Tag Archives: Italian art

Object of the Month: June 2025

St. Anthony of Padua

Oil on Canvas, 1658

Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, called Il Guercino

Cento, 1591–1666

Long before social media, opinions were influential. And, in art history, opinions have affected perspectives toward artists and their work for entire generations. One example of this is the brilliant philosopher of the Victorian era, John Ruskin, who was an art critic that championed JMW Turner, Britain’s greatest landscape painter. Ruskin preferred and praised the contemporary artists of his day such as Turner and the Pre-Raphaelites, the art prior to Raphael, and the Gothic style.

In contrast, Ruskin’s opinion about the Italian Baroque period can essentially be summed up by his reaction to one painting in the Brera Gallery in Milan by Guercino, “partly despicable, partly disgusting, partly ridiculous” (Ruskin, p.203). He classified many of the great seventeenth-century painters within what he labeled “the School of Errors and Vices” (Ruskin, pp.144-45). Such strong views influenced the collecting habits of collectors and museums in Europe and America for several decades. Consequently, Baroque artists are still recovering from the stigma; their names are not as well-known as the Renaissance masters even though their skill is of equal quality.

Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, called Il Guercino was one of the most important and talented painters of the Italian Baroque period. He hails from the region of Emilia-Romagna, born in the small town of Cento, which is close in proximity to the artistic centers in Ferrara and Bologna. He was largely self-taught (influenced by works of Ludovico Carracci and Caravaggio), although he studied with local artists Paolo Zagnani and Benedetto Gennari.

Guercino’s nickname means squint-eyed or cross-eyed possibly due to an eye condition, yet this disability didn’t seem to affect his work. Ludovico Carracci praised him in Bologna, and his “genius was recognized by the Bolognese canon Padre Antonio Mirandola, who became his earliest protector and obtained the artist’s first Bolognese commission in 1613” which established his career. “He was then patronized by the papal legate to Ferrara, Cardinal Jacopo Serra,” Duke of Mantua Ferdinando Gonzaga, and the Bolognese cardinal Alessandro Ludovisi, who later become Pope Gregory XV— summoning Guercino to Rome in 1621 (de Grazia, p.157).

Guercino study of St. Anthony of Padua from Glasgow Museums

Following the pope’s death in 1623, Guercino returned home to Cento to work, painting a wide range of subjects and drawing countless distinctive studies in red chalk and ink. As an artist, he was truly inventive, a real creative. He would put his ideas to paper very quickly and spontaneously—something his biographer Malvasia described as guizzanti, meaning “dart with a flick of a tail, as fishes” (Brooks, p.12).

Among other requests, he was asked to become official painter to the courts of England (1626) and France (1629 and 1639). After the death of his archrival Guido Reni in 1642 he moved his studio to Bologna. By the 1650s, his European patronage had tapered to more local commissions, which is when M&G’s painting was made.

St. Anthony of Padua features the thirteenth-century Doctor of the Church, who was born in Lisbon. He joined the Franciscan Order (represented by the dark brown robe and tonsure haircut) and became a close friend and follower of Francis of Assisi. He had a vast knowledge of scripture and was a gifted preacher, serving in France and Italy including Bologna and Padua, where he died. After his death, he was made the patron saint of Padua.

In art, Anthony is depicted in various scenes describing events from his life. M&G’s subject is the vision of the Virgin and infant Christ—a common theme during the Counter Reformation. The vision came while Anthony was in his room, and he is portrayed with a book (which identifies his learning), lilies (representing his purity), and a crucifix (in the shadows above the lilies).

At the time of acquisition in 1973, M&G’s founder knew that this painting was referenced in the artist’s account books—it was one of two St. Anthony altarpieces recorded. The great Guercino and Baroque specialist, Sir Denis Mahon wrote Dr. Bob, “I have no doubt whatsoever from studying the painting itself that it is an authentic late work by Guercino…. It was the lower half of a picture which had been very much bigger…. It follows that the picture is likely to have originally been a full-size altarpiece” (M&G files).

In the 1990s, Richard Townsend found that of the two St. Anthony altarpieces referenced in Guercino’s account books, one was still in Verona and the other cut in two and sold. This work remained a mystery, until recent years when Italian art historian Enrico Ghetti pieced together the history based on the confusing details in Guercino’s Book of Accounts and Malvasia’s biography. M&G’s painting was once called the Madonna and Child with Saint Anthony of Padua and paid for in 1658 by Pier Luigi Peccana (from Verona) most likely on behalf of the Marquis Gaspare Gherardini. The altarpiece used to hang in the Chapel of Saint Antony at the Capuchin church of Verona.

