Hand To Mind: Drawing To Know

Leonardo At The Morgan

Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), Two Studies of Insects, ca. 1480 and ca. 1503–5, 

pen and brown ink on paper,cut out and mounted on secondary sheet, 
 5.1 x 4.7 in. (129 x 118 mm)


© Biblioteca Reale, Turin (15581 D.C.)
Photo:  Courtesy of The Morgan Library & Museum

The Biblioteca Reale*, Royal Library, in Turin, Italy, houses a renowned collection of books, manuscripts and drawings.  The library's Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) corpus is one of the best in the world, so the Leonardo loans from this institution present a unique opportunity to see exceptional works.  The exhibition, “Leonardo da Vinci:  Treasures From the Biblioteca Reale, Turin” is now at the Morgan Library & Museum.

The show is relatively small.  Fifteen drawings and a manuscript from Turin  are supplemented by the Morgan’s Designs for a Maritime Assault Mechanism and a Device for Bending Beams and its Codex Huygens**.   

Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519),
Designs for a Maritime Assault Mechanism
and a Device for Bending Beams, ca. 1487–90
pen and brown ink over black chalk on paper,
11.2 x 7.9 in. (284 x 201 mm)
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York (1986.50) Gift of Otto Manley
Photo:  Courtesy of The Morgan Library & Museum

Leonardo is represented by some dozen drawings and a manuscript.  Two of which have never before been seen in New York:  the Head of a Young Woman (Study for the Angel in the ‘Virgin of the Rocks’) and the Codex on the Flight of Birds.  Other works are by the artist’s followers.

Painter, sculptor, engineer, inventor, architect, musician, scientist, military expert, writer and draughtsman,  Leonardo possessed talent to spare.  One tale has it that when the artist was apprenticing with the Florentine painter-sculptor Andrea del Verrocchio he assisted in the master’s Baptism of Christ, presently in the Uffizi, Florence.  Leonardo painted the angel on the left in the painting.  It was so beautiful, legend has it, that when Verrocchio saw it, he gave up painting.  A Biblioteca Reale drawing of Leonardo’s angel’s head, attributed to Verrocchio’s workshop, is in the show.

Leonardo’s prodigious artistry was coupled with an insatiable curiosity.  He observed, inquired and learned ceaselessly.  For him, knowledge was achieved by looking closely at the world.  What he saw, he drew.  Thousands of Leonardo’s drawings survive both in loose sheets and in notebooks.  Flora, fauna, especially insects, birds, horses, and, above all, humans came under his gaze.  Drawing was the means to understanding.   Thoughts were worked out through the hand, so the drawings capture the mind’s processes.  Viewing them allows close contact with the artist while he is thinking as well as with the object he is making.  Seeing becomes an intimate experience. 

The exhibit is divided into two sections: Exploring Nature and Making Art.  The first presents the artist’s studies of horses, flying insects, and humans as he attempts to understand the movement of these bodies through the drawn line.  Two studies of dragonflies, done at different times but mounted on the same sheet, attest to the artist’s fixation on flying in his quest for making a flying machine.

Flight is explored extensively in the artist’s Codex on the Flight of Birds.  The manuscript is written in mirror script, a form of writing Leonardo used frequently in his commentaries.  The reverse style writing is read left to right, back to front.  Scholars still do not know why he wrote this way.  Since Leonardo was left handed, some have suggested, the particular script prevented his hand from smudging the ink as would have happened if he had wrote from left to right.  Another theory postulates that writing this way was due to a unusual language organization in the brain.  

 Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) Codex on the Flight of Birds, ca. 1505/6, 

Pen and brown ink on paper,
8.4 x 6.0 in. (213 x 153 mm)

Top:  left page  Bottom: right page
© Biblioteca Reale, Turin (Cod. Varia 95)

Photo:  Art News Web site

The Codex has a few architectural renderings, diagrams and designs but most of the drawings are of birds.  In page margins, sketches of airborne avians are delineated under different wind conditions.  Birds fly up, down, around.  Leonardo records changes in their wing spans and flight angles as air currents, ingeniously represented by parallel lines, determine their positioning.  The results make clear that the artist learned through the recording of what he saw.  

Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) and Francesco Melzi (1491/3–ca. 1570) 

Studies of the Hindquarters of a Horse, ca. 1508
red chalk and traces of black chalk on paper,
7.9 x 5.2 in. (201 x 133 mm)
© Biblioteca Reale, Turin (15582 D.C.)

Photo:  Courtesy of The Morgan Library & Museum

Take a look at his studies of horses.  Throughout his career, Leonardo took a special interest in them.  He drew them from different views, showing light falling on their musculature and revealing how muscles function.  It is known that Leonardo measured and studied a Sicilian horse owned by the son-in-law of Ludovico Sforza, the artist's Milan patron.  Horses’ hindquarters are rendered so realistically in one red chalk drawing, it appears as if the animals may move off the page.  This sheet's label informs that the upper left horse haunch and legs may have been revised by Francesco Melzi, one of Leonardo’s close friends and followers.  This writer does not know if Melzi was left-handed, but the hatching, parallel lines used to differentiate light and shadow on objects, is drawn from lower right to upper left.  Leonardo, a left-hander, drew this way.  Right-handed artists make these lines from lower left to upper right.  Try it.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), Figure Studies, ca. 1505,
Pen and brown ink and black chalk on paper, 10 x 7.8 in. (254 x 197 mm)
© Biblioteca Reale, Turin (15577 D.C.)

Photo:  Courtesy of The Morgan Library & Museum

There are some delightfully sketched horses in diminutive scale on a sheet with figure studies.  One horse with rider is in full gallop - front legs forward, rear ones extended back.***  Another is in a trot; and, a riderless one, furthest on the right, rears up on hind legs.  Don’t miss the open mouth in the upper left corner in this same sheet and, in mid-page, the small nude figures each swinging a sword over his head. The large écorché (skinless) figures are in a variety of poses including those of a Hercules seen from the back.  The mythological figure appears in the same posture and point of view in an adjacent drawing of Hercules with the Nemean Lion. 

Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) Three Views of a Bearded Man, ca. 1502, 

red chalk on paper, 4.4 x 11.2 in.  (111 x 284 mm)

© Biblioteca Reale, Turin (15573 D.C.)

Photo:  Courtesy of The Morgan Library & Museum

The second part of the show focuses on Leonardo’s portraits, drawings by the artist’s followers and the Morgan’s Codex Huygens.  The chalk study, Three Views of a Bearded Man, shows a slightly melancholy male head in profile, three-quarter and frontal view.  The sensitive handling of the sitter’s features and the use of red chalk, Leonardo's preferred medium for life studies, suggests the drawing portrays a specific individual.  One proposed identity is Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI, who Leonardo worked for as a military architect and engineer between 1502 and 1503.  Cesare was reported to be a cruel sort of fellow but this rather introspective, thoughtful portrayal gives no hint of such behavior.  

Leonardo introduced the technique of drawing in red chalk on prepared ground.  The soft quality of chalk made modeling easier than other mediums such as metalpoint or pen and ink.  Chalk made possible soft, hazy contours and the gradually shading of tones into one another similar to the sfumato effect Leonardo created in his oil paintings.  The possibilities of chalk are effectively illustrated in many of the exhibit's drawings, particularly the bearded gentleman.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), Head of a Young Woman, 

(Study for the Angel in the ‘Virgin of the Rocks’), 1480s, 

metalpoint heightened with white on buff prepared paper,
7.1 x 11.2 in. (181 x 159 mm)

© Biblioteca Reale, Turin (15572 D.C.)

Photo:  Courtesy of The Morgan Library & Museum

Head of a Young Woman (Study for the Angel in the ‘Virgin of the Rocks’) is the star of the show.  She has been called one of the highest attainments in draughtsmanship. 

The woman is the model for the angel in the artist’s painting Virgin of the Rocks.  The painting which exists in two versions - one in the Louvre Museum and one in London’s National Gallery of Art.  The drawing is closest to the Louvre angel. 

Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), Detail of The Virgin of the Rocks, 
c. 1483-1486oil on canvas transferred from wood, 
78.4 x 48.0 in.  (199 x 122 cm)

Musée du Louvre, Paris

Photo:  Artstor

The drawing is in metalpoint, a technique particularly characteristic of Florentine artists.  This is an extremely delicate method of drawing. Artists drew with a metal stylus on a prepared ground - usually the paper was painted with a white pigment mixed with water and a binder.  Marks made with the metal were not easily erased.  To remove, the ground they were on needed to be abraded.  When drawing in this method, pieces of metal were deposited on the ground surface.  Leonardo preferred to work in silverpoint, one of several types of metalpoints.  Silverpoint did not dull as fast as other metals and rendered precise details effectively. When employed, actually pieces of silver were left on the ground.  The silver first appears gray but oxidizes subsequently to a warm brown.  Metalpoint drawing is very subtle. Work in the medium is difficult to capture in photographic reproduction.  

Leonardo used white highlights to enhance the vividness of the drawing.  He applied it under the woman's eyes; on her left eye’s inner corner; on her nose tip; on her left nostril; on her lower lip; and in her diagonal facial creases from the corner of her nostrils to the corners of her lips.   Parallel lines define tones and shadows as light falls from the left.

Abstracted, loosely drawn lines about her face appear to be wayward strands of hair.  Between these strokes and the delineated face contours is space which gives the head volume and leaves the viewer with the sense of  depth recession.  She seems to turn in the implied expanse.  It is an extraordinary rendering.

As for the metalpoint medium, Leonardo worked in it early in his career.  He gave it up in favor of the more accommodating chalk.  He never stopped using pen and ink.  What about pencil?  Drawing in graphite was not an option.   Graphite pencils were not yet invented.   A non-round carpenter pencil was devised in the late sixteenth century but, pencils, as we know them, were not successfully made until the eighteenth century.

Carlo Urbino (ca. 1510/20–after 1585), Codex Huygens, 1570s,

pen and brown ink and black chalk on paper,

7.1 x 4.9 in. (180 x 125 mm)

The Morgan Library & Museum, New York (2006:14), fol. 90

Photo:  Courtesy of The Morgan Library & Museum

Pages from the Morgan’s Codex Huygens, a late sixteenth-century illustrated treatise on painting closely related to Leonardo's notes on the subject, rounds out the exhibition.  Some of the drawings are exact copies of Leonardo’s now lost originals.

One double page (two joined sheets) illustrates shadows cast by candle light.  It demonstrates pictorially how shadows appear larger as the object gets closer to the light source, in this case, a candle.  The illuminated taper also alludes to knowledge.  In the earlier part of the exhibit, one drawing, Musculature of the Leg, has a poem by Leonardo on its verso.  It relates how moths are attracted to candle light and is a metaphor for the continuous seeker of light/knowledge.  It reminds of Leonardo’s unceasing search to know - his own attraction to light.

Although the splendors of this show are well lit, the general gallery, I felt, is too low and made the exhibition layout difficult to follow.  Another issue is that the Codex Huygens pages are displayed near the center of two glass-topped tables.  Viewers must lean over the table in a rather awkward position in order to see them.  I could not help but wish they were closer to the table edge where the explanatory labels are located.   These are minor distractions in a remarkable show.  Works engage viewers and, at times, are so compelling in their beauty they take your breath away.   Visit the Morgan.

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*At the present time, the Biblioteca Reale Web site, http://www.bibliotecareale.beniculturali.it, is undergoing maintenance.

**The complete Codex Huygens can be seen in digital facsimile on the Morgan’s Web site, see Online Exhibitions, Leonardo da Vinci and the Codex Huygens.

***It was not until the second half of the nineteenth century that Eadweard Muybridge invented stop-motion photography   and proved that all four feet of a horse were off the ground when the animal was in a trot or gallop.  Unlike Leonardo's and other artists' horse locomotion descriptions, in trot or gallop a horse's front and rear legs are curled under the body not extended before and behind.

