{"id":5961,"date":"2012-06-22T11:24:43","date_gmt":"2012-06-22T15:24:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.vassar.edu\/rosso\/?page_id=5961"},"modified":"2012-12-21T14:03:12","modified_gmt":"2012-12-21T19:03:12","slug":"rp-17","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/catalogues\/rejected-paintings-sculpture\/rp-17\/","title":{"rendered":"RP.17 Bacchus, Venus, and Cupid"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

RP.17 Bacchus, Venus, and Cupid<\/p><\/div>\n

Luxembourg, Mus\u00e9e du Grand Duch\u00e9 de Luxembourg, inv. no. 1941-100\/412.<\/p>\n

Hemp canvas, 209 x 161.5.<\/p>\n

Fig.RP.17<\/a><\/p>\n

The poor condition of the picture and its restoration are discussed in B\u00e9guin, 1989, 833-834, and by Sylvie B\u00e9guin, Jean-Paul Rioux, and Annick Lautraite, in Bacchus, V\u00e9nus et l\u2019Amour<\/em>, 1989, 24, 29, 45-62.<\/p>\n

PROVENANCE: Berne, Van Parys Collection (the collection formed before the end of the eighteenth century; see below); sale, 1853, bought by Poche.\u00a0 Luxembourg, Section historique de l\u2019Institut du Grand Duch\u00e9, which gave it in or after 1877, but certainly by 1884, to the Mus\u00e9e d\u2019Etat du Grand Duch\u00e9.1<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

LITERATURE:<\/p>\n

Catalogue d\u2019une belle vente de tableaux anciens (Ecoles flamande, hollandaise, fran\u00e7aise) composant le Cabinet de feu monsieur Van Parys, amateur<\/em>, Brussels, 6th<\/sup> October 1853, lot 31, as by Rosso (the dimensions given as 280 x 160); annotation: bought by Poche.<\/p>\n

M.A. in Das Luxembourg Land<\/em>, IIIe<\/sup> ann\u00e9e, no. 16, [20th<\/sup> April 1884], 255-256, as Rosso, with reference to Vasari.<\/p>\n

B\u00e9guin, in Renaissance<\/em>, Quebec, 1984, 327, under no. 196, as related to the oil painting that Rosso executed for the Gallery of Francis I.<\/p>\n

The picture was exhibited in 1984: La vie myst\u00e9rieuse de chefs-d\u2019oeuvre. La sci\u00e9nce au service de l\u2019art. Exposition du Laboratoire des Mus\u00e9e d\u2019Histoire et d\u2019Art<\/em>, Mus\u00e9e de l\u2019Etat du Grand-Duch\u00e9 de Luxembourg, May 6-29, 1984.<\/p>\n

Delay, in Delay, 1987, 16, 18, 156-157, a veiled reference to this painting, as by Rosso.<\/p>\n

B\u00e9guin, 1989, 829-838, with Color Pl., as by Rosso or one of his collaborators, and for the east wall of the Gallery of Francis I.<\/p>\n

Sylvie B\u00e9guin, Jean Luc Koltz, Jean-Paul Rioux, and Annick Lautraite in Bacchus, V\u00e9nus et l\u2019Amour<\/em>, 1989, with several Color Pls., as by Rosso, with some reservation, but the invention certainly Rosso\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Ciardi and Mugnaini, 1991, 138, as Rosso, and as from the gallery.<\/p>\n

Costamagna, 1994, 86, 98, n. 7, as Rosso?, for the Gallery of Francis I, and as \u201cl\u2019origine du mani\u00e9risme international.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knecht, 1994, 432, 434, Fig. 79, 435, as by or after Rosso.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

B\u00e9guin\u2019s supposition that this picture is the one described by Vasari2<\/sup><\/a> that Rosso executed very soon after he arrived in France and that formed part of the decoration of the East Wall of the Gallery of Francis I, or is a version of that picture, is not confirmed by any of the physical evidence of the painting in Luxembourg or by its style.\u00a0 The Bacchus, Venus, and Cupid<\/em> of the East Wall was certainly a panel painting, not simply because Vasari referred to the large paintings on the end walls of the gallery as \u201ctavole a olio,\u201d but because, as we know from Fran\u00e7ois d\u2019Orbay\u2019s drawing of 1682 of the East Wall (Fig.d\u2019Orbay drawing a<\/a>), the blank area provided for Rosso\u2019s painting on that wall was oval.\u00a0 Oval (easel) paintings in the early sixteenth century are rare, perhaps even otherwise unknown.\u00a0 Round pictures were painted on panels and this would also have been the case with Rosso\u2019s oval pictures.\u00a0 If on canvas, that canvas would have been on a rectangular stretcher that would then have been set behind the oval opening of the stucco frame and ornament of the East Wall.\u00a0 There is no indication that this was the case or even that this could have been the case in the early 1530s.\u00a0 No clear evidence indicates that the Luxembourg picture was originally painted on panel.3<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 It cannot be the painting that Vasari said Rosso painted for the gallery.\u00a0 Not incidentally, there is every reason to believe that the oil paintings on panel that were placed at the ends of the gallery were, unlike the frescoes in the gallery, actually painted by Rosso himself and not by assistants.\u00a0 These early lost French paintings by Rosso, \u201cfece al Re\u201d as Vasari remarked in 1550, would have been demonstrations of his artistic inventiveness and skill to the French king as examples of what he might expect of Rosso for the decoration of the king\u2019s grand gallery.\u00a0 Rosso was a brilliant painter of oil paintings on panel and he would certainly at this early moment in his career in France have wanted to show this.<\/p>\n