Ghetti Reconstruction

Ghetti suggested the painting, Madonna with Child, which was formerly in the Sgarbi collection in Italy is most likely the upper portion of our work; he has proposed a reconstruction of the dismembered altarpiece as seen here.

M&G’s painting reveals some of the standard matters art historians encounter regularly: the influence of art critics like John Ruskin, the connoisseurship of art specialists like Sir Denis Mahon, dismembered altarpieces, and confusing primary records for art scholars like Enrico Ghetti to ferret out. More importantly, this interesting work represents one of the most notable and innovative Italian painters of the seventeenth century.

Erin R. Jones, Executive Director

Bibliography

Brooks, Julian. “Characterizing Guercino’s Draftsmanship.” Guercino: Mind to Paper. Getty Publications: Los Angeles, 2006.

De Grazia, Diane. “Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, Called Il Guercino.” Italian Paintings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington: New York, 1996.

Ghetti, Enrico. 2020. “La ricostruzione di una pala del Guercino: la Madonna col Bambino e sant’Antonio d Padova per i Cappuccini di Verona,” Storia dell’ Arte 153, Nuova Serie 1.

Ruskin, John. Modern Painters (vol. ii), ed. Edward T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn. George Allen: London, 1903.

Ruskin, John. Ruskin in Italy: Letters to His Parents, 1845, ed Harold I. Shapiro. Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1972.

Published 2025

Bonifazio Veronese

Sacred Conversation

Bonifazio de’ Pitati, called Bonifazio Veronese

Below the image, click play to listen.

Old Testament Characters: Pietro Negroni, called Il Giovane Zingaro

Roughly the same size, these beautifully rendered panels painted by Pietro Negroni most likely came from an altarpiece in a convent church in the Calabrian city of Cosenza.

Preparing to Depart for Canaan: Leandro Bassano, called Leandro da Ponte

This vibrant painting depicting Abraham and his family’s departure for Canaan features many of the details that the Bassano family were skilled in painting.

Object of the Month: January 2025

Madonna and Child with Angels

Tempera and oil on panel

Master of the Greenville Tondo

Umbrian, active late 15^th century

This mystery painting was once attributed to the young Umbrian, Raphael as possibly one of his early works (Giuseppe Fiocco, 1937), which could “aid in the studies of the formation of Raphael’s personality” (Mario Salmi). Then, it was suggested as characteristic of Raphael’s teacher in Umbria, Pietro Vannucci, called Perugino (William Suida, 1941 and Wilhelm von Bode, 1921). But it was the great historian Federico Zeri in 1959 and later followed by Everett Fahy, former Metropolitan Museum of Art curator and Director of the Frick, who suggested a different old master entirely.

This tondo (Italian for “round”) is puzzling, but understanding the cultural context of patronage, traditional artistic training, and the workshop setting can help explain some of the mystery.

In the Middle Ages through the early Renaissance, workshop practice was the only common form of artistic instruction in Italy beginning with the religious orders, monasteries, and convents. The Trades (sculptor, mason, architect) were taught from father to son or from an older family member to a younger. Formal apprenticeships emerged in the 13th century in the context of the craft guild system when workshop or bound apprenticeship became a fully regulated system for lay artists. Then, during the 15th century, the dislike for the guild system’s restrictions and process led to an adapted concept of artistic training, called the Academy. The specific training process for artists is further developed in the article about M&G’s painting, A Sibyl by female Old Master, Ginevra Cantofoli.

Throughout all of these training methods to become a master of one’s own workshop, imitation was the most important component of artistic training. Master painters employed a workshop of assistants to copy or paint in his style and to help meet the incoming demand of commissions by patrons. These points are critical to understanding why it is difficult to attribute a specific artistic personality to today’s enduring Old Master paintings. Besides, most painters well into the late 1400s and early 1500s did not autograph their finished works, and finding the original documents commissioning paintings can be challenging.

However, when the artist is unknown, yet there is an entire group of works that look to be by the same master’s hand, the experts (as in this case) will suggest a pseudonym—create a name for the artist after the place or location where his best or most representative work resides. Zeri and Fahy chose M&G’s painting as the namesake for the painter, “The Master of the Greenville Tondo,” meaning this tondo in Greenville, SC.

