1532 – mid-1533<\/p>\n
Jardin des Pins, Ch\u00e2teau, Fontainebleau.<\/p>\n
The earliest reference to Rosso\u2019s decoration of a garden pavilion at Fontainebleau is in Dan, 1642, 178: \u201cIl ne faut oublier, qu\u2019\u00e0 l\u2019un des angles de ce Iardin [des Pins] au bout de la grande Galerie [d\u2019Ulysse], est un Pavillon quarr\u00e9 dress\u00e9 par le grand Roy Fran\u00e7ois, comme il paroist par ses Chiffres, et sa Devise, auquel sont deux grands Tableaux, peints \u00e0 frais par le Sieur Rousse, o\u00f9 sont represent\u00e9es les amours de Vertumnus, et de Pomone.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is also described by Guilbert, 1731, II, 93-94:<\/p>\n
\u201cLe corps du B\u00e2timent que l\u2019on voit dans l\u2019angle Septentrionale de ce Jardin, pr\u00e8s de la Galerie d\u2019Ulisse, porte le nom de Vertumne et de Pomone, parce que les amours de ce Dieu et de cette D\u00e9esse sont repr\u00e9sent\u00e9s en deux Tableaux \u00e0 fraisque du dessein de Saint Martin [Primaticcio], sous un pavillon quarr\u00e9, soutenu par quatre pilastres de gresserie d\u2019ordre composite, couronn\u00e9 de frises, corniches, et chapiteaux aux Chiffres de Fran\u00e7ois I. qui l\u2019a fait construire, et orn\u00e9 de plusieurs t\u00eates de divers animaux et chiens de chasse d\u2019une parfaite beaut\u00e9.<\/p>\n
\u201cVertumne Dieu du Printems devint \u00e9perdu\u00ebment amoureux de Pomone D\u00e9esse des Jardins, et prit toutes sortes de formes pour parvenir \u00e0 ses fins.\u00a0 Lass\u00e9 de son peu de succ\u00e9s, il se transforma en vieille, et obtint ce qu\u2019il d\u00e9siroit en lui contant des histoires d\u2019Amans punis pour leur peu de tendresse.<\/p>\n
\u201cLes Po\u00ebtes pr\u00e9tendent qu\u2019ils se rajeunirent lorsqu\u2019ils furent dans un \u00e2ge avanc\u00e9, et que Vertumne donna le rare \u00e9xemple, de ne jamais violer la foy qu\u2019il avoit donn\u00e9e \u00e0 Pomone.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
In note 1 on page 93, Guilbert adds: \u201cIl par\u00f4it que l\u2019un de ces deux Tableaux pourtroit repr\u00e9senter un Temple de Priape plut\u00f4t que le jardin de Vertumne; mais heureusement il est presque totalement effac\u00e9.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mariette, in the eighteenth century when discussing the works by Primaticcio in Crozat\u2019s collection (Ab\u00e9c\u00e9dario<\/i>, IV, 1857-1858, 216-217), says the following:<\/p>\n
\u201c — Des nymphes cultivans un jardin, o\u00f9 l\u2019on voit \u00e0 l\u2019entr\u00e9e la statue du dieu Priape.\u00a0 Grav\u00e9 au burin par le m\u00eame L\u00e9on Daven … Peint \u00e0 fresque dans un cabinet dans le jardin de Fontainebleau, au bout de l\u2019all\u00e9e qui est bord\u00e9e par la galerie d\u2019Ulisse; il y a dans ce mesme cabinet, qui est tout ouvert, un autre tableau repr\u00e9sentant les amours de Vertumne et de Pomone, qui est certainement du Primatice; cependant les ornements qui environnent ces deux sujets sont les mesmes et du dessein du Rosso.\u00a0 Seroit-ce que le Rosso et le Primatice [217] auroient travaill\u00e9 con jointement dans ce lieu, qui a \u00e9t\u00e9 peint et b\u00e2ti sous Fran\u00e7ois Ier<\/sup>, ainsi qu\u2019on le peut connoistre par les salamandres qui sont dans les chapiteaux des colonnes et pilastres qui soutiennent le toit?\u00a0 Ces peintures sont au reste tr\u00e8s-endomag\u00e9es.\u00a0 J\u2019\u00e9cris ceci en 1723.<\/p>\n
\u201cVertumne, d\u00e9guis\u00e9 en vielle, taschant d\u2019inspirer de l\u2019amour par ses discours \u00e0 Pomone, d\u00e9esse des jardins.\u00a0 Grav\u00e9 \u00e0 l\u2019eau forte par un de ces anciens graveurs de Fontainebleau et assez mal, d\u2019apr\u00e8s un des tableaux \u00e0 fresque qui sont dans un petit pavillon qui est dans le jardin des pins, \u00e0 Fontainebleau.\u00a0 Celui-ci est tout \u00e0 fait dans la mani\u00e8re du Rosso et passe pour estre de luy.\u00a0 M. Crozat en a cependant, ce me semble, un dessein qui du Primatice.\u00a0 Ce qui est de certain, c\u2019est que le tableau voisin, et il n\u2019y a que ces deux tableaux dans ce pavillon, est du Primatice; il repr\u00e9sente la culture des jardins et a \u00e9t\u00e9 grav\u00e9.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Already in 1859, Reiset, correcting the evidence given by Dan and Guilbert, identified Fantuzzi\u2019s etching of Vertumnus and Pomona<\/i> (Fig.E.62a<\/a>) as representing Rosso\u2019s painting in the Pavilion of Pomona.\u00a0 He also identified Master L.D.\u2019s [L\u00e9on Davent\u2019s] etching, which he titled Men and Women cultivating a Garden at the Base of a Statue of Priapu<\/i>s (Fig.Davent<\/a>, see below) as related to Primaticcio\u2019s painting in this garden pavilion.\u00a0 Mentioning Mariette and Guilbert, Herbet, in 1896, made the same identifications, and pointed out (Herbet, I, 1896, 77, 16) the inscription on Master L.D.\u2019s [L\u00e9on Davent\u2019s] print: A: fontene bleau<\/i>.\u00a0 Dimier, 1897, 77-79 (correcting the false placement of it by Palustre and Molinier), identified the pavilion, and then to the evidence already known he added (1900, 37-40, 312-314, 319, 434, no. 59, 489, no. 15) a black chalk sketch in the Louvre (Fig.Paris, 8571<\/a>), which he recognized as an early sketch by Primaticcio for the scene more fully represented by Master L.D.\u2019s etching, and another drawing, also in the Louvre (Fig.D.46Aa<\/a>), which he accepted as Rosso\u2019s and identified with Fantuzzi\u2019s etching that had been associated with Rosso\u2019s fresco in the Pavilion of Pomona.\u00a0 He also identified Fantuzzi\u2019s Cartouche with Satyrs<\/i> (Fig.E.63<\/a>) as representing the stucco frames that were in the lost pavilion, noting that it must represent both of them as Mariette states that the two were alike.\u00a0 Furthermore, he pointed out that the pavilion appears on Fran\u00e7ois d\u2019Orbay\u2019s plan of Fontainebleau of 16821<\/sup><\/a> and in a seventeenth-century print by Isra\u00ebl Sylvestre (Fig.Sylvestre, Grotte<\/a>, see below).<\/p>\n
