Cabinet of Curiosities

March 10, 2012

Mary Jo Gibson

This cabinet comes from the Nottingham Gallery.  Museums have taken new steps with objects such as this, by inserting items into the drawers, inviting visitors to take a closer look at the contents.  These drawers contain images of Russian criminals and their tattoos.  The Chazen Museum has a similar cabinet that contains many items from a family farm, one drawer containing the decomposed body of a cat; quite a surprise to my 17 year old museum scavenger assistant.

There are many items in this week’s Cabinet of Curiosities, so let’s start opening the drawers…

A New Medusa?

Medusa by Caravaggio

An older version of this famous work by Michelangelo Merisi, better known as Caravaggio, has been verified by Maurizio Saracini of the University of San Diego and Mina Gregori, specialist on Caravaggio.  The painting is called the Murtola Medusa because the poet Gaspara Murtola recorded his thoughts on the image in his writings during Caravaggio’s lifetime.  Once thought to be the work of an imitator, x-rays revealed it to be “a creation, not a copy,” according to Gregori.

The painter captured the expression on Medusa’s face, deformed at the horror of having been beheaded, while her mane of serpents writhes in all directions, the passing moment between life and death; a recurring theme in Caravaggio’s work.  His known catalog includes many images of severed heads, “Judith Beheading Holofernes,” “,” and “David with the Head of Goliath”; these last two paintings with the artist’s own likeness depicted on the decapitated head.

David with the head of Goliath, Caravaggio

The Murtola Medusa is smaller than the Medusa of the Uffizi.  This version is dated from 1597-8, slightly earlier than the Uffizi version, which dates 1598-9.  Cardinal del Monte, Caravaggio’s patron, commissioned the Uffizi version to give to Ferdinand I de Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany.   The Murtola Medusa was acquired by Ermanno Zoffili, a private collector, who died just three days before the announcement of the discovery.

Caravaggio is one painter whose life and work continues to fascinate.  Four hundred years after his death, new information from the historical record shines from the dark corner of an archive due to the diligence of persistent historians.  Andrew Graham-Dixon’s “Caravaggio, A Life Sacred and Profane”, contains the most definitive collection of facts to date.  His meticulous research over a ten year period has brought Caravaggio from the dark fringe of history.  I am eagerly reading the last chapters of this book and look forward to an interview with the author in the coming weeks.

This image of Medusa, from the Uffizi gallery, is not signed.  But Medici records place it in their collection before 1630, noting the gift from del Monte, crediting the artist as Caravaggio.  It can be viewed in high resolution at the Google Art Project.

Walters Art Museum

The Walters Art Museum announced this week that Gary Vikan, director of the museum, will be stepping down in 2013.  His tenure at the museum led to several strategic initiatives, most notably, the elimination of the Walter’s general admission fee, which resulted in an increase in attendance by 45 percent.  His vision led to the digital future of the Walters, expanding the museum’s open source art offerings, resulting in a five-fold increase of online visitors to 1.8 million.  I count myself as just one who has enjoyed the many treasures to be found at the Walters through their digital initiatives.  Mr. Vikan’s podcasts from his weekly radio show on WYPR in Baltimore are available here.

Oedipus and the Sphinx

This image from the Walters digital archive, Oedipus and the Sphinx, was painted by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780-1867).  The Sphinx, part lion, part woman, grimaces in horror as Oedipus solves her riddle: “What is that which has one voice, and yet becomes four footed, two footed and then one footed?”  Any takers on the answer?  The Observations space below is waiting to find out what the Sphinx was inferring.  I will give away “Caravaggio: Painter of Miracles” by Francine Prose, to the first correct post.

The Hermitage at the Museo del Prado

Hermitage at the Prado

The Museo del Prado currently has an exhibition from the Hermitage Museum in Russia.  Their video of the online museum experience offers English subtitles, and showcases the unique pieces shared between these institutions, including objects from the first Russian archaeological collection, known as the “Siberian Collection of Peter the Great”.  The exhibition moves through the fine arts with paintings from the Renaissance to the 20^th century, Titian through Kandinsky.  Caravaggio’s “The Lute Player” is shown, painted for the Marquis Vincenzo Giustiniani, and acquired in Paris in 1808.

The Lute Player, Caravaggio

Encompassing 47 paintings, various pieces of sculpture and numerous pieces of fine objects, the Hermitage is just beginning to share their treasure trove of art with the world.  And as you can see at the beginning of the video, the size alone of this immense institution makes one wonder what is hidden away in their vast storage areas.

