fig., 68, 71, 72, relates the angels to those above Donatello’s Cavalcanti Annunciation, and sees an expressionistic remaking of Raphaelesque examples such as the Alba Madonna and the Madonna del Cardellino, but also a drastic restructuring of form possibly related to Michelangelo’s Taddei Tondo; notes similarities to a drawing by Berruguette in the Uffizi (9124 F) that is derived from Donatello’s Madonna in Vienna.
Franklin, 1994, 46, 73, 76–80, 82–83, 153, 154, Pl. 35, Color Pl. 55, as unfinished and done between 1518 and 1520, its main source Sarto’s Holy Family in the Louvre and its apparently autograph variant in Munich; he recognizes its relative lack of refinement compared to the Louvre Pietà and sees it as more coherent than the Washing of Christ (Allegory on the Birth of Christ) print by Master I.♀.V. [E.100].
Although Rosso’s authorship of this picture has never been questioned, its date has not been generally agreed upon. For those who believe it was done in Italy it is seen as closest in style to Rosso’s pictures of 1521, especially the Deposition in Volterra. This may be partly due to the fact that the Los Angeles painting in unfinished. Passavant questioned what can be meant by its being “unvollendet.” To support his questioning he brought up Vasari’s reference to “una bozza” of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist, a lost Roman picture by Rosso that was in a Roman church (L.19), and which, because it was there must have been considered finished even though Vasari termed it “a sketch.” In this context one might also bring up Vasari’s remark that the S. Maria Nuova altarpiece of 1518 was “abbozata.” Pasasavant believed the Los Angeles picture is not in good condition. This, however, is certainly not true. The picture shows little evidence of abrasion or restoration; its surface still appears fresh and fluid, and its free brushwork looks quite as Rosso must have left it. This being the case the picture needs to be considered unfinished and not instead as showing a kind of completeness that Rosso intended. The foot of the Virgin is entirely unpainted; it is merely a silhouette of the tan ground of the panel. The figure of St. John is in places hardly worked up at all. And the wings of the angels are quickly set down and would certainly have received some degree of finish if only that of the cherubs’ wings in the altarpiece of 1518. Sketchy as that altarpiece is it has everywhere a final working of its surface that the Los Angeles picture lacks. The Los Angeles picture even lacks the degree of finish of Rosso’s small St. John the Baptist of around 1521–1522 in Florence (Fig.P.11a) and of his Holy Family in Baltimore (Fig.P.7a), both of which are very loosely painted. More to the point, however, is a comparison with the Volterra Deposition, which nowhere gives any evidence of being unfinished, although there is a history of thinking of it as not completed. Thinly painted as it is, its execution entirely fulfills and enlarges upon its drawing. In the Los Angeles picture whole areas of drapery, body, limbs, hands and feet are still undefined, both in terms of drawing and painting, and this is quite unlike any part of the Volterra picture. Such a detail as the extended right hand of one of the angels was never meant to remain as it is, without any real definition of volume or form. What is visible in the Los Angeles picture is an underpainting that would have received a more detailed finished surface.
Compositionally the Los Angeles painting is not closely related to the Deposition of 1521. There the figures are spread out across the plane of the panel with very little overlapping. Although set also within a limited space, the figures in the Los Angeles picture are interrelated within that space in a manner that does not occur in Rosso’s art before his stay in Rome. More particularly, the arrangement of the figures recalls Rosso’s study of 1528 (D.29) for the Christ in Glory and the Allegory of the Immaculate Conception that was designed in Arezzo in 1528–1529 (D.31). But even more precisely the turning and joining of the forms resemble the disposition of forms in the Pietà in the Louvre (Fig.P.23a). There, too, the figures fill the rectangle and limited space of the composition in a comparable manner, and in a way that is quite unlike the design of any other painting by Rosso except the Los Angeles picture. The careful positioning of the Magdalen’s right arm and hand in relation to Christ’s feet in the Pietà is quite like that of the arrangement of the legs and feet at the bottom of the Los Angeles painting. Raggio finds the picture Pontormesque, but except for the swelling forms of the young bodies in the painting, none of the features look particularly dependent on Pontormo. The figural vocabulary of the Los Angeles picture goes back to the Sansepolcro and Città di Castello altarpieces. The Virgin’s full-cheeked face resembles the face in the lower left corner of the former and the face in the upper right corner of the latter. The right angel’s face, with its widely spaced eyes, shadowed near the nose, and its generally squarish features, is most like that of the Virgin in the Louvre Pietà, and very much like that of Adonis in the Death of Adonis in the Gallery of Francis I (Fig.P.22, III S a). The lithe, tight and stretched body of St. John is like Christ’s in the Louvre picture.
In its color the Los Angeles picture is unlike the S. Maria Nuova Altarpiece and the Volterra Deposition. Nowhere in the Los Angeles painting does the color obtain the brightness and clarity of passages in those early pictures. The white ground of the Deposition gives a particular brilliance to its colors as it does also to those in the Villamagna altarpiece (Fig.P.10a). The latter picture may be more monochromatic but it has a startling bright climax in the red worn by the Christ Child. The Los Angeles picture is painted on a yellow-tan ground. The general tonality of the picture executed upon that ground is sombre; the colors are dark green, wine red, gray-lavender, and tan. When finished the picture could never have become brighter, but in all likelihood would have become even darker. Although it may never have attained the darkness of the Louvre Pietà, it is, in its tonality, more like that painting than any other work by Rosso.