Bacou and B\u00e9guin (EdF<\/i>, 1972, 137, under no. 145) added to the evidence for the decoration of this pavilion a very finished drawing ascribed to Primaticcio, in the Koenig-Fachsenfeld Collection (Fig.Koenig-Fachsenfeld<\/a>),2<\/sup><\/a> that is related to his drawing in the Louvre and more closely to the print by Master L.D., and also a painting, in a private collection, which they identified as a copy of Primaticcio\u2019s lost fresco (on which, see below).<\/p>\n
As indicated by Guilbert and Mariette, the frescoes of the Pavilion of Pomona had badly deteriorated by the beginning of the eighteenth century.\u00a0 Herbet (L\u2019ancien Fontainebleau<\/i>, Fontainebleau, 1912, 420, according to Kusenberg, 1931, 96, 200, ns. 210 and 211) reported that in the eighteenth century the pavilion had been used to store glass and that it was destroyed in 1765-1766 at the time that kitchens were built on this site.<\/p>\n
Dimier, 1904, 89, states that Rosso directed the decoration of the Pavilion of Pomona and that its two pictures represented Vertumnus as an old woman, inspiring Pomona with love, by Rosso, and the Gardens of Pomona<\/i>, by Primaticcio.\u00a0 Dimier, 1928, 8, mentions again that the two paintings were by Rosso and Primaticcio, and that the stuccoes were by Rosso, and as done in 1532-1535. \u00a0Kusenberg, 1931, 93-96, 200, ns. 199-211, gives Dimier\u2019s reconstruction, but as done before April 1534.\u00a0 Venturi, IX, 5, 1932, 197, confuses Dimier\u2019s reference to the Pavillon des Po\u00eales with the Pavilion of Pomona.\u00a0 Herbet, 1937, 363, as done in 1534-1535.\u00a0 Dimier, 1942, 23, decorated with Primaticcio.\u00a0 Barocchi, 1951, 213, 251, mentions Rosso\u2019s and Primaticcio\u2019s compositions and Fantuzzi\u2019s etching of the frame.\u00a0 Georg Kauffmann, \u201cPoussins \u2018Primavera,\u2019\u201d Walter Friedlander zum 90. Geburtstag<\/i>, ed. G. Kauffmann and W. Sauerl\u00e4nder, Berlin, 1965, 96, relates Primaticcio\u2019s scene to Ovid\u2019s Fasti<\/i>, IV, 395-404, where it is told of the first man\u2019s eating the plants that the earth naturally produced, and then, under Ceres\u2019s guidance, of his cultivation of the earth. \u00a0Freedberg, 1966, 583, as done in 1532-1535.\u00a0 B\u00e9guin, RdA<\/i>, 1969, 106, mentions Primaticcio\u2019s preparatory drawing in the Louvre, Inv. 8571.\u00a0 Bacou and B\u00e9guin, in EdF<\/i>, 1972, 136, Fig. 137, 139, discuss Louvre Inv. 8571.\u00a0 Claude Lauriol, in EdF<\/i>, 1972, 482, says the pavilion was built in 1533, decorated around 1535, and destroyed in 1766.\u00a0 Kauffmann, 1973, 104, identifies Primaticcio\u2019s scene again with a passage from Ovid\u2019s Fasti<\/i>.\u00a0 B\u00e9guin, in Actes<\/i>, 1975, 200, 203, Figs. 3-5, 227, n. 7, discusses and illustrates the print by Master L.D. of Primaticcio\u2019s composition; the Louvre drawing, Inv. 8571; and the \u201cmodello\u201d in the Koenig-Fachsenfeld Collection in Fachsenfeld; and dates the Pavilion of Pomona 1534-1535.\u00a0 Golson, in Actes<\/i>, 1975, 231-240, discusses the sources for the Pavilion of Pomona, its place within the history of garden structures, and indicates that the authorship of the stuccoes is still to be clarified; she thought the pavilion may have been built with reference to the hopes for concord and prosperity from the marriage of Francis I to Eleanor of Austria.\u00a0 Guillaume and Grodecki, 1978, 46, mention the pavilion as decorated in 1534-1535.\u00a0 B\u00e9guin, 1982, 27, 28, Fig. 1, discusses the Louvre drawing, Inv. 8571, and dates the pavilion 1531-1535.\u00a0 Orazzi, 1982, 130-132, the pavilion designed by Vignola with frescoes by Primaticcio, but admitting that if one fresco was by Rosso the attribution to Vignola would be impossible.\u00a0 Guillaume, 1985, 39, as built in 1534-1535.\u00a0 Prinz and Kecks, 1985, 345, 347, 425, as done in 1534 or in 1534-1535.\u00a0 Woodbridge, 1986, 60, Fig. 5 (etching by S. Israel), 61.\u00a0 Carroll, 1987, 30, 198-207.\u00a0 Scailli\u00e9rez, 1992, 128-129, under no. 55, as done 1532-1535.\u00a0 Brugerolles and Guillet, 1994, 40, under no. 15, and 68, 70, n. 17, under no. 24.<\/p>\n
With the specifications of its location given by Dan, Guilbert, and Mariette, the Pavilion of Pomona can be located on Du Cerceau\u2019s etched plan of Fontainebleau and its gardens of 1579 (Fig.Du Cerceau Plan Extended<\/a>).3<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 It appears to be at the very far right of the plate as a small structure set within the corner made by the west and north walls that enclosed the Jardin des Pins.\u00a0 These walls appear to abut the south and east sides of the pavilion so that the pavilion juts out slightly beyond the limits of the garden formed by its walls.\u00a0 Although its sides are of equal length in Du Cerceau\u2019s plan, its shape is slightly rhomboid rather than square.4<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 Du Cerceau\u2019s view of Fontainebleau from the north shows the outside north face of the pavilion and its roof.\u00a0 The north wall up to the lower edge of the roof is roughly square, including the base and the entablature that slightly project at the sides.\u00a0 The steeply pitched roof is about as high as the wall proper and is cut off straight at the top.\u00a0 There appears to be open decoration along this edge.\u00a0 It is likely that from the east and the west the roof rose to a point like the other roofs of the ch\u00e2teau.\u00a0 It can also be seen in this view that the north garden wall goes up to the level of the lower level of the cornice of the north wall of the pavilion.<\/p>\n