Eadweard Muybridge, (1830-1904), Detail  of Bouquet with Rider,

ca. 1887,  collotype,

 7  x 16 3/8 in. (17.78 cm x 41.59 cm)

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California

Photograph:  Artstor 

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Leonardo da Vinci:

Treasures From the Biblioteca Reale, Turin

October 25, 2013 through February 2, 2014

The Morgan Library & Museum

225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, Manhattan

Tuesday through Thursday: 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., 
Friday: 10:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Saturday: 10 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., 
Sunday: 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m

Closed Mondays and Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day.  

Closes at 4:00 p.m. Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve.

Paintings From the Dutch Golden Age

The Real And The Virtual

Waiting line at The Frick Collection for 

Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Hals: 

Masterpieces of Dutch Painting from the Mauritshuis

Photo:  Hillary Ganton

There is no substitute for seeing an actual work of art. Paintings, sculptures, drawings and other creations present a different experience in real life than in reproduction. Size, texture, coloration and placement impact the visual encounter. A sense of the physicality of the “thing”, at least at this time, cannot be achieved via photographic or virtual means. Yet, what has been seen or is to be seen can be enhanced through the virtual medium.  A case in point is the exhibition Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Hals: Masterpieces of Dutch Painting from the Mauritshuis now on view at The Frick Collection.

This small, exquisite show of fifteen seventeenth-century Dutch paintings enthralls. Each work rewards close observation and seeing becomes an activity that brings forth an almost tactile response.  

The Frick Collection's excellent Web site has an informative section on the exhibition. See http://www.frick.org//exhibitions/mauritshuis. There is nothing, however, like the real thing.  Witness the long lines and wait time to see the show.

Carel Fabritius (1622-1654), The Goldfinch, 1654, 

oil on panel, 13 x 9 in. (33. 5 x 22.8 cm), 

Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague 
Photo:  Courtesy of The Frick Collection

For this discourse, digital images must stand-in for the actual.  Take a look at Carel Fabritius' Goldfinch reproduced here.  A single bird is perched on the top rod of its feeding box against a white wall.  A delicate chain hangs from a loop encircling the finch's resting place. Painted fluidly in broad brush strokes, the color harmonies render this seed-eating songbird with extraordinary illusionism.  The textures of the work and subtle gradations of hues can only be enjoyed in real life.

Should a viewer's curiosity be aroused concerning the painting's history, meaning or the artist who created it, the web offers answers. Go to http://www.frick.org//exhibitions/mauritshuis.

The museum's material on The Goldfinch explains that the painting may have been a cover for an enclosed painting or part of a birdcage. The chain, possibly attached to the bird, would prevent it from fleeing. If so, the work may have some moralizing meaning concerning family life and flight.  Alternatively, the chain  may be attached to a small drinking cup within the feed box.  Goldfinches, a popular domestic pet in seventeenth-century Holland, were known to be able to perform a trick of getting their own water by pulling up a chain with a tiny cup attached from a water container.  No conclusion has been reached and the chain is still open for interpretation.

Readers unfamiliar with the artist learn that he was a student of Rembrandt whose influence can be seen in the skillful handling of paint.  Fabritius worked in Delft and died quite young in the same year the painting was finished.   In 1654, a gunpowder magazine blew up in Delft.  The big explosion left a good part of the city in ruins. Possibly a hundred people died including Fabritius whose studio was next to the magazine.  Most likely, The Goldfinch was one of the last works the artist made.  The painting is the center of a well-received eponymous novel by Donna Tartt which was published this year.  The exhibition includes another artwork on which a book was based, Johannes Vermeer's The Girl with a Pearl Earring.  The 1999 novel with the painting's title was written by Tracy Chevalier.       This best-selling fictional account of the artist, his model and the making of the painting sold over 2 million copies.   A movie (2003) and play (2008) were subsequently derived from the book.  Secondary artistic endeavors attest to the enduring fascination of these seventeenth-century works. 

