{"id":2716,"date":"2011-12-14T16:59:35","date_gmt":"2011-12-14T21:59:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.vassar.edu\/rosso\/"},"modified":"2012-12-14T16:15:34","modified_gmt":"2012-12-14T21:15:34","slug":"d-77-copy-pandora-adorned-by-aphrodite-and-the-hours-possibly-for-a-fresco-in-the-galerie-basse-of-the-pavillon-des-poeles-fontainebleau","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/catalogues\/drawings\/d-77-copy-pandora-adorned-by-aphrodite-and-the-hours-possibly-for-a-fresco-in-the-galerie-basse-of-the-pavillon-des-poeles-fontainebleau\/","title":{"rendered":"D.77 (COPY) Pandora Adorned by Aphrodite and the Hours"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

D.77 (COPY) Pandora Adorned<\/p><\/div>\n

Possibly for a fresco in the Galerie Basse of the Pavillon des Po\u00eales, Fontainebleau<\/strong><\/p>\n

1539-1540<\/p>\n

Dallas, Carolyn Bullard, Fine Prints and Drawings (in 1993).<\/p>\n

Fig.D.77<\/a><\/p>\n

Pen and ink and wash, 25.4 x 30.2, the upper and lower left corners missing and added and the upper right corner partly restored; no wm., the paper with widely spaced chain lines.\u00a0 Creased down the center.<\/p>\n

PROVENANCE: R. Cosway (Lugt 629).\u00a0 Herbert E. Feist.\u00a0 Unidentified marks upper right (related to Lugt 2942, Netherlands, 17th century), lower left (J.dh or J.Sh), and a paraph at lower left (similar to Lugt 2961, 2962).\u00a0 [Carolyn Bullard informed me that she is suspicious of all the marks except Cosway\u2019s, but that one mark may be for J. Thane (Lugt 2393)].\u00a0 Sam Cantey III, Fort Worth.<\/p>\n

LITERATURE:<\/p>\n

School of Fontainebleau<\/em>, Fort Worth, 1965, 41, 11, as after Rosso.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

With standing figures arranged more or less in a file and flying figures descending from above, the composition of this drawing recalls that of Rosso\u2019s Contest of Athena and Poseidon<\/em>, known from an etching by Fantuzzi (Fig.E.78<\/a>) and from an engraving attributed to Boyvin (Fig.E.13<\/a>).\u00a0 At the right in the drawing, the seated old man looks quite like the river god under Poseidon\u2019s horse in the prints, especially in Fantuzzi\u2019s etching.\u00a0 The band held by the central flying figure in the drawing is like the one held by Victory in Boyvin\u2019s engraving, a schematization of a wreath that would later be elaborated by Rosso as in Fantuzzi\u2019s print.\u00a0 Although the female figures in the drawing resemble those in the prints, they are somewhat more similar to certain ones found in the Gallery of Francis I.\u00a0 The full-bodied nude Pandora can be compared with the nude at the far left of the Enlightenment of Francis I <\/em>(Fig.P.22, VII S a<\/a>), while the richly dressed Hours and Aphrodite, with their elaborate coiffures, have their counterparts in the Death of Adonis<\/em> (Fig.P.22, III S a<\/a>).\u00a0 In the copy in the Fogg Museum (Fig.D.63A<\/a>) of a lost drawing for the Adonis<\/em> fresco, the faces of the women are very much like those in the Bullard drawing.\u00a0 The kind of trimming that appears on the edge of Venus\u2019s costume in the Pandora Adorned<\/em> drawing appears also in the Fogg drawing.<\/p>\n

The draughtsmanship of the drawing is of the kind that appears in Rosso\u2019s Throne of Solomon<\/em> (Fig.D.34<\/a>) and in his Pandora and Her Box<\/em> (Fig.D.67a<\/a>).\u00a0 But the Bullard drawing is not an autograph work, which is clear even in a photograph.\u00a0 Its pen lines are too regular and its washes lack the variety of tones that is found in drawings that are certainly by Rosso himself.\u00a0 Still, the drawing must reproduce quite accurately a lost drawing by him.\u00a0 The original may have had something of the character of the Design for a Tomb<\/em> in the British Museum (Fig.D.81a<\/a>), although it was probably not so freely drawn.\u00a0 However, it seems from the copy that the original was not so finished as the Annunciation<\/em> in the Albertina (Fig.D.43a<\/a>) or the Petrarch drawing at Christ Church (Fig.D.47a<\/a>).\u00a0 Graphically, it may have resembled most closely the St. Denis<\/em> in Berlin (Fig.D.48a<\/a>), although there is no indication in the Bullard copy that Rosso\u2019s drawing had white highlights.<\/p>\n

While the drawing has much in common with the scenes in the Gallery of Francis I, it also has a largeness of form and a compositional breadth and cohesion that differentiate it from them.\u00a0 A certain grandness in the extension and linking of forms relates the drawing to the Piet\u00e0<\/em> in the Louvre (Fig.P.23a<\/a>), although the Pandora Adorned<\/em> is not quite so elegant, so spatially closed, or so twisted in the postures of its figures.\u00a0 The composition of the drawing has a kind of amplitude and ease that suggest that it is a later work.\u00a0 In the characteristics just mentioned it is similar to Rosso\u2019s painting in Los Angeles (Fig.P.24a<\/a>), which may date from the last year of Rosso\u2019s life.\u00a0 But the drawing also shares these qualities with Rosso\u2019s Holy Family with St. Anne<\/em>, known from a copy in Milan (Fig.D.82<\/a>), and with his Madonna and Child with a Book<\/em>, known from an engraving by Boyvin (Fig.E.15<\/a>).\u00a0 It seems likely, then, that the lost original Pandora Adorned by Aphrodite and the Hours<\/em> was done about the same time as these compositions, in 1539 or 1540.<\/p>\n

The mythological subject of the drawing, derived from Hesiod\u2019s Works and Days<\/em>,1<\/sup><\/a> and the unusualness of it make one wonder if it was designed for part of a decorative scheme.\u00a0 This scheme could have been devoted to the story of Pandora, but it might also have been devised around some other theme in which a scene or scenes of the Pandora story found their place.\u00a0 The drawing could possibly have been made for the decoration of the Galerie Basse in the Pavillon des Po\u00eales at Fontainebleau, on which Rosso was working at the time of his death, but which he might have begun the year before (see L.44<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
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<\/a>1<\/sup> Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns and Homerica<\/em>, with an English translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge-London, 1954, 6-7: Zeus bade \u201cgolden Aphrodite to shed grace upon her head… and the rich-haired Hours crowned her head with spring flowers.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Possibly for a fresco in the Galerie Basse of the Pavillon des Po\u00eales, Fontainebleau 1539-1540 Dallas, Carolyn Bullard, Fine Prints and Drawings (in 1993). Fig.D.77 Pen and ink and wash, 25.4 x 30.2, the upper and lower left corners missing and added and the upper right corner partly restored; no wm., the paper with widely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"parent":820,"menu_order":82,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2716","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2716"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7940,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2716\/revisions\/7940"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}