The pavilion can also be seen from the southwest on an engraved panoramic view of the ch\u00e2teau and its gardens of 1614 (Fig.Francini<\/a>).5<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 The west wall of the pavilion is subdivided by a vertical strip down the middle and by a horizontal one about two thirds of the way up.\u00a0 The west garden wall is low and abuts the pavilion just below the middle of the left edge of its south side, and apparently in direct line with the west wall of the pavilion.\u00a0 It can be seen that the south side of the pavilion is open, with a strip of wall or a pier at the left, which the garden wall meets, and a rectangular pier at the right with a capital.\u00a0 Above is a straight lintel just under the roof.\u00a0 The roof slightly overhangs the building and its sides rise to a single point.\u00a0 On an eighteenth century drawn plan of the ch\u00e2teau in the Pierpont Morgan Library (here shown from a negative microfilm), the pavilion is again shown slightly rhomboid (Fig.Morgan Plan, Rez de Chauss\u00e9e, Pomona, plan<\/a>).6<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 Here the garden walls join those of the pavilion in a straight line.\u00a0 The scale of this plan is given in toises<\/i> and the outer dimensions of the pavilion appear to be approximately 3.6 by 3.6 toises<\/i>, or about 7 by 7 meters.\u00a0 The interior walls on the west and north sides are about 5 meters long.7<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 Here it can be seen that the south and east sides are open, with a square pier at the southwest corner matched by square piers of the same size across from it attached to the north and west walls.\u00a0 On an accompanying plan in the Morgan Library (Fig.Morgan Plan, Premier Etage, Pomona, roof<\/a>), the roof is described as four triangular shapes rising to a single point.8<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n
The only clear view of the Pavilion of Pomona from the garden side is that in the background of Isra\u00ebl Sylvestre\u2019s Veu\u00eb de la Grotte rustique, et de la grande gallerie des peintures<\/i> (Fig.Sylvestre, Grotte<\/a>), published in 1649.9<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 Sylvestre\u2019s etching gives a somewhat fancifully elaborated depiction of the grotto, which still survives at Fontainebleau, but the Pavilion of Pomona appears quite simply described.\u00a0 It can be seen as a square structure with its square piers as indicated on the plans of it and in the 1614 view of the ch\u00e2teau and its gardens.\u00a0 It also shows the garden walls abutting it with the west wall about the height that it appears in the 1614 view; the north wall is much higher as in Du Cerceau\u2019s print, but rises higher than that in the sixteenth century view to a level above the cornice of the pavilion rather than to the lower edge of the entablature.\u00a0 The roof apparently terminates in a single point as in the 1614 view and in the Morgan Library plan.\u00a0 It is possible that this very high roof and the higher garden wall are alterations of what originally existed.10<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 The wall seems to match the interior garden walls that do not exist in Du Cerceau\u2019s view but that can be seen in the 1614 view and in Sylvestre\u2019s etching, although not with the same design in these two prints.\u00a0 The piers could have composite capitals as indicated by Guilbert.\u00a0 As he mentions four piers \u2013 \u201cquatre pilastres\u201d\u2019 – one has to assume there was also a pier in the northwest corner of the pavilion where its outside walls met and this could be seen as following through what Sylvestre shows although this corner is hidden in his view.\u00a0 It also does not show the \u201cChiffres de Fran\u00e7ois I\u201d or \u201csa Devise\u201d or the salamanders mentioned by Dan, Guilbert, and Mariette as ornamenting the capitals, cornices, and friezes, nor the decoration of \u201ct\u00eates de divers animaux et chiens de chasse\u201d described by Guilbert.\u00a0 One might conclude that all this decoration adhered closely to the architectural membering and hence was too small to appear on the pavilion in the far background of Sylvestre\u2019s etching where even the foreground elements are laconically described.<\/p>\n
If the exterior appearance of the pavilion is rather simplified in this print so, too, one would expect the interior of it to be.\u00a0 Only the west wall can be seen with an attached pier at the left and an entablature at the level of its capital, as appears also on the exterior of the east side of the structure.\u00a0 The breadth of the wall is reduced by two architectural strips at the left.\u00a0 At the bottom of the reduced breadth of this wall are three square panels with perhaps a small upright rectangular one at the left (suggesting that another one would have been at the right hidden behind the front right pier) above a bench, supported by three (the fourth at the right blocked from view by the forward right pier) brackets, spanning the width of the wall between the outermost strips flanking the attached piers.\u00a0 The west wall itself is occupied by a square picture with a plain strip of about the same width as the architectural strips framing it on three sides (and by implication on the top fourth side that is in shadow).\u00a0 Although the interior walls of the pavilion were about five meters square, the area of the fresco, because of the architectural strips and the framing strips, would have been about three meters square.<\/p>\n