Béguin has pointed out the resemblance of the picture to the Allegory on the Birth of Christ, etched by Fantuzzi (E.81) after a drawing by Rosso (D.72) that seems to have been executed during the time that Rosso was making his final designs for the Gallery of Francis I. The figure types are similar, but so, too, is, the character of their iconography with its ambivalent meanings. This is a kind of iconography that appears in such late works as Rosso’s Three Fates, Nude, engraved by Milan (E.105), his Empedocles-St. Roch (D.80), and his Judith and Holofernes (D.84), to all of which the Los Angeles picture is also stylistically related. The heads of the two women in this last drawing are virtually identical to those of St. Anne and the Virgin in the Los Angeles picture, as is also the dramatic confrontation of the two figures in both works. Furthermore, the painting is stylistically very similar to Rosso’s very late Annunciation drawing, known from a copy in Düsseldorf (D.83). Franklin finds the Los Angeles picture more coherent than Fantuzzi’s etching, but this may have to do with the monochrome of the print and the greater complexity of its subject which require closer reading. The Los Angeles picture was also probably done later.
It has been observed by both Shearman, Freedberg, Kolch, and Franklin that Rosso’s picture is related to Sarto’s Madonna and Child, St. Elizabeth, the Infant St. John, and Two Angels, in the Louvre (no. 1515; Franklin also mentions the variant in Munich). Rosso has borrowed from it the pose of his Christ Child as well as the function of the two angels in the background. Iconographically the two paintings are also partially similar with St. John indicating the Child’s future as the latter clings to the Virgin, while the two angels react to the implications of the Baptist’s meaning. Sarto’s picture was executed in Florence around 1516 and appears to have been sent immediately to Francis I.4 Rosso would certainly have known the pictures in Francis I’s collection. The pose of the Virgin in Rosso’s painting suggests a derivation from the same figure in Raphael’s Madonna of Francis I, in the Louvre, that he also would have known in France. Furthermore, it is possible that the placement of the sleeping St. John in the lower left corner of the painting is dependent upon the child sleeping in the same corner in Sarto’s Caritas, also in the Louvre and also owned by Francis I. These correspondences indicate that Rosso’s picture could only have been invented in France.5
Within Rosso’s own oeuvre the picture is most identifiable with those works that can be dated at the very end of his life, especially the Annunciation in Düsseldorf and the Judith and Holofernes in Los Angeles. The character of their inventions, their large figures, and their broadly and clearly composed compositions seem to belong to a moment slightly later than the energetic and complex Martyrdom drawing at Smith College (D.70) and the Allegory on the Birth of Christ (D.72) etched by Fantuzzi. It is also slightly less complex than the Louvre Pietà done very likely around 1538. The iconography of the Los Angeles picture that includes St. John the Baptist after whom Rosso was named suggests that he may have painted it for himself. Its unfinished condition could indicate that he was working on it at the time of his death in 1540.6
COPY: Vienna, Dorotheum, auction, April 13, 2011, as attributed to Rosso Fiorentino (Fig.P.24, Copy). Panel, 65.5 x 43.5. Fairly accurate monochrome copy of the composition but with the expressions of all of the heads muted. The right leg of St. Elizabeth is emphasized while in the Los Angeles painting it is hidden by the drapery that falls over it. There is more space above the heads of the angels.
2 The remarks of Franklin (1994, 79, 278, n. 82), are also based on those made by Scott Schaefer in an unpublished talk, “A technical examination of Rosso’s altarpiece in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art,” Rosso conference, London, 2 December 1988.
3 These two words could not be seen by Burton Fredericksen (as stated in a letter of 13 March 1970 in the museum’s file). A manuscript catalogue entry at the museum states concerning these sightings: “The former is a bit of raised color, and the latter consists of two scratches. Neither can be construed as a word.” I have not been able to see these words either, nor are they mentioned by Kolch, 1983. Franklin, 1994, 278, n. 82, also thought Shearman was mistaken.
4 Freedberg, 1963, II, 59–64, as (1515–) 1516, and as highly probable that it is the “Nostra Donna bellissima” that Vasari says was sent to France. Shearman, 1965, II, 227–228, as about 1515, and possibly the picture sent to Francis I, but not provable. Cox-Rearick, 1972, 26, no.27F, as the picture that was sent to Francis I. Béguin, Paragone, 1989, 4, as 1515–1516, and very likely the picture that was sent to France.
5 On a similar relationship of Sarto’s Charity in the Louvre and pictures in Francis I’s collection, see Béguin, Paragone, 1989, 15.
6 Kolch, 1983, 74, stated that the poplar support of the painting lends credibility to an early dating, “but our knowledge of the transport of artists’ materials is still too scanty to offer this as definite proof.” Franklin, 1994, 76, also thought the poplar support gives evidence of a date in Rosso’s Italian years. Until the provenance provided by the seals and inscriptions is fully understood it cannot be ascertained how early the picture can be shown to have been in Italy. But unless this Italian provenance can be taken back to the time of Rosso’s death in 1540, or very near to it, it cannot prove that the picture was painted in Italy. Unfinished as it is the picture probably never had an original site where it was hung, such as an altar is a church or chapel. Given the number of Italians in France in the sixteenth century, the painting, if executed in France, could have made its way to Italy quite early. One need only recall the return of the Moses (P.14) from France between 1568 and 1587.