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Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669), Portrait of an Elderly Man, 1667

1667, oil on canvas, 32.2 x 26.7 in. (81.9 x 67.7 cm),

Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague 

Photo:  Courtesy of The Frick Collection

There are four paintings by Rembrandt in the show which allows visitors to survey this master’s early and late styles. The Portrait of an Elderly Man exemplifies the artist’s late period with its characteristic areas of rough broad brushstrokes and thickly laid on paint.  The canvas appears to pulsate as dense pushed and pulled colors contrast with loosely applied oils.  In this portrait, cheeks and collar are rendered viscously while wide loose strokes describe the man's dark garment in a manner so light that the underpainting is seen.

The sitter’s appearance suggests the subject may have been a close friend of Rembrandt's.  His posture is casual;  his collar is open; his jacket is unbuttoned; his hat is askew; and, stubble appears on his chin as if in need of a shave.  It’s as if he just stopped in for a chat and Rembrandt painted him.

The work entered the Mauritshuis collection in 1999.  It was purchased from an English private collection.  England normally does not allow such significant artworks to leave the country.  Since it was going to the Mauritshuis, export was permitted.  To know more, see
 http://www.frick.org//exhibitions/mauritshuis.

Jan Steen (1626-1679), Girl Eating Oysters, c. 1658-60, 

oil on panel (rounded at the top), 8.1 x 5.7 in. (20.5 x 14.5 cm), 

Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague 

Photo:  Courtesy of The Frick Collection

If you want to have fun, seek out a painting by Jan Steen.  This prolific painter had a sense of humor and a joyous manner of representation.  He excelled in depictions of everyday life with an attention to details that was matched by a skillful technique. Although best known for his moralising genre paintings with references to Dutch proverbs and literature, Steen also painted portraits, mythological, religious, and historical scenes.  He is represented in this exhibit by two canvases:   "As the Old Sing, So Pipe the Young", one of the artist's largest works and, Girl Eating Oysters, Steen's smallest canvas.  The former, painted in broad, painterly brushstrokes, warns against the influence of adult bad behavior on the young.  The latter, in which the artist uses a miniaturist-like style, depicts a seductress enticing the viewer to partake of her offerings.  She is putting salt on an oyster, edibles considered aphrodisiacs.  On the table before her is a blue-and-white Delft ceramic pitcher, a wine glass and a silver serving plate with a knife, a half-eaten roll, a mound of salt and a paper cone filled with peppercorns that spill out onto the tray.  In the background, two kitchen servants prepare more oysters.  Behind the woman is a bed with closed curtains.  There is no doubt that she is extending an invitation not only for food but also for herself.  

As the Girl Eating Oysters attracts, so does the show.  Still lifes, landscapes, biblical pictures, other portraits and everyday portrayals yield much to enjoy.  Take advantage while these paintings are here - go see them.  

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The Frick Collection presents free lectures associated with exhibits. Many are webcast live and can be seen on the Frick's Web site or the museum's channel on FORA.tv.  Past presentations may be viewed on the same sites.*  

The director of the Mauritshuis, Emilie Gordenker, gave the first lecture for this show.  She provided a good introduction to the collection's history and evolution. For the online video, go to Emilie Gordenker:  "Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis".

*For the museum's past lectures visit the Frick's Web site, main menu "Interact", drop down menu "Lectures"  or  proceed directly to www.frick.org/interact/lectures. 

Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Hals: 

Masterpieces of Dutch Painting From The Mauritshuis

October 22, 2013, through January 19, 2014

Time tickets are required to view this exhibition.

The Frick Collection

1 East 70th Street, Manhattan


Tuesday through Saturday, 
10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Sundays, 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Closed Mondays and holidays

Special Free Extended Viewing Hours For

Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Hals: 

Masterpieces of Dutch Painting From The Mauritshuis 

Friday Evenings 
6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.

First Friday Evening of Each Month Is Reserved For Members.

A Raphael Visits New York

St. Catherine of Alexandria

Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio, 1483-1520), St. Catherine of Alexandria (recto), 

ca. 1500-1503, oil on wood, 15.4 x 5.9 in. (39 x 15 cm), 

Galleria Nazionale della Marche, Urbino, Italy

Photo:  Hillary Ganton

In celebration of 2013 Year of Italian Culture in United States, a painting of St. Catherine of Alexandria by Raphael from the Galleria Nazionale della Marche, Urbino, Italy, is on view at the Italian Cultural Institute New York.