B\u00e9guin indicated that Rosso\u2019s lost oval painting must have been approximately 230 x 179 cm., the dimensions of Boullogne le Jeune\u2019s picture of 1702 that replaced Rosso\u2019s.\u00a0 In order to achieve this size, the Luxembourg canvas, which measures 209 x 161.5, would have to be extensively enlarged all around.\u00a0 In B\u00e9guin\u2019s reconstruction of the canvas as an oval (Fig.RP.17, enlarged<\/a>; Fig.RP.17, d\u2019Orbay<\/a>), the scale of the figures in relation to the whole size of the picture becomes significantly reduced, producing an effect that is very much unlike the placement of figures in Rosso\u2019s authentic pictures.\u00a0 It also turns a composition that is so effective in its rectangular format into an unsatisfactory oval format.<\/p>\n

What is most disturbing is that the Luxembourg picture simply does not stylistically look like a work designed by Rosso.\u00a0 It should be very similar to the Mars and Venus<\/em> drawing of 1530 (Fig.D.42a<\/a>) and it isn\u2019t.\u00a0 The figures have neither the shapes nor poses of Rosso\u2019s, and the decorative motifs in the picture, on Cupid\u2019s quiver and on the vase on which Venus is seated, are not of the kind found anywhere in works certainly known to have been designed by Rosso.\u00a0 B\u00e9guin made something of a point in quoting Vasari\u2019s remark that Rosso\u2019s painting showed \u201cun satiro che lieva una parte d\u2019un padiglione\u201d and relating it to the satyr in the Luxembourg picture.\u00a0 This satyr does reach up for some grapes hanging from a vine, but I see no indication of a pavilion.<\/p>\n

B\u00e9guin did recognize (1989, 834) that \u201ca certain rigidity in the figures, and techniques different from those used in Rosso\u2019s Italian paintings, prompt some doubts about the attribution\u201d to him.\u00a0 She went on to say that if not by him then \u201cit is by a painter closely familiar with his style, perhaps even one of his collaborators.\u201d\u00a0 But she had also to recognize that we know very little about his assistants, making an attribution to any one of them almost impossible.\u00a0 Nevertheless, it can be seen that the decoration on Cupid\u2019s quiver (Fig.RP.17, Quiver<\/a>) is very similar to some of the patterns in Francesco Pellegrino\u2019s pattern book published in Paris in 1530 (Fig.Pellegrino, Pattern<\/a>; Fig.Pellegrino, Pattern 2<\/a>); the female figure on its title page is also in a general way like the Venus in the Luxembourg picture (Fig.Pellegrino, Figure<\/a>).4<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 As a whole, the painting also very much reminds me of some of the prints of Domenico del Barbiere, his Venus, Mars, and Cupid<\/em> (Fig.RE.2<\/a>), his Cleopatra<\/em> (Fig.Cleopatra<\/a>),5<\/sup><\/a> and, in the pose of Venus, his Fame<\/em>, engraved after a figure by Rosso designed for the Gallery of Francis I (Fig.E.5<\/a>).\u00a0 B\u00e9guin thought the grotesque mask decorating the urn below Venus is similar to motifs in the border of the Cleobis and Biton<\/em> tapestry (Fig.P.22, V S,Tapestry, a<\/a>), meaning, I would suppose, the masks at the upper right and left.\u00a0 Similar masks, on an urn and on a shield, appear in Barbiere\u2019s Two Skeletons and Two Flayed Figures<\/em> (Fig.RE.3<\/a>).\u00a0 Although the evidence is hardly sufficient to attribute the painting to Pellegrino, he was Rosso\u2019s most important assistant and he could have painted such a picture.\u00a0 Vasari praised Barbiere highly, an evaluation certainly supported by the quality of the invention and execution of his engravings.\u00a0 He, too, could have painted such a picture and seems to me more likely than Pellegrino to have done the Luxembourg painting.\u00a0 Whoever did the picture, it would seem to have been done after Rosso\u2019s death in the wake of his art but through the filter of Primaticcio\u2019s.\u00a0 The rear end view of Cupid reminds one of some of the figures designed by Primaticcio for the Gallery of Ulysses.\u00a0 While Rosso\u2019s lost painting on the East Wall of the gallery may have had some influence on the Luxembourg picture, this is probably reflected more in its subject and its grand nudity than in the specific appearance of its composition.6<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