It is here that the etching comes in conflict with some of the other evidence on the decoration of the Pavilion of Pomona.\u00a0 Mariette is the only author who mentions the frames of the two frescoes in the pavilion, stating that \u201cles ornements qui environnent ces deux sujets sont les mesmes et du dessein du Rosso.\u201d\u00a0 Sylvestre\u2019s print shows no decoration whatsoever but this could be because it was too small to be represented on the strip he shows around the picture on the west wall.\u00a0 Furthermore, the etching by Fantuzzi (Fig.E.63<\/a>) that has been related to the frames in this pavilion shows the ornament in a horizontal rectangle surrounding an oval area that would have contained the frescoes by Rosso and Primaticcio.\u00a0 The copies of a drawing by Rosso (Fig.D.46Aa<\/a> and Fig.D.46B<\/a>) and Primaticcio\u2019s drawings for their respective frescoes show their scenes within horizontal ovals.\u00a0 But L\u00e9on Davent\u2019s etching of Primaticcio\u2019s scene (Fig.Davent<\/a>)11<\/sup><\/a> and Fantuzzi\u2019s of Rosso\u2019s (Fig.E.62a<\/a>) show them in square formats, although both also made prints with other scenes in ovals.\u00a0 Fantuzzi\u2019s print also contains two swags of fruit hanging from a lintel above and two slabs at the sides with volutes at the top and masks above and below that constitute a kind of frame.\u00a0 But this is not a frame that would occupy the strip that surrounds the picture in Sylvestre\u2019s etching.\u00a0 But neither is it the kind of frame that would seem to warrant Mariette\u2019s comment, brief though it is, and his attribution of the design of the frames to Rosso.12<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 Perhaps, however, Mariette was referring to small frames that would have occupied the strips that appear in Sylvestre\u2019s etching and that lie outside the area of Fantuzzi\u2019s print.<\/p>\n
The one piece of evidence that has not been seen is the rectangular painting mentioned by Bacou and B\u00e9guin as a copy of Primaticcio\u2019s lost fresco.\u00a0 But even if it shows Primaticcio\u2019s scene in an oval it would have to be shown beyond any doubt that it was copied from the lost fresco rather than from a very finished drawing for it – the Koenig-Fachsenfeld drawing, perhaps – that shows the scene in an oval if that copy is to give proof that the frescoes in the pavilion were oval in shape.13<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n
It should be pointed out that the very sketchily indicated painting in Sylvestre\u2019s etching resembles neither Rosso\u2019s nor Primaticcio\u2019s scene as we know them from drawings and prints.\u00a0 Three or four shapes adumbrate what can be taken to be figures, hence indicating a picture on the wall.\u00a0 But it needs to be emphasized, too, that (except for the unknown painted copy) Sylvestre\u2019s print is the only evidence for what the decoration of the Pavilion of Pomona may actually have looked like.\u00a0 The drawings and the prints, which are based on drawings, give evidence only of what was planned for the pavilion, and not of what was actually executed there.<\/p>\n
Because it is so simply described, the pavilion in its total appearance in Sylvestre\u2019s etching seems convincing.\u00a0 There is nothing about it that suggests the slight elaboration that the Grotto has undergone.\u00a0 At the same time the pavilion has a sufficient amount of detail that not only indicates its function but also that resembles what appears in Du Cerceau\u2019s prints and in the view of 1614.\u00a0 Its sides are square and have approximately the same dimensions as its plan.\u00a0 There is a bench fit between the piers of the west wall (and there was probably one against the north wall).\u00a0 Three square panels above it serve as wainscoting and as the back of the bench.\u00a0 The fresco is above them and hence in a position not to be damaged accidently by those using the pavilion.\u00a0 Furthermore, the fresco is also square and, therefore, not only corresponds to the paneling but is rather appropriately framed as well by the square opening across from it of the pavilion itself.<\/p>\n
If instead of this arrangement one substitutes the frame represented in Fantuzzi\u2019s etching then the paneling would have to be higher or the strips at the sides in Sylvestre\u2019s etching would have to be removed to provide a horizontal area for that frame.\u00a0 The wainscoting would then most likely not be composed of square panels.\u00a0 In either case the oval picture area would have to be somewhat less wide than the width of the picture shown in the print.\u00a0 It would be especially small if placed above the higher paneling.\u00a0 But with lower paneling and a wider wall the frames of the two frescoes would be rather tightly fit into the areas provided for them.<\/p>\n
Dimier was certainly correct in relating the copy of Rosso\u2019s drawing in the Louvre, Fantuzzi\u2019s etching of the same scene, and his etching of the frame with an oval center to each other and to the decoration of the Pavilion of Pomona.\u00a0 The drawing shows the appropriate subject.\u00a0 Its oval shape has straight vertical elements at the sides, above and below each of which is a mask of a somewhat old man set in a volute, as in Fantuzzi\u2019s frame.\u00a0 Two swags of fruit hang from above.\u00a0 But neither the masks themselves nor the tilt of them is the same in the drawing and the print.\u00a0 Furthermore, the side panels are broad and solid in the drawing, while in the etching they are shallow boxes, each containing a standing putto.\u00a0 The side elements in the drawing are, however, almost identical to what appears in Fantuzzi\u2019s reversed etching of the scene of Vertumnus and Pomona<\/i>.\u00a0 But here the swags are raised and the wing that appears over the framing element at the left in the drawing does not appear.\u00a0 In the print the scene is also set in a square rather than an oval.\u00a0 The drawing, itself a copy and an incomplete one of a lost drawing by Rosso, is cut on all sides, so it is not possible to tell how much more of the frame Rosso\u2019s original drawing included.\u00a0 The other copy of the lost drawing is even more reduced.\u00a0 Most important, in the Louvre drawing it is not possible to tell from what the swags hang, only that they must hang from something outside the oval area of the scene.<\/p>\n