According to historian Carrie Baker, this painter, subject, and style reflect the “prevailing visual tastes of the period.” Workshop practice utilized multiple assistants and collaborative work to fill commissions that looked like the master’s hand. The assistants were all skilled artisans but working for the key master. Not knowing the assistants’ names isn’t an issue as this was their occupation: to reproduce works at the request of clients in the consistent style of the master to meet customer expectations. Today, we can photograph and print our favorite originals, but then artists could only copy and repeat. Works like M&G’s Madonna and Child with Angels reflect a popular subject and shape of the period, and providing paintings like M&G’s at a client’s request was the master’s way of “positioning . . . his workshop at an economic advantage.”

Many of the masters and their assistants were truly “Renaissance” men—able to tackle the design of many things, not just paintings but manuscripts, reliquary, sculpture, fabrics, architectural features, etc. The anonymous artist as Baker notes, “was probably an active participant of a working-class system of many trades.” The artist is unknown, but by comparing similar characteristics, experts have connected at least 32 works as having come from this same artist’s hand found in places including Pancole, Italy, the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg in Florida, Princeton University Art Museum in New Jersey, the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, and the Estensi Gallery in Modena, Italy.

Regardless of this painting and many others not being attributed to a specific, known personality—such as a respected influencer like Perugino or a major name of the Renaissance like Raphael, this master’s work was just as valuable in shaping Umbria’s artistic identity. And, more than that, our painting is shaping the estimation of our own community through the designation “Master of the Greenville Tondo”—bringing honor and recognition to the city of Greenville throughout the world where other works by this unknown master are displayed.

Erin R. Jones, Executive Director

Published 2025

Object of the Month: December 2024

Scenes from The Annunciation: God the Father in a Glory of Angels, St. Gabriel the Archangel and The Virgin Annunciate

Oil on canvas

Francesco Montemezzano

Venetian, c.1540-after 1602

In museum collections, including the Museum & Gallery, there are paintings that were once part of a larger narrative, but now stand as individual works of art. These pieces, usually parts of large altarpieces, have been reduced in size for various reasons such as damage to the whole, for profit, or to fit a new arrangement. Very few that have been broken up have managed to stay together. Francesco Montemezzano’s The Annunciation is one of those lucky few.

At first glance in the galleries, you may notice a similar velvety color palette and free brushwork but may not realize they are one of a whole. If not for the close arrangement in display, one may not be able to see the full image. Originally in a horizontal format, the painting was altered sometime in the seventeenth century to fit a vertical, architectural enframement. Despite this physical cropping, we can still see the theme of the annunciation.

The annunciation is a common subject portrayed in Christian art. The moment is recorded in Luke 1:26-38 where Gabriel informs Mary that she will fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 promising “a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.” This theme became very popular in fifteenth-century altarpieces and were reinterpreted by artists throughout history such as Fra Angelico, Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, Caravaggio, Peter Paul Rubens, and John William Waterhouse. Each artist put their own spin on the theme, reflecting the stylistic ethos of the time and the artists’ own taste, but there are common elements.

Mary, Gabriel, and a dove are the main figures. Sometimes they are outside in an hortus conclusus or “enclosed garden,” and other times they are cloistered inside, symbolizing Mary’s chastity. Lilies are usually present, carried by Gabriel or somewhere in the composition, further emphasizing Mary’s purity as a virgin. Mary is commonly shown in prayer with a prayer book or missal kneeling at a prie-dieu. A dove or beam of light usually represents God’s blessing on Mary as His chosen handmaiden or the symbol of immaculate conception.

With this brief background, Montemezzano’s Annunciation stands out. We can see architectural elements throughout the three paintings and a possible garden behind Mary. Was this Montemezzano’s nod to the hortus conclusus? And where is the dove or beam of light that is often shown? Because of its fragmented state, we may never know exactly what the artist designed. However, Montemezzano did include one unique figure in this Annunciation—God the Father. Very few depictions of the annunciation include a physical God the Father, most only show his messenger Gabriel and the dove.

There are actually two other annunciation scenes in M&G’s collection that show God the Father in physical form (one found in galleries 4 and 10). Here, in Montemezzano’s work, God the Father is shown breaking through clouds and the architectural ceiling, symbolizing His passage into the earthly realm. Despite the unique inclusion of God the Father, His presence fits the annunciation theme perfectly. It is a foreshadowing of another part of the Trinity, Jesus, coming into our world to dwell with us as told by Matthew 1:23, “Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.”