Van Dyck in Sicily at the Dulwich Picture Gallery

Anthony Van Dyck

This self-portrait of Anthony Van Dyck shows the artist in his early twenties.  His master was Peter Paul Rubens, and the young Flemish apprentice was soon to follow the great painter’s training by traveling to Italy.  Visiting Rome, Genoa and Palermo, he accepted the invitation of Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy to visit Sicily.  During Van Dyck’s stay at the capital, he was fortunate to survive the epidemic of bubonic plague that struck the city shortly after his arrival in 1624.  The exhibition brings together all the works he is known to have painted there.

St. John the Baptist in the Wilderness, Van Dyck

Van Dyck painted portraits when he first arrived in Sicily, but soon he was in demand for religious pictures.  The brooding “St. John the Baptist in the Wilderness” suggests  the influence of Caravaggio.  But the artist’s paintings of the obscure 12^th century saint Rosalia, reflect the tenor of Sicily during his residence.  Van Dyck painted at least five pictures devoted to the saint; long venerated in Palermo, her remains miraculously discovered in a cave near Monte Pellegrino during the summer of 1624, just as the plague broke out.  The archbishop of the city had them housed in a grand reliquary and processed through the town in hopes of warding off the disease; these altarpieces convey the sense of spiritual urgency and superstition of the age, compounded by the deaths of 20,000 people, the majority of Palermo’s population.

Unknown Portraits from History

The National Portrait Gallery currently showcases a display of portraits of unknown people.  Dating from the 16^th and 17^th centuries, these were once thought to depict famous sitters such as Queen Elizabeth I and Lady Arabella Stuart.  Their identities have long been disputed, and new research from students is presented alongside the portraits.

This portrait of an unknown woman, formerly thought to be Mary Queen of Scots, was originally acquired by the Gallery from a private owner.  The picture includes many symbols connected with Mary, but examination has revealed large amounts of repainting.  By 1888, it was thought to be of Mary’s mother, Mary of Lorraine, but the costume has discounted this identification.  The unusual landscape includes a distant view of the mountains, a castle and a hilltop town.  Certainly this was a woman of some wealth, reflected in the opulence of her gown and accessories, but whose name has faded from the page of history.

The Loss of Great Country Estates

Highclere Castle where Downton Abbey is filmed

The popularity of Downton Abbey has brought the Great Country Estate into the nomenclature again.  Many have been preserved through the National Trust, but the scale and their variety have vanished.  Replaced by caravan parks, office centers, urban sprawl and golf courses; some of these were inherited by foolish spendthrifts, but the scale of the estate allowed for one irresponsible heir to destroy the work of generations.

Cassiobury House in Hertfordshire was the seat of the Earl of Essex.  A Tudor house converted from a monastery, the first Earl was an ambitious courtier of Charles II, and he built the house with ornate carvings and staterooms to impress the King, who never visited.

The 5^th Early added a Gothic exterior, an orangery, and a Swiss cottage to house the ‘under butler’.  A Chinese bridge and medieval water mill completed what could be considered the ideal setting for a Constable painting.  The Essexes were not members of the elite monied class, but a cash crisis was averted at the turn of the 20^th century when the 7^th Earl married a rich American wife.  Some land was sold to build the suburbs around Watford in 1908, but after the Earl died, his widow sold the house to pay the death duties and it was demolished for materials in 1927.  Today the stable is a retirement home and the remainder of the land was developed in the 1930s for housing.

Beaudesert Estate was once a romantic Tudor house with a wild and ancient park setting.  Owned by the Paget family, who made their money through coal, Beaudesert fell into disrepair with the 5^th Marquess.  Known as the “Dancing Marquess of Anglesey”, he died in Monte Carlo in 1904 with debts of 544,000 pounds.  He left behind a wardrobe that featured 260 pairs of kid gloves, 200 scarf pins and 100 dressing gowns.

All that remains are these ruins and 123 acres of land, currently in use as a campground.

Costessy Hall of Norwich was a grandiose Gothic house, with a huge private chapel.  The owners were the medieval Jerningham family, later the Lords of Stafford.  A fortunate inheritance enabled a later Jerningham to add a model farm, a stable designed by Sir John Soane and a folly.  Another injection of heiress cash built towers and new Tudor-Gothic wings were added.

A succession of elderly, childless heirs followed, including the 10^th Lord of Stafford, who was certified as insane.  Requisitioned in WWI, the hall was badly damaged by the regiments who trained there, and it was demolished in 1925.  The belfry block remains, but most of the estate is now a suburb of Norwich and a golf course.