Primaticcio\u2019s drawing of a garden scene, in the Louvre,14<\/sup><\/a> that has been rightly connected with his fresco in the Pavilion of Pomona, shows its composition again in an oval.\u00a0 At the top are, lightly sketched, two garlands that hang from something outside the limits of the oval and not visible in the drawing.\u00a0 The drawing is cut at the sides so one cannot know if any framing elements were originally included here.\u00a0 In the Koenig-Fachsenfeld drawing the scene is in an oval, and two swags again are lightly indicated above, although here, too, without any indication from what they hang.\u00a0 At the left is a band with a curved top and bottom that indicates a framing element that cuts off slightly that end of the oval.\u00a0 It vaguely resembles what appears in the copy of Rosso\u2019s drawing but neither volutes nor masks are indicated.\u00a0 At the right of the drawing a similar band seems to be lightly sketched.\u00a0 L\u00e9on Davent\u2019s etching of Primaticcio\u2019s composition shows it in a square format, without garlands and without any indication of framing elements at the sides as are found in Fantuzzi\u2019s etching of Rosso\u2019s composition.<\/p>\n
It seems clear that Rosso and Primaticcio originally designed their frescoes for the Pavilion of Pomona as ovals that were to be surrounded by frames with straight elements at the sides, having masks above and below, and with two garlands hanging down that possibly covered the upper parts of their pictures.\u00a0 Fantuzzi\u2019s etching of a frame surrounding a horizontal oval that has flat vertical elements at the sides is almost certainly derived from a finished drawing by Rosso for the frame of his painting of Vertumnus and Pomona<\/i>.\u00a0 Here it can be seen that the two garlands were designed to hang not from the oval part of the scheme but from the upper surface of a recessed area into which the whole frame appears to be set.\u00a0 They hang from a comparable place in Fantuzzi\u2019s etching of Rosso\u2019s narrative scene.\u00a0 It can probably be assumed that all the elements represented in Fantuzzi\u2019s etching of the frame were intended to be executed in white stucco, with perhaps some small gilt details, as in the Gallery of Francis I.\u00a0 The blank squares were probably meant to receive small stuccoes or paintings.\u00a0 Below would have been a wainscot, its panels probably coordinated in their alignment with the tripartite division of the decoration above.<\/p>\n
What, however, cannot be documented is that this scheme was actually executed.\u00a0 From the evidence of Sylvestre\u2019s seventeenth century etching it was not.\u00a0 Here the one painting that is visible is square and is surrounded by an unadorned strip.\u00a0 There must have been frames of some degree of elaboration for they are mentioned by Mariette and their design – both were alike – was attributed by him to Rosso.\u00a0 It should be noted that Fantuzzi\u2019s and L\u00e9on Davent\u2019s etchings of Rosso\u2019s and Primaticcio\u2019s compositions fit very well into their square formats.\u00a0 Furthermore, it is likely that the etchers, who made their prints from Rosso\u2019s and Primaticcio\u2019s drawings and not from their paintings and stuccoes, did not work from the one drawing by Rosso known from two copies, or from the Koenig-Fachsenfeld drawing (or Primaticcio\u2019s original of it).\u00a0 Furthermore, in the Primaticcio drawings the swags hang so low that one mostly obliterates the area where the tunnel of trellis recedes into the distance.\u00a0 If this architectural motif was to have its effect in rapport with the one in Rosso\u2019s composition than these swags could not hang so low.\u00a0 They do not appear in L\u00e9on Davent\u2019s print and are placed high in Fantuzzi\u2019s etching of the Vertumnus and Pomona<\/i>, providing room, thereby, for some high trees in the background.\u00a0 These etchings may well be based on very finished drawings in which Rosso and Primaticcio had converted their oval compositions into square ones.<\/p>\n
It was Dimier who pointed out the pairing of the two perspectives made by the trellis tunnels in both compositions.\u00a0 If they were to some extent intended, as seems likely and as Dimier proposed, to follow through one\u2019s view of them through the opposite open sides of the pavilion, with the perspectives in the paintings moving in the direction of the corner formed by the two walls of the pavilion, then Rosso\u2019s fresco would have been on the west wall and Primaticcio\u2019s on the north.\u00a0 It is the west wall that is visible in Isra\u00ebl Sylvestre\u2019s print.15<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n
There are no documents related to the construction or decoration of the Pavilion of Pomona.\u00a0 The dating of the decoration of the pavilion – or of the designs for it – is, therefore, dependent upon a consideration of the fact that it was a collaborative effort of Rosso and Primaticcio and upon the stylistic evidence of the drawings and prints of both their contributions.\u00a0 The Pavilion of Pomona is the only project that had works by the two artists planned to be seen together in the same space.\u00a0 But given the smallness of the pavilion, collaboration seems to have been hardly necessary.\u00a0 It is, therefore, possible that this joint project was done very soon after Primaticcio arrived at Fontainebleau and was looked upon as a first endeavor of a number of collaborations that would follow.<\/p>\n