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<\/a>1<\/sup> From B\u00e9guin, 1989, 833, and B\u00e9guin, Bacchus, V\u00e9nus et l\u2019Amour<\/em>, 1989, 22.\u00a0 Peterken was a participant of the Americanist Congress in Luxembourg, September 10-13, 1877.\u00a0 J. L. Koltz, in Bacchus, V\u00e9nus et l\u2019Amour<\/em>, 1989, 39, 44, ns. 22-23, reported that between the time of Peterken\u2019s gift and 1941 the whereabouts of the picture are not known; on May 6, 1941, it was moved from the attic of the Vauban police barracks to the museum (the barracks had been the Mus\u00e9e de la Section historique de l\u2019Institut Grand-Ducal).\u00a0 It was reported to have come from the ch\u00e2teau Walferdange near the capital of Luxembourg.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>2<\/sup> For Vasari\u2019s descriptions of the Gallery in the 1550 and 1568 editions of his Vite<\/em>, see P.22, under LITERATURE.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>3<\/sup> J-P. Rioux, in Bacchus, V\u00e9nus et l\u2019Amour<\/em>, 1989, 45-46, noted indications that the canvas may once have been laid on a panel, but because of the evidence of the sewing of the pieces of the canvas he had to discard the possibility that the picture was originally painted on panel.\u00a0 B\u00e9guin, 1989, 833, mentioned only that evidence indicated that the canvas could at some time have been laid on panel.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>4<\/sup> Pellegrin, 1530.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>5<\/sup> Zerner, 1969, D.B.8.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>6<\/sup> B\u00e9guin, in Renaissance<\/em>, Quebec, 1984, 327-328, no. 196, with Fig., suggested that a drawing of Two Urns, and a Leg<\/em> in a private collection (Fig.Urns and Leg<\/a>) is after Rosso and related to his lost picture.\u00a0 The use of a frieze of realistic crustaceans as on the top of the upright urn appears in an etching of a ewer by Fantuzzi (Fig.Fantuzzi, Ewer<\/a>; Zerner, 1969, A.F.54a), and in a drawing of a plate (with two pitchers) in the Ensba in Paris (Fig.Ensba, Masson 2493<\/a>; pen and wash, 14 x 18.3; Kusenberg, 1931, 151, no. 53, as by Boyvin; Brugerolles and Guillet, 1994, 104, no. 36, 105, Fig., as by Thiry), neither of which can be related to Rosso.\u00a0 The bathing scene of several figures forming part of a tall frieze around the upper half of the standing urn is specifically related to a drawing in Bayonne (Fig.P.22Copy, Bayonne), the two swimming figures of which were identified by Jacob Bean (1960, no. 148, with Fig.) as specifically related to figures in the Education of Achilles<\/em> in the Gallery of Francis I (Fig.P.22, II N a<\/a>).\u00a0 Less closely related are the standing nude woman seen from the front in the drawing and the figure of Venus in Rosso\u2019s Venus and Minerva<\/em> fresco in the gallery (Fig.P.22, I N a<\/a>).\u00a0 Bean saw the drawing as a pastiche of Rosso made of motifs taken from different works by him.\u00a0 This also seems to be the case with the designs of the two urns.\u00a0 The realistic crustaceans of one of the urns suggest the kind of work that Bernard Palissy and his shop would begin to create around the time of Rosso\u2019s death.\u00a0 I would think the drawing published by B\u00e9guin copies part of a composition done about the same time as the Luxembourg painting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Luxembourg, Mus\u00e9e du Grand Duch\u00e9 de Luxembourg, inv. no. 1941-100\/412. Hemp canvas, 209 x 161.5. Fig.RP.17 The poor condition of the picture and its restoration are discussed in B\u00e9guin, 1989, 833-834, and by Sylvie B\u00e9guin, Jean-Paul Rioux, and Annick Lautraite, in Bacchus, V\u00e9nus et l\u2019Amour, 1989, 24, 29, 45-62. PROVENANCE: Berne, Van Parys Collection (the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"parent":1357,"menu_order":18,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5961","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5961","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=5961"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7964,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5961\/revisions\/7964"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}