I hope you have enjoyed this week Cabinet.  On Monday I will share a great app with you from Museum Planet, showcasing Venice and the wonders of Venetian art and history.  This virtual experience is everything I could wish for, without the price of plane tickets, hotel, and time constraints of an expensive vacation.  Please join me as I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

Cheers,

MJ

Cabinet of Curiosities

Doll House Cabinet, Rijksmuseum

October 28, 2011

Mary Jo Gibson

This week’s cabinet is a custom built doll house from Sweden.  Seventeenth century doll houses were not children’s toys but a hobby for ladies comparable to the cabinets where gentlemen kept their collections.  This doll house was commissioned by Petronella Oortman, wife of merchant Johannes Brandt, from Amsterdam.  All of the components are made to scale, miniature porcelain objects from China, commissioned furniture and artist decorated interiors.  Each room is a microcosm of a 17th century home.  The tapestry room contains an unusual miniature cabinet with a collection of shells, and an exterior of imitation oriental lacquer work.  I found this unique item at the Rijksmuseum.

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The Office of the Dead

The celebration of Halloween is well under way this weekend, I begin my Cabinet of Curiosities with Demons and Devotion: The Hours of Catherine of Cleves, found at the Morgan Library and Museum.

The Office of the Dead was in the back of every Book of the Hours, the way death itself was always at the back of the medieval mind.  While the other prayers in a Book of Hours are quasi-liturgical, reflecting but not equaling official church practice, the Office of the Dead is identical to that found in the service books used by the ordained representatives of the Church.  The belief is that entry into heaven was delayed by a detour into purgatory, potentially lasting thousands of years, the fires of which cleansed the soul of unforgiven sin.  Praying to the Office of the Dead for the deceased who could not pray for themselves was believed to be an effective means of reducing the fiery price of paradise.

This scary miniature from Catherine’s prayer book is a full-page depiction of the medieval hell.  The gaping lion’s mouth opens bat-like lips tipped with talons.  Demons cast damned souls into this terrifying entrance to the furnace of hell, above rises the castle of death decorated with skulls.  At the bottom crouches a green demon whose mouth sprouts scrolls inscribed with the Seven Deadly Sins. In this small miniature, the holy water and incense offered by the priest to a corpse seem like scant protection for the potential horrors depicted in the facing image.

Created in Utrecht, the Netherlands around 1440, the manuscript was taken apart sometime before 1856.  The leaves were shuffled, rebound into two volumes making each look more or less complete; originally, the first section acquired by the Duke Arenberg, and the second section acquired by the Rothschild family; the Morgan purchased the Rothschild half in 1963 and the Arenberg in 1970.

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Bodleian Library reveals lost Tolkien drawings

Could the book that started all, The Hobbit from The Lord of the Rings saga, have anything new to add to another edition?  As the 75th anniversary of The Hobbit approaches, a new publication of the story has been prepared along with a highly anticipated film from Peter Jackson, who managed to bring the trilogy to the screen.  The discovery of 110 drawings by Mr. Tolkien are set to accompany The Hobbit, including 20 never before seen illustrations, making the new edition something all collectors will clamor to include in their libraries.

HarperCollins publisher David Brawn reviewed the Tolkien archive of the Bodleian Library in Oxford discovering this relatively obscure collection of illustrations – ink drawings, plans, maps, watercolors, sketches, preliminary and alternate versions of final pieces- made by the author.

“Tolkien was an accomplished amateur artist.  He was a great admirer of Arthur Rackham and you can see a little bit of the style coming through.”

The Art of the Hobbit was released October 27th, and the upcoming anniversary allows the spotlight to return to the book which started it all.

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Paintings for the Private Connoisseur

Judith with the Head of Holofernes, Veronese, 1580

The Masters of Venice is showing only in San Francisco at the de Young Museum, featuring 50 works by the giants of Venetian painting such as Titian and his contemporaries Palma Vecchio, Jacopo Bassano and Andrea Mantegna.  Coming from the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna that houses a collection assembled over centuries by emperors and dukes of the Habsburg dynasty, the dazzling portraits and epic mythology themed pictures in the show were painted for wealthy Venetian patrons, who didn’t want religious paintings for their private palazzo.  They wanted secular subjects, commissioning depictions of love scenes of the gods.  Three of Titian’s big, erotically charged visions are on view, including “Danae” and “Bravo, the Assassin”, based on the story of Bacchus’ arrest in Ovid’s Metamorphoses.  Works such as Veronese’s “Venus and Adonis” circa 1586, where the nude goddess cradles the head of the mortal she knows will be killed in a hunting accident; these were painted for bedrooms and private studies, made for the sophisticated connoisseur of the day who delighted in the sensual realities of the world; as in Veronese’s “Anointing of David”, 1555.