Primaticcio\u2019s composition has always been recognized as one of the earliest known works by him,16<\/sup><\/a> although a precise date for it has never been argued on the basis of its relation to the admittedly few works by him with which it can be compared.\u00a0 Primaticcio arrived in France some time after 23 March 1532 and it is generally agreed that he was there very shortly thereafter.17<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 He is documented as having decorated the Chambre du Roi in the ch\u00e2teau at Fontainebleau between May or July 1533 and May 1535 and the Chambre de la Reine between February 1534 and May 1537.18<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 A drawing in the Louvre is now given to him as made for the Chambre du Roi but based on a conception and drawings provided by Giulio Romano.19<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 The central scene of the surviving fireplace decoration by Primaticcio in the Chambre de la Reine is derived from a motif by Giulio.20<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 In April 1535 Primaticcio began the decoration of the Porte Dor\u00e9e with compositions of his own design.21<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 The drawings by him for his fresco in the Pavilion of Pomona, and especially the one in the Koenig-Fachsenfeld Collection, stylistically resemble most closely the Louvre drawing for the Chambre du Roi.<\/p>\n
In the Pavilion of Pomona, Primaticcio was working in coordination with Rosso, as the backgrounds of their compositions indicate, although probably with the understanding that Rosso, the older and more highly paid artist, was the director of the project.\u00a0 Primaticcio may have executed the stucco decoration designed by Rosso that framed the two frescoes.\u00a0 His fresco, however, was of his own invention and was not prescribed by Giulio, or by Rosso, as the two drawings related to it show.\u00a0 These drawings by Primaticcio are rather difficult to place chronologically, for while they might immediately follow the Louvre drawing for the Chambre du Roi, they could be of about the same time, their difference from the other drawing accountable to their being entirely Primaticcio\u2019s own.\u00a0 McAllister Johnson has dated the Louvre drawing 1532-1533, just in advance, that is, of the beginning of the execution of the project for which it was made.22<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 It is possible that the execution of the decoration of the Pavilion of Pomona actually preceded the work in the Chambre du Roi and was done early in 1533 or in 1532, very shortly following Primaticcio\u2019s arrival at Fontainebleau.\u00a0 Otherwise one would have to place it in the period of the execution of the decoration of the Chambre du Roi or of the Chambre de la Reine.<\/p>\n
Rosso\u2019s Vertumnus and Pomona <\/i>resembles his Loss of Perpetual Youth<\/i> in the Gallery of Francis I (Fig.P.22, II S a<\/a>), although the latter has considerably more figures, which its subject requires.\u00a0 But both show figures in the immediate foreground whose forms are more or less aligned to the picture plane.\u00a0 In the center is a projection into space.\u00a0 This is also true of the Education of Achilles<\/i> in the gallery (Fig.P.22, II N a<\/a>), although it, too, has more figures in its variety of episodes.\u00a0 It might also be pointed out that the composition had been originally designed as an oval, known from the copy of Rosso\u2019s drawing in Ensba in Paris (Fig.D.53<\/a>), which was easily adapted to a rectangular format.\u00a0 Both of these compositions in the gallery would seem to have been invented very early in the time of Rosso\u2019s activity on this project, and before actual work began in the gallery itself in April 1534.\u00a0 The frame that Rosso designed for the frescoes in the pavilion, known from Fantuzzi\u2019s etching, contains figures of a size similar to those of the stuccoes of the frame of the Scene of Sacrifice<\/i> in the gallery (Fig.P.22, VII N a<\/a>), which seems also to have been designed before April 1534.\u00a0 There is, furthermore, a certain resemblance in the size and kinds of motifs of the frame designed for the pavilion with the stuccoes that flank the Unity of the State<\/i> (Fig.P.22, VI S a<\/a>), which would seem to date from before April 1534 as well.\u00a0 Rosso\u2019s designs for the Pavilion of Pomona can also be associated with such early French works as the Annunciation<\/i> in the Albertina (Fig.D.43a<\/a>); the Narcissus<\/i>, known from a copy in Turin (Fig.D.44<\/a>); and with the St. Peter and St. Paul<\/i> that survives in an engraving (Fig.E.8a<\/a>) and etching (Fig.E.98a<\/a>).\u00a0 However imprecise the dating of Rosso\u2019s work for this pavilion is on the basis of stylistic evidence alone, it is reasonably clear that it can be associated with a time that, independently, can be judged to be approximately the same as that in which Primaticcio invented his composition.<\/p>\n
