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ITALIAN PICTURES IN SWEDEN

BY OSVALD SIREN

PART I-PICTURES OF SCHOOLS OTHER THAN THE

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Eshould not naturally expect to find a great many primitive Italian pictures in a country so distant as Sweden. Holland,

and even France, are so much nearer to Sweden than is Italy that the Swedish collector's zeal has expended itself chiefly upon Flemish and French works. And at the time of Sweden's greatest artistic awakening, both as regards production of art and interest in it, the late Roman and Bolognese painters were everywhere held in the highest esteem, while the early Renaissance artists were almost forgotten. The spirit of those skilful and attractive formalists harmonized with the then prevailing aspirations of rococo art, and art history, with the archaeological interests it entails, I was still to come. We need not then be surprised to find that nearly all the Italian pictures in Swedish collections are late seventeenth-century works, generally of the Bolognese school, which have always been easier for foreigners to procure than the good Renaissance works usually kept in churches, monasteries, and other more or less public buildings. The Swedish collections that contain early Italians are easily counted. Besides a couple of pictures in the national museum and one in the museum of Linköping, those I shall mention are a few in the king's gallery of the royal palace of Stockholm, and a few others in private collections.

Sweden, however, was not always so poor in pictures of Italy's great period. Queen Christina was an ardent amateur of art, and she brought together at the royal palace of Stockholm a very remarkable collection. Most of it came from Prague, where the

pictures were seized as spoils in 1648 by the victorious Swedes. The Italians appear to have been the queen's favourites, for it was chiefly these that she took away with her when she removed to Rome, whereas she left in Sweden the greater part of the German and Dutch pictures.1

Among the Renaissance pictures in Sweden, perhaps the earliest in date is a small painting in the author's possession, Lorenzo Monaco's Madonna and Child,2 which is interesting as being one of this artist's few dated works, bearing the inscription 1405. The Virgin is seated in a low position, peculiar to Lorenzo Monaco, on a cushion with one leg bent under her. She wears a pale blue mantle and a white kerchief, and points to the Child, who is dressed in red. The background is gold. (61 cm. high, 37 cm. wide.)

From about the same time, or perhaps a little earlier (about 1400), is a Sienese Madonna belonging to the same owner. It is larger than the Madonna by Lorenzo Monaco, but lacks most of the fine decorative qualities in drawing and colouring which make the latter so delightful a piece. The panel has suffered, especially in such parts as the Madonna's mantle, which is repainted in a dark blue tone, while her red dress, the Child's yellow clothes, and the angels' brick-coloured and violet mantles show the original sweet harmony with the gold ground. The type of the Virgin and

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1 I take this opportunity to refer the interested reader to the work of the librarian Olof Granberg, 'Queen Christina's Picture Gallery in the Royal Palace of Stockholm and in Rome,' Stockholm, 1896 (also translated into French), and to the same author's later work on The Emperor Rudolph II's Art Collections and their fate in Sweden,' Stockholm, 1903 (only in Swedish). The latter, especially, shows with what ardour Queen Christina embraced Italian art, and what excellent works she bought in Rome. Several of the pictures by Titian, Veronese, Palma, Raphael, Paris Bordone, etc., that she possessed are now to be found in English collections.

* Reproduced on page 443.

the angels with the long straight noses, the narrow eyes, and the very small mouths has suggested to me the name of the littleknown Sienese painter Andrea Vanni, but I am not enough acquainted with his school to give a definite opinion; if not, perhaps one of his imitators is the master of this feeble Madonna.3 (81 cm. high, 43 cm. wide.)

The next in date is one in the national museum, The Adoration of the Magi. It was bought in 1798 from a Dr. Martelli in Rome by the Swedish government, along with a great number of almost worthless Italian pictures. In the catalogue it has for many years past figured as the work of an Umbrian master. It has been, unfortunately, almost spoiled by clumsy restoration, yet the composition remains, and has a certain in

terest.

On the left the Virgin is seated with the Child on her knee, under a small thatched shed, and before her the three kings are kneeling. The one in front has given his vase to Joseph, and bends forward with his hands crossed on his breast to kiss the Child's foot. To the right are grouped a band of young men with turbans, a dog, and some horses, the foremost horse held by a negro page. The background and the middle distance show different stages of the journey -the kings riding out of the city gate, speaking to Herod, and so on-represented with all the minute details of the legend. The picture is in tempera, with sky, halos, and ornaments in gold. The colouring, so far as the repaint permits a judgement, shows very little feeling.