The Annunciation reminds us of promises fulfilled, how a Savior will dwell with us and come into this broken world to make us whole. While this painting will never have that opportunity to be truly whole again, we as believers are reminded of that promise for us this Christmas season.

KC Christmas Beach, M&G summer art educator

Published 2024

Christ and the Samaritan Woman

Bernardo Strozzi

Below the image, click play to listen.

Rest on the Flight into Egypt: Bartolommeo Guidobono

Numerous legends have embellished the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt recorded in Matthew 2:13-15. Seventeenth-century artist Bartolommeo Guidobono’s depiction draws upon one of the most intriguing.

Object of the Month: November 2024

The Return from the Flight into Egypt

Oil on canvas, c. 1712

Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari

Roman, 1654-1727

Rome was for centuries the epicenter of culture, art, and religion. At the time of Giuseppe Chiari’s birth, it was also “the scene of a lively debate with a constantly varying interplay of influences, trends, fashions, specialized treatises, and, of course, great masterpieces” (Zuffi, p. 64). At the center of this debate were three artistic movements that Zuffi notes “succeeded one another in a sort of ideal relay race of artistic styles.” The stark naturalism of Caravaggio, the elegant classicism of Annibale Carracci, and the dramatic baroque sculptures and architecture of Gian Lorenzo Bernini would all play a part in making 17th-century Rome—well, Rome!

As president of the Roman Academy Carlo Maratta was keenly aware of these lively debates. Considered one of the most important painters in the latter half of the 17th century, he was much admired for his beautiful frescos and stunning portraits. Although his work evidenced a clear admiration for the classical tradition, several of his paintings also integrated elements of Caravaggio’s vigorous style. David Steel points out that Maratta often “managed to steer a middle course between these two dominant and often contrary trends of baroque painting” (Steel, p. 88).

Maratta was at the summit of his career in 1666 when 12-year-old Giuseppe Chiari entered the great master’s studio. Chiari soon became a star pupil. Over the years, his profound respect for Maratta’s tutelage would not only shape his artistic development but also ensure his future success in a highly competitive environment. When Maratta died in 1713, Chiari took up Maratta’s mantle and became the dominant Roman artist.

Like Maratta, Chiari broadened his appeal by becoming an astute observer and deft practitioner of integrating stylistic trends. Kathrine and William Wallace highlight this skill in their comparative analysis of Chiari’s Tedallini altarpiece with Caravaggio’s Madonna dei Pellegrini [figs. 1 and 2]:

“The statuesque pose of Chiari’s Madonna, the unusually high step on which she stands, the elongated form of the Christ child framed by a white swaddling cloth, and the overall right-triangular composition recall Caravaggio’s Madonna dei Pellegrini. Yet the suggestion is subtle: Chiari has reversed the composition, naturalized the pose of the Virgin, and substituted the more palatable, well-dressed saints for the dirty feet and common character of Caravaggio’s pilgrims. Although inspired by Caravaggio, Chiari’s altarpiece remains distinctly his own. Chiari’s Madonna looks like a person of warm flesh and blood rather than the marmoreal statue of Caravaggio’s Madonna; Christ is an attractive child of sweet disposition as opposed to the enormous and ungainly figure depicted by the older master. Instead of the muted and earthy colors of the Madonna dei Pellegrini, Chiari’s bright hues are immediately pleasing and a welcome contrast to the comparatively dark paintings found on so many Roman altars” (p. 4).

The Return from the Flight into Egypt provides another example of Chiari’s virtuosity and unique style. Here, however, he turns from echoing the past to adumbrating the future. The refined handling of the paint and elegant figural poses pay homage to the classical tradition; however, the playfulness, delicate coloration, and ornamental enrichment mark the transition into the sensuous, intimate style of the rococo movement which emerged in France and spread throughout Europe in the 18th century (Chilvers, 507).

M&G has two works by Chiari on this subject, one titled The Rest on the Flight into Egypt and this rendering titled The Return from the Flight into Egypt. Over the years scholars have found the less traditional title of this 1712 work problematic. However, “the light-hearted, almost celebratory mood” (echoed in the Rococo style) reinforce the idea that here, Chiari intends to highlight the family’s return from rather than flight into Egypt. Regardless of the debate, art experts like Christopher Johns note that this picture may be the best example of Chiari’s work in America.

Donnalynn Hess, M&G Director of Education