The execution of the stuccoes in the Gallery of Francis I was begun in April 1534, and perhaps already in 1533.\u00a0 Prior to this time Rosso must have been especially busy preparing the designs from which his assistants would work.\u00a0 It is, therefore, unlikely that he had the time from then on or for a considerable period before April 1534 to devote to the decoration of the Pavilion of Pomona.\u00a0 It is unlikely, too, that the decoration of this outdoor pavilion was executed in the winter.\u00a0 This would mean placing it not after the fall of 1533.\u00a0 But Primaticcio was engaged in the execution of the Chambre du Roi beginning in July of that year, if not already in May.\u00a0 Hence it is possible that the decoration of the Pavilion of Pomona was executed before that time in the spring of 1533. \u00a0If, however, Primaticcio arrived in France in the spring of the preceding year, as is generally thought, then the Pavilion of Pomona might have been decorated in 1532 while both he and Rosso were waiting for the Chambre du Roi and the Gallery of Francis I to be prepared for the execution of their decorations.<\/p>\n
It might be conjectured that the decoration of the small Pavilion of Pomona served to show how Rosso\u2019s planned scheme for the Gallery of Francis I, and Primaticcio-Giulio\u2019s for the Chambre du Roi, would look, for nothing in the manner of this kind of decoration with large stucco elements framing frescoes existed in France.\u00a0 Primaticcio had been called to France because he was a stuccoer as well as a painter.\u00a0 Vasari says that no frescoes were painted in France before Primaticcio\u2019s arrival there.\u00a0 If there is any truth in this remark then there is some likelihood that the Pavilion of Pomona, with its stuccoes, was meant for Primaticcio\u2019s execution, and with its frescoes may have been the first work of its kind at Fontainebleau by Primaticcio and Rosso, preceding also the supposed decoration by Rosso of the Small Gallery.<\/p>\n
A date early in 1533, or even in 1532,23<\/sup><\/a> and the possibility that the decoration of the Pavilion of Pomona was planned with that of the Gallery of Francis I in mind can be associated with certain details that lend credibility to these hypotheses.\u00a0 It is very possible that the large frescoes on the long walls of the gallery were originally planned to be horizontal ovals in shape or that such a format was to alternate with horizontal rectangular frescoes.\u00a0 This is suggested by the shape of the copy of Rosso\u2019s lost drawing of the Education of Achilles<\/i> in Paris (see Fig.P.22, II N a<\/a>, and Fig.D.53<\/a>).\u00a0 This scheme was then changed to the one that was executed.\u00a0 As the plan evolved only the central image of the Nymph of Fontainebleau<\/i> was to be oval, as is its replacement, the Dana\u00eb<\/i> by Primaticcio.\u00a0 On the end walls were also two oval pictures, but they were upright and smaller panel paintings.\u00a0 Both paintings in the pavilion were planned as horizontal oval frescoes with elaborate frames.\u00a0 But if one takes the abbreviated evidence of Isra\u00ebl Sylvestre\u2019s etching then it has to be concluded that this scheme was reconsidered and that the frescoes were executed in a square format.\u00a0 This decision could have had some bearing upon what occured during the planning of the decoration of the Gallery of Francis I, or else the decisions in both cases took place simultaneously as the result of a general dissatisfaction with too extensive use of the oval format.\u00a0 Looking again at Fantuzzi\u2019s etching of Rosso\u2019s design for the stucco frame planned for the pavilion, one might be inclined to find its oval center incompatible with the post and lintel architecture in which it would have been placed.\u00a0 As two frames of the same design seems likely because of the unity this arrangement would have provided and because Mariette says the executed frames were the same, two with such large figures, richness of motifs and subsidiary scenes, as the print shows, does strike one as excessive, placed so closely together as they would have been.<\/p>\n
What, then, would other frames have looked like?\u00a0 They could have been something quite simple with flat stucco bands and small stucco motifs comparable to what surrounds the Revenge of Nauplius<\/i> in the Gallery of Francis I (Fig.P.22, III N a<\/a>), but confined within a narrow area around the two frescoes.\u00a0 There might have been, as there is in the gallery, winged putti at the sides and something like the strips and masks that appear in Fantuzzi\u2019s etching of the Vertumnus and Pomona<\/i> (Fig.E.62a<\/a>).\u00a0 From the lintel above, which is visible in Sylvestre\u2019s etching, two swags of fruit may have hung down over the tops of both paintings.\u00a0 But the appearance of the strips, masks, and garlands in Fantuzzi\u2019s Vertumnus and Pomona<\/i> does not guarantee that these details, or the putti seen in the Louvre copy after Rosso and in the etching of the frame, were executed in the pavilion and there is no indication of them in Sylvestre\u2019s print.\u00a0 Reading again the descriptions of Dan, Guilbert, and Mariette, one might be able to distinguish the decoration of the two parts of the pavilion.\u00a0 The architecture itself – which could have been designed by Rosso – would seem to have been ornamented with the king\u2019s symbols, most likely the F and the F encircled with a crown.\u00a0 The capitals showed salamanders perhaps with Francis I\u2019s motto: nutrisco et extinguo<\/i>. Guilbert also mentions the heads of animals and hunting dogs as ornament.\u00a0 These details could have been part of the stucco frames surrounding the paintings.24<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 Although these heads do not directly pertain to the subjects of the frescoes, they do enlarge upon the theme of nature, with references to hunting, which in a sense complements the cultivation of the earth that the paintings and garlands indicate.\u00a0 The ch\u00e2teau at Fontainebleau had extensive gardens but it was also set near a forest famous for its wild game, and was itself in origin a hunting lodge.<\/p>\n