It is not difficult to find pictures very close to this in type. Almost the exact composition is given in a lunette in the church of St. Dominic in Siena, which is placed over Matteo di Giovanni's St. Barbara, one of the most lovely Sienese

3 I have formed my idea of Andrea Vanni's style especially from the altarpiece in S. Stefano in Siena, which shows some morphological similarities with the Madonna in Stockholm, but is evidently painted by a much greater artist.

4 Reproduced on page 449.

paintings of the fifteenth century, full of that gentle dreamy tenderness incarnated in forms of sweet and dainty beauty such as can only be found in the painters of Siena. The lunette, however, although by the same hand, is decidedly inferior to the main picture. It is true that it has suffered from dust and dirt, and is disfigured by a great crack across it, but it never could have equalled the other. The stiffness which in the female saints produces an effect of solemnity stamps this Adoration with a certain lifeless dryness, and the types lack the tender sense of facial beauty which often lends a peculiar charm to the women of Matteo di Giovanni.

If we compare the picture in the national museum with this lunette, we shall find that, although they agree perfectly as to their main features, such as the grouping, the carriage and position of the figures, the costumes and so on, and even as to the types and the shapes of the hands, yet the Stockholm picture betrays a decidedly heavier and coarser hand than the lunette of St. Dominic. This is especially noticeable in the figures of the Virgin, St. Joseph, and the Child, who are all painted with a spiritless clumsiness that is not to be met with in the authentic works of Matteo. It was probably painted by some pupil in the studio of Matteo, and I hasten to add that Mr. B. Berenson, who has seen a photograph of the picture, has suggested as its author Guidoccio Cozzarelli.5

In order to see an example of what Sweden can offer in the way of the art that flourished in Florence at the time when Matteo di Giovanni was working in Siena, we must pay a visit to the king's gallery in the royal palace at Stockholm. There we can see the only two works of Florentine

5 I have been informed that Dr. P. Schubring, of Berlin, was the first to ascribe this picture to Matteo di Giovanni. I have myself before wrongly connected it with Benedetto Bonfigli (see 'Dessins et Tableaux de la Renaissance italienne dans les Collections de Suède'), but somewhat later, in a newspaper article, I pointed out its affinity with works of Matteo (Göteborgs Handels och Sjöfarts Tidning, December 1902).

quattrocento-art in the country. Modest as they are, they deserve some attention from the student. Like several other pictures in the same collection, they came from the castle of Galliera near Ferrara, which Napoleon presented, together with the surrounding grounds, as a duchy, to Queen Josephine, daughter of Eugène Beauharnais and wife of Bernadotte (Karl Johan, king of Sweden), and to her male descendants. When the duchy was sold to the pope in 1837, the pictures were removed as entail to Stockholm.

The finest of these pictures is the bust of a boy of about sixteen or seventeen years of age. It is full-face, not quite life-size, and painted on a round oak panel, 40 cm. in diameter. On the back of the picture there is a label with the words, 'Giudicato dal Signor Angelo Ferri di Francesco Costa, Scolare di Francia, verificato dal Sign. Nicaro di Francesco Costa.' Probably the painter meant is Lorenzo Costa, who was for some time under the direct influence of Francesco Francia. In spite of the inscription, the first glance reveals such stronglymarked Florentine characteristics as to negate the idea of its belonging to the FerraraBolognese school.

Let us study the picture in detail. It seems to have been painted directly from nature, for the boy looks out at us from his large, somewhat languid eyes, with a distinct expression of individuality. His hue is brown from the hot sun of the south, there is a faint flush in his cheeks. The face is framed by the brown wavy hair, which is treated in a rather schematic fashion. The background is a light bluish green, the dress black. The painting is executed in tempera with a rather pointed brush, and its excellent condition allows us to observe minutely the technique. The work is not stamped to any great degree by a strong individual artistic temperament, but to my mind it shows affinity with a whole group of Florentine portraits, some

6 Reproduced on page 445.

Italian Pictures in Sweden times attributed to Botticelli, sometimes to one or other of the painters in Florence named Raffaellino, whose identity, even in Vasari's time, had become absurdly confused. This is not the place to enter into a discussion of the much-vexed question of the relations of the different Raffaellinos; it will be sufficient if I point to certain works that offer instructive points of comparison with this boy's portrait in the king's gallery.