Installed in its own room, both the panel's recto and verso can be seen by moving around a centrally placed glass vitrine.  The back (verso) shows a marbled reflection and inscription.  More about this later.

Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio, 1483-1520), 

marble reflection and inscription (verso); 

St. Catherine of Alexandria (recto),

ca. 1500-1503, oil on wood,  15.4 x 5.9 in. (39 x 15 cm),

Galleria Nazionale della Marche, Urbino, Italy

Photo:  2013 Year of Italian Culture in United States Web site

The front (recto) has the image of St. Catherine of Alexandria.

Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio, 1483-1520),  

St. Catherine of Alexandria (recto),

ca. 1500-1503, oil on wood,  15.4 x 5.9 in. (39 x 15 cm),

Galleria Nazionale della Marche, Urbino, Italy

Photo:  Hillary Ganton

Scholars date this panel to the early sixteenth century when Raphael was still working in Urbino, the city of his birth, as well as Città di Castello in the Umbria region of Italy. For those not familiar with Italian regions, Urbino is located in Italy’s Marche region, adjacent to Umbria.

The work's provenance is traced back to the collection of the painter Vicenzo Camuccini (1771 - 1841).  In 1856 a great portion of Camuccini’s painting collection was sold to the Duke of Northumberland.  His purchase primarily comprised paintings by Italian masters of the sixteenth and seventeeth centuries.  The Duke took his acquisitions back home to Alnwick Castle. 

In 1955, the art historian Roberto Longhi attributed the St. Catherine of Alexandria to Raphael.  At the time, the painting was in the collection of Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi. The Count was a businessman, art collector and dealer. Longhi had been his art advisor from about 1920 until 1945. The Count died in 1955 and his collection was subsequently dispersed (1). The Saint Catherine was acquired by the art dealer Spencer A. Samuels & Co. Ltd. of New York (2). It was subsequently sold to the Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos.  After he died in 1989, his wife auctioned the Marcos collection.  In 1990, the Italian State purchased the Saint Catherine of Alexandria for the Galleria Nazionale of the region of Marche.

St. Catherine of Alexandria was a fourth century martyr.  She was the daughter of a king who publicly protested the emperor and refused to worship idols.  Catherine was tortured by beatings and imprisonment. An attempt to rip her apart on a spiked wheel failed when the wheel broke into pieces. She was finally beheaded.   The spiked wheel became her attribute.

Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio, 1483–1520),

Detail  of  St. Catherine of Alexandria (recto),  

ca. 1500-1503, oil on wood,  15.4 x 5.9 in. (39 x 15 cm), 

Galleria Nazionale della Marche, Urbino, Italy

Photo:  Hillary Ganton

In the St. Catherine of Alexandria panel now on exhibit in New York, Raphael depicted the youthful saint holding the martyr’s palm frond.  A halo marks her holiness.  She is a blond beauty with exquisitely rendered hands and feet.  She faces to her right.  Her head is tilted down and eyes lowered as if deep in thought.

Catherine is richly attired as befits a noblewoman.  Her long-sleeved red dress is specked in gold.  Two slender gold bands adorn the edges of its sleeves.  The neckline and hem is trimmed in what appears  to be a deep green border.  The gown's belt is green as well as an overgarment wrapped about her shoulders and secured across the chest by two gold clasps.   Lastly, a voluminous pale golden yellow toga gently envelopes the figure.  Its curving folds echoed by the undulation of the fabric about her hair. 

She stands barefoot on a spiked wheel.  Her body twists in a classical contrapposto posture - weight mostly on her right foot, left knee slightly bent.  She forms an S-shaped curve. The green ground is undifferentiated.  The dark background is embellished with gold interlocking eight-pointed stars and crucifix forms.

Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio, 1483–1520),

Detail  of  St. Catherine of Alexandria (recto),  

ca. 1500-1503, oil on wood,  15.4 x 5.9 in. (39 x 15 cm), 

Galleria Nazionale della Marche, Urbino, Italy

Photo:  Hillary Ganton

The small work is packed with meaning.  The palm branch in Christianity alludes to the victory of the spirit over flesh and to resurrection, the triumph over death through the union with  Christ.  The eight-pointed star is symbolic of regeneration, redemption as well as the representation of baptism.  It reflects Jesus’ resurrection on the eighth day and reminds that baptism unites the believer with this miracle.  The cross represents sacrifice and salvation.  Red, the color of blood, alludes to Christian martyrs.  Green denotes the victory of life over death.  Golden yellow signifies purity, an appropriate choice for a virgin martyr.  Bare feet  refers to humility and holiness.  The spiked wheel, of course, is the symbol of her martyrdom.

  

The placement of Catherine’s wheel was innovative.  It is usually depicted upright at the saint’s side.  Raphael used the typical placement in a later painting of St. Catherine of Alexandria in the National Gallery, London as well as in his  Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 

Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio, 1483–1520),

St. Catherine of Alexandria, ca. 1507, oil on poplar,

28.4 x 21.9 in. (72.2 x 55.7 cm),

National Gallery, London, U.K.

Photo:  Artstor

Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio, 1483–1520),

Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints, ca. 1504, oil and gold on wood,

Main panel, overall 67 7/8 x 67 7/8 in. (172.4 x 172.4 cm), 

painted surface 66 3/4 x 66 1/2 in. (169.5 x 168.9 cm),

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Photo:  Artstor

By placing the instrument of torture on the ground, Raphael increased the impression of spatial depth,  allowing ample room for the figure’s three-dimensional pose.  At the same time, the wheel’s position acts as the figure’s pedestal raising this greatly admired saint to a higher level and emphasizing the triumph of the princess martyr.

Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio, 1483–1520),

Saint Mary Magdalene,

ca. 1500-1503, oil on wood,  15.4 x 5.9 in. (39 x 15 cm),

Location unknown,

Photo:  Artstor (3)

A now lost Saint Mary Magdalene painting was the pendant to St. Catherine of Alexandria panel (3).  The Magdalene is almost the mirror image of the Catherine figure.  The figures are posed in the same posture but Magdalene faces her left and her head and gaze are raised.  Her hands are in the gesture of prayer.  

The position of the two saints and the works’ size strongly support the theory that the paintings were the side panels of a small triptych intended for private devotion.  An inscription on the back (verso) of the Saint Catherine of Alexandria provides further evidence for this conclusion.

Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio, 1483-1520), 

Detail of marble mirror and inscription (verso) of the the St. Catherine of Alexandria (recto),

ca. 1500-1503, oil on wood,  15.4 x 5.9 in. (39 x 15 cm),

Galleria Nazionale della Marche, Urbino, Italy

Photo:  Hillary Ganton

In a circle of blue on a marbleized mirror background, elegant gold capital letters read: BENEDI/CAT VIRG/O MARIA.  The invocation, figuratively “May the Virgin Be Blessed”, points to the likelihood that the triptych's central panel would have represented an image of the Virgin Mary, perhaps a Virgin and Child or a Holy Family.

The Saint Catherine of Alexandria and Saint Mary Magdalene may have been part of a group of paintings in the possession of Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino and his consort Elisabetta Gonzaga (3). When Raphael resided in Urbino, he completed works for the Duke and his wife.  The panels may have been belonged to a painting of the Virgin Mary described by Giorgio Varsari, the sixteenth-century Italian painter, architect, writer and historian.  Varsari wrote that when Raphael lived in Urbino, he made religious paintings including representations of the Madonna.  Specifically, the historian records that Raphael painted two panels of the Virgin Mary for Guidobaldo which were “...piccoli, ma bellissimi”.  Certainly, the Saint Catherine of Alexandria is small yet very beautiful and could have belonged to a triptych with an image of the Madonna in the center panel.  The connection of the Saint Catherine painting with the city of Urbino is further enhanced by the colors used in the inscription on the panel's back:  gold letters on a blue background.  These are the colors of the coat of arms of the city of Urbino.  In addition, Saints Mary Magdalene and Catherine, were among the saints most venerated in this area.  Thus, their appearance together on a work made in Urbino would be fitting.  