Although there are no documents that name the Pavilion of Pomona, there is one (DOC.14<\/a>) that could just possibly be connected to it.\u00a0 At some time before the end of 1532, Lazare de Ba\u00eff, Francis I\u2019s ambassador in Venice, was reimbursed for some \u201ccouleurs \u00e0 fres\u201d that he had sent to Rosso upon his request.\u00a0 This was three years before the frescoes in the Gallery of Francis I were begun.\u00a0 The colors for fresco painting that Ba\u00eff sent may have been for an earlier project, although the supply could have been sufficient also for the gallery.\u00a0 This earlier project would probably have been the decoration of the Pavilion of Pomona, in which case it was already being planned in 1532.<\/p>\n
This account of what may have been the character of the Pavilion of Pomona is based on much conjecture, it is true.\u00a0 But one question still needs to be entertained: did Rosso execute his own fresco or was it painted by an assistant, as was largely the case with the frescoes in the Gallery of Francis I?\u00a0 It may be that it was in this pavilion (and in the Small Gallery?) that Rosso began to train those who would soon execute the frescoes and stuccoes of the major project of his career.<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n
\n\n<\/a>1<\/sup> Thomas, David, Renaissance Paris: Architecture and Growth 1475-1600<\/i>, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1984, 106-107, Fig. 63, where the pavilion is cut off but the legend for it is visible.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/a>2<\/sup> B\u00e9guin, in Actes<\/i>, 1975, 200, 203, Fig. 3.\u00a0 The drawing appears to be executed in pen and ink, heightened with white, over black chalk, on dark washed paper.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/a>3<\/sup> See also Palustre, I, 1879, 180.<\/div>\n\n<\/a>4<\/sup> The print of Du Cerceau reproduced in \u201cGalerie,\u201d RdA<\/i>, 1972, 14, Fig. 2, shows the sides of unequal lengths, which was not the case, as the plan in the Morgan Library shows (see below).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/a>5<\/sup> Paris, B.N.\u00a0 Inscribed at the bottom left: Alexander francini florentinns 1614<\/i>, and at the bottom center: Michel asinius sculpsit<\/i>.\u00a0 A rather rough copy of this view by A. Bosse is reproduced in Kusenberg, 1931, Pl. XXXI.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/a>6<\/sup> 1956.31.\u00a0 Plans des maisons royales<\/i>. Vol. 4. Departement de Fontainebleau: Recueil des plans du Ch\u00e2teau de Fontainebleau et des hotels qui en dependant<\/i>. \u201cRez de Chauss\u00e9e de la Cour du Cheval Blanc.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/a>7<\/sup> The scale on Du Cerceau\u2019s plan of 1579 – no. 2 of his Fontainebleau set, \u201cLe plan du bastiment avec son contenu\u201d – is also in toises<\/i>, but the plan of the Pavilion of Pomona would seem to be drawn too large, probably because the scale of the whole plan is too small to make possible any accurate record of this pavilion.<\/div>\n\n<\/a>8<\/sup> See n. 6; the plan of the \u201cPremier Etage de la Cour du Cheval Blanc.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/a>9<\/sup> On the set to which this etching belongs see J.-P. Samoyault, in EdF<\/i>, 1972, 328, nos. 427a and 427b.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/a>10<\/sup> In another view by Sylvestre (Guillaume, in B\u00e9guin, Guillaume, Roy, 1985, 16, Fig. 11) the roof is much lower, in fact lower than depicted in the prints of 1579 and 1614, but the structure in this etching is so distant, so dimly viewed, and such a minor part of this view that the information it gives is probably not reliable (Fig.Sylvestre, Ulysse<\/a>).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/a>11<\/sup> Bartsch, XVI, 1818, 322, 43; Herbet, I, 77, 16; Zerner, 1969, L.D.7.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/a>12<\/sup> K. Wilson-Chevalier, in Fontainebleau<\/i>, 1985, 136, no. 82, 137, no. 84, 138, Figs. 82 and 84, believed the frame of Primaticcio\u2019s oval fresco was also designed by him, as it appears partially in a drawing by him in Ensba in Paris (M.1157), but she has no proof of this assertion, which goes against Mariette\u2019s eyewitness evidence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/a>13<\/sup> B\u00e9guin informed me in 1990 that the painting appeared in 1970 in a private collection in the south of France, that it is rectangular, and that it resembles Primaticcio\u2019s drawing in the Louvre.\u00a0 I am not sure of the original shape of this drawing as some of its corners seem to have been repaired (see Bacou and B\u00e9guin, in EdF<\/i>, 1972, 136, Fig. 145, 137, 139, no. 145).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/a>14<\/sup> Inv. 8571; see Dimier, 1900, above; and Scailli\u00e9rez, 1992, 128, no. 55B, 129, Fig.B.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/a>15<\/sup> If this scene vaguely reflects what was painted on the west wall then it could resemble Rosso\u2019s scene; the arrangement of shapes cannot be related to Primaticcio\u2019s composition.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/a>16<\/sup> Bacou and B\u00e9guin, in EdF<\/i>, 1972, 136, Fig., 137-138, no. 145 (Louvre, Inv. 8571), and B\u00e9guin, 1982, 27, 28, Fig. 1, indicate that it is one of Primaticcio\u2019s earliest compositions, dating 1532-1535.<\/div>\n\n<\/a>17<\/sup> See Chapter VII.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/a>18<\/sup> See Dimier, 1900, 256-262, 265-268; McAllister Johnson, 1969, 9, 18; and B\u00e9guin, in Actes<\/i>, 1975, 199-205.<\/div>\n\n