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Paragone Arte 100

Anno LXII – Terza serie – Numero 100 (741) Novembre 2011

Paul Joannides: Giorgione’s ‘The Madness of Nebuchadnezzar’ 
Beverly Louise Brown: Giandomenico Tiepolo’s ‘Polar bears’

ANTOLOGIA DI ARTISTI

L’antico al chiaro di luna: la ‘Diana dormiente e Pan’ di Gregorio Pagani (Elisa Acanfora)
Un’opera giovanile di Hendrick ter Brugghen (Mina Gregori)
Carlo Antonio Procaccini pittore di nature morte (Davide Dotti)
Una ‘Morte di Lucrezia’ di Paolo Domenico Finoglia (José Luis Requena Bravo de Laguna)
Un’opera di Giovacchino Fortini nuova e chiarificatrice (Mara Visonà)

APPUNTI

Giuseppe Maria Crespi e le storie di Bertoldo (Andrea G. De Marchi
Fuga in Livonia (Marco Riccomini)

RICERCHE D’ARCHIVIO

“Testamentum Domini Hieronimi de Rumanis Pictor” (Giuseppe Merlo)

SUMMARY

PAUL JOANNIDES 
Dopo aver messo in relazione l´´Omaggio al poeta´ della National Gallery di Londra con altre opere di Giorgione e averlo datato al 1502 circa, l´autore prende in esame alcune delle interpretazioni del soggetto. Respinge le recenti proposte di leggervi ´La caduta di Saturno´ e ´Orfeo dopo la perdita di Euridice´, e ipotizza che si tratti della ´Pazzia di Nabucodonosor´, come predetto dal profeta Daniele. Su questo tema rimanda a confronti coevi, in particolare un pannello a tre scene di Nicola di Maestro Antonio d´Ancona, suggerendo che Giorgione abbia fuso due episodi della storia in uno. L´autore fa riferimento a un documento (probabilmente falso) che si suppone reperito da Urbani de Gheltof, in cui è ricordata la commissione a Giorgione, nel 1508, di quattro storie di Daniele, ma respinge qualsiasi legame diretto con il dipinto della National Gallery, e si chiede perché sarebbe stato scelto un simile tema.

BEVERLY LOUISE BROWN
Si propone l´attribuzione a Giandomenico Tiepolo di una coppia di tele raffiguranti ´Orsi polari´, che in origine avevano probabilmente una funzione di soprapporte. Tiepolo copiò numerosi animali, tra cui orsi, dalle incisioni di Stefano della Bella, Johann Elias Ridinger, Johann Heinrich Roos, e Marcus de Bije. Alcuni disegni furono usati come punto di partenza per la serie sul tema di Pulcinella e altri per gli affreschi della Villa Tiepolo a Zianigo. Le pose degli ´Orsi polari´ qui presentati sono molto simili agli schizzi in un foglio di disegni di orsi bruni copiati da de Bije, ma le pellicce bianche e le teste liscie e lucenti sono probabilmente derivate dalle incisioni di Ridinger. Anche l´uso del fondo oro è in linea con altre opere di Giandomenico.

ELISA ACANFORA
In his biography of Gregorio Pagani, Filippo Baldinucci mentions a Sleeping Diana with Pan among his paintings. Hitherto considered lost, the canvas of this unusual subject is here identified with an unpublished painting in a private collection, signed and dated 1602. The work is studied for its specific iconography, based on the revival of models from Classical antiquity. The author also studies its relationship to similar subject-matter treated in an equally precocious manner by Lodovico Cigoli.

MINA GREGORI
The author presents a Fortune Teller signed and dated 1612, the first known work by Hendrick ter Brugghen and the only work of his Italian period, which ended in 1614. The subject had been treated by Caravaggio and was to be painted by Simon Vouet in 1617.

DAVIDE DOTTI
The author presents a rare and unpublished Floral Wreath with Christ and the Woman of Samaria by Carlo Antonio Procaccini, whose artistic identity remains undefined in certain respects, partly because of the very limited number of autograph works, which currently comprise little more than a dozen paintings. This perfectly-preserved panel is an important addition to the still lifes produced by the master, and is datable to about 1620/1625, close to the Floral Wreath with the Rest on the Flight into Egypt formerly with Trafalgar Galleries in London, which bears the inscription “C. An. Porchacini” on its back, and with which it shares the same compositional scheme and the use of models for some of the flowers.

JOSÉ LUIS REQUENA BRAVO DE LAGUNA
The Neapolitan artist Paolo Domenico Finoglio is one of the most prominent painters of the early Baroque period. Studies of this artist have mainly focused on his masterpiece, a series of ten large canvases with episodes from Tasso´s epic Gerusalemme Liberata. This article discusses the authorship of a painting representing The Death of Lucretia once in the collection of the Spanish Ambassador to Shanghai Don Joaquín Payá López (1872-1958). Close examination of the canvas after recent conservation confirms the attribution to Finoglio.

MARA VISONÀ
The author attributes a marble Christ Child Asleep with the Cross to the Florentine sculptor Giovacchino Fortini, active during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and compares it with a bronze Sleeping Cupid attributed to the artist.

ANDREA G. DE MARCHI
Research in the extensive Doria Pamphilj Archive has provided data regarding twenty little paintings by Giuseppe Maria Crespi illustrating the history of Bertoldo e Bertoldino. It is now possible retrace the history of these series, covering the period from when they passed from the author to Camillo Pamphilj junior (1728) until today. Other documents record the provision of frames in Rome and the restorations of the late nineteenth century carried out by Luigi Laij, which remain fairly recognizable.

MARCO RICCOMINI
A brief but true-to-life account of an autumnal journey through the galleries and store-rooms of the public collections in the Estonian capital, Tallin, with new attributions for some Italian seventeenth-century paintings.

MARCO RICCOMINI
A copy of Gerolamo Romanino´s will has been discovered in the archive of the Pio Luogo Casa di Dio in Brescia. The copy was made at the request of the painter´s son to establish ownership of his father´s goods. The document is dated 17 September 1559, which seems to predate Romanino´s death with respect to what has been supposed thus far, since the artist is declared to be infirm, “in lecto”.
Apart from its use of standard notarial formulas current in Brescia, the document casts light not only on Romanino´s finances (not in the best of health) but also on members of his family during the last months of his life. Certain passages of the will suggest that Lattanzio Gambara, who was one of the witnesses present, inherited Romanino´s workshop.

Paragone Arte 101-102
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