The Berlin gallery possesses in its most interesting section of Florentine paintings one of the best works of Garbo. It is a tondo, with the Virgin standing, holding on her arm the sleeping Child, while an angel at each side makes music. The influence of Filippino Lippi is unmistakable; but, instead of his capricious drawing and nervous feeling, we here meet with an almost childish naïve spirit, and an Umbrian gentleness in the expression of the faces. Florentine art seldom has such real childishness. Look at the angel on the left with the big lyre: she turns her girlish, pretty head aside, staring down at the ground with a dreamy expression. She comes from the same spirit as the boy's head we have been speaking of, and is only a degree softer and emptier of thought.

A good example of the same artist's power of rendering a man's face, and of his capacity to portray character, is given in No. 78 of the same collection, the Head of a Man, ascribed in the Berlin catalogue of 1898 to Botticelli. The mere technique, however, excludes that artist, and the heavy brown tones and somewhat coarse execution point to a decidedly inferior master, and I think that those critics who have attributed it to Raffaellino del Garbo are entirely right. It agrees perfectly with the commonly-accepted portrait by Garbo belonging to Lady Layard. The Stockholm picture is, however, distinguished by a somewhat firmer drawing and a more structural character, and this leaves me

unable to attribute it with certainty to Garbo. If it is his, it must have been an early work (about 1485-90), when Botticelli's influence upon him was paramount.

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The other Florentine picture in the king's gallery" represents the Madonna seated (knee length), holding the Child, who bends over a large book outspread on a cushion to the left. Over his head a window opens on a background with trees and architecture. On a table in the foreground there is a glass bowl containing grapes and an orange cut in half. The picture has been labelled, by the same hand as the tondo, 'Scuola fiorentina,' but a later critic has added another label inscribed, 1827, Botticelli.' The picture is painted on wood, 82 cm. by 56 cm. The drawing of certain parts, such as the left hands of the Madonna and Infant, shows obvious deficiencies; while the modelling, except in the Virgin's well-constructed face, is rather weak. But the colouring, although a trifle stiff and hard, is deep and vigorous, the dark green mantle, pale violet dress, yellow-brown flesh and black background forming a harmony at once original and pleasing. The small landscape, with its fantastically drawn buildings, is illumined by golden clouds, and a pale sprinkling of gold lights up the Madonna's fair hair. All in all, it is a fine picture, which betrays a strongly-marked temperament in the artist. Habits of carelessness, however, he certainly had, even if he did not, as one might be tempted to think from the unevenness of the execution, leave the less important parts to pupils.

Let us take the most carefully-done part, the head of the Virgin, and see what it can tell us about the painter. To my eye it bears evidence of influences both Florentine and Milanese, of Filippino and Boltraffio.

With the fall of Ludovico il Moro and the taking of Milan by the French in 1499, the Milanese artists were forced to

7 Reproduced on page 447.

seek a market outside their native town, and a number of them naturally turned to the city within whose precincts the best art was at its highest point. About 1500 Cesare da Sesto, Boltraffio, Sodoma, to mention the more important, came to Florence, and thither, a year later, Leonardo also returned. This invasion could not fail to leave its traces, and among the Florentine artists who showed the keenest interest in the work of the strangers was the original, changeable, and eccentric painter, Piero di Cosimo. Although no longer young (having been born in 1462), he was always extremely susceptible to outside influence, and I need only point to such of his works as the beautiful Magdalen belonging to Cav. Baracco of Rome, or the Madonna in the Liechtenstein gallery of Vienna, to show that the Milanese made a deep impression upon him.

Among Piero's works there are not a few which stand fairly close to the king's picture we are considering. The closest perhaps is the Madonna and Children belonging to Mr. Th. Lawrie of Glasgow, while in composition it recalls the probably somewhat earlier Madonna with the Dove in the Louvre. If I am right in tracing Milanese influence here, then this picture could not have been painted before 1500, and as it agrees with the works of his maturity and not of his old age, we may with fair certainty place it somewhere in the first decade of the sixteenth century.

Before I proceed to give a short account of the Venetian pictures existing in Sweden in somewhat greater number than other Italian paintings, a small picture from the end of the fifteenth century by a Ferrara master perhaps deserves to be mentioned. It represents Christ with the three apostles in Gethsemane.9 Christ, who is dressed in a carmine garment with a violet-blue mantle, is kneeling on the slope of a green

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