Also featured are paintings by Giorgione, who died in his 30’s of the plague; The Three Philosophers, 1508-9, Portrait of a Young Woman (Laura), 1506.

Showing October 29-February 12, 2012.

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William Dobson 1611-1646

The most excellent painter that England hath yet bred – John Aubrey

Endymion Porter, William Dobson, 1643-45

Almost completely forgotten by history, William Dobson was the first truly great British painter.   An artist of huge importance, he witnessed and recorded the crucial moments of British history during the English civil war, (1642-6) capturing the spirit of the conflict and painting the people involved.

An exciting life to go with his talent, but tragically short and fateful; born in London in 1611 he came from a wealthy family; his father squandered his fortune on what contemporaries described as licentious living.  Around 1625 Dobson was forced to make his own living, and targeted a career not considered suitable for an English gentleman, a painter. Initially Dobson trained with the painter and print seller William Peake, learning the trade of art dealing.  After completing a seven year apprenticeship around 1632, he went to work for the German artist Francis Cleyn, a decorative painter, book illustrator and designer of tapestries, whose work hangs in Ham House. Dobson began acquitting himself as an aspiring artist and gained access to the king’s collection where he studied great works by Van Dyck, Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese.  History relates that Dobson’s neighbor was Abraham van der Doort, surveyor of the King’s pictures, who granted him entrance to this exclusive gallery.  Another story relates that Dobson was actually a pupil of Van Dyck, the king’s official painter.  But if Dobson really was Van Dyck’s student, he was determined to impose his own style, unlike Van Dyck, Dobson did not flatter his subjects.

The English Civil War broke out in 1642, forcing the King against Parliament.  Puritan versus cavalier, Charles I had become a deeply divisive monarch as the result of unpopular policies and his claim to be god’s representative on earth, the divine ruler.  Van Dyck was the perfect painter to record Charles I’s golden age, but he was not the man to paint the Civil war.  Fate stepped in and Van Dyck died in December 1641, just a few weeks before the outbreak of war.  For William, the time was fortuitous. Moving to a studio at St. John’s College, Oxford, he began to paint.  His art was fast and wristy, as the prodigious output of portraits atests.   He painted courtiers, haughty administrators, poets and men of letters, politicians, diplomats, and family supporters.  But above all, Dobson painted the soldiers, royalist heroes and the cavaliers. From about 1642 to 1645 his marvelous examples of English baroque, rich color and detail, presented strong characters determined to prevail amidst the turmoil.  As the civil war progressed, Dobson began to run out of artistic supplies, and the effect on his work was noticeable. From 1645 his portraits begin to capture the insecure and worried glances of those still left in Oxford, suffused with a melancholy sadness reflected by a thin application of paint.

With the Parliamentarians closing in, the King abandoned Oxford in the small hours of April 27, 1646, disguised as a humble servant.  Weeks later the city fell and the Royalist supporters who remained, Dobson among them, discretely returned home. Back in London William attempted to continue his career, with his name appearing in the records of the London Painters’ Guild.  Three short months later he was dead with no description of his passing, only a notation recorded in the parish records, October 28, 1646.

A painter of conspicuous talent, destiny singled him out as witness to one of the tumultuous events of British history.  When it ended, fate intervened and he died, tragically, the end of a perfect career.

Follow the Dobson Art Trail using Google map technology to trace the career of William Dobson through his paintings and the various museums and estates where they are housed.  I found a unique and colorful character from this era, Endymion Porter, one of Charles I’s favorite courtiers, a consummate diplomat and spy.

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Rare beauty in a country ravaged by war…

Andreas Susana at Travelwriticus supplied me with this incredible visual to round out my Cabinet this week, Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia.  Several pictures of this park with winter scenes and various aerial images can be found at Beautiful Places to Visit.  Who knew Croatia had this gift from Mother Nature?

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My Cabinet of Curiosities is a continual amazement to me with the internet supplying historical information and vivid images for my readers to contemplate.  I hope you find inspiration in these brief pieces.  If you have any suggestions for my Cabinet, please feel free to include them in the Observations section below.  Join me for Museum Monday when I look at Propaganda Art from the World Wars.

Cheers!

MJ