The Mary Magdalene and Catherine panels were together in the early twentieth century in Duke of Northumberland's collection at Alnwick Castle.  The panels were next documented in the Contini Bonacossi Collection, Florence, Italy and then with Spencer A. Samuels & Co. Ltd., New York.  At this point, the whereabouts of  the Saint Mary Magdalene is unknown.  Perhaps, the painting will turn up one day.  Until then, you may want to be on the look out for it.

Two additional comments:

Raphael was known to have excelled in the particular technique of painting faux marble as executed in high quality on the back of the St. Catherine of Alexandria panel.

Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio, 1483–1520),

Detail of Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints, ca. 1504, oil and gold on wood,

Main panel, overall 67 7/8 x 67 7/8 in. (172.4 x 172.4 cm), 

painted surface 66 3/4 x 66 1/2 in. (169.5 x 168.9 cm),

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Photo:  Artstor

The gold speckled decoration of the Madonna’s mantle in Raphael’s Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York is very similar to the Catherine's dress in the St. Catherine of Alexandria panel.

(1) Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi (1878-1955) had bequeathed his art collection of some 1,000 works to the Italian state.  The Count's heirs, however, successfully contested the will.  The overwhelming majority of the collection was sold abroad.  What was left for the state is now part of the Uffizi Gallery and, presently may only be seen by appointment. Contini Bonacossi was found guilty of being a Nazi collaborator and fascist after World War II.  His bequest appears to be a gesture of amends.

(2) The Saint Catherine of Alexandria panel was in the  2009 exhibition, Raffaello e Urbino, that took place in Galleria Nazionale della Marche, Urbino, Italy.  The citation for the painting in the exhibition catalogue, edited by Lorenza Mochi Onori, entry 33, p. 170, states that the painting was acquired by the antiquarian, Spencer of New York after the  break up of the Bonacossi Collection.  I could not find any information about "Spencer of New York".  The exhibition catalogue probably refers to Spencer A. Samuels & Co. Ltd, New York.  Spencer A. Samuels was a world-renowned art dealer and expert on old masters who died at age 85 in 1999.  The information concerning the Saint Catherine of Alexandria and Saint Mary Magdalene panels in Artstor, supplied by  by the Department of Image Collections, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., states that the Saint Catherine of Alexandria and Saint Mary Magdalene panels were formerly in the Contini Bonacossi Collection, Florence and later with Spencer A. Samuels & Co. Ltd, New York.  

My thanks to Giorgio Civolani for his help in the translation of the Raffaello e Urbino exhibition catalogue entry for the Saint Catherine of Alexandria panel.

(3) I have reproduced below the Artstor black and white image of Saint Catherine of Alexandria panel for its clarity which far surpasses the color image from the  2013 Year of Italian Culture in United States Web site or my own photographic attempts.  The Artstor black and white image of Saint Mary Magdalene panel was the only image of this lost painting that I was able to find.

Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio, 1483–1520),

St. Catherine of Alexandria (recto), ca. 1507, oil on wood,

28.4 x 21.9 in. (72.2 x 55.7 cm),

National Gallery, London, U.K.

Photo:  Artstor

The black and white images and information associated with Saint Catherine of Alexandria and Saint Mary Magdalene panels were supplied to Artstor by the Department of Image Collections, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.  The   data for both panels attribute the work to Raphael and state that the location of both panels are unknown.  The dimensions of the panels were not furnished in the Artstor citations. I have assumed that the two paintings have the same dimensions and used the dimensions of the Saint Catherine of Alexandria panel for the label description of the Saint Mary Magdalene image. 

(3) See Raffaello e Urbino exhibition catalogue entry 33, p. 170 concerning this hypothesis.

St. Catherine of Alexandria by Raphael

October 1 to October 28, 2013 

Monday - Saturday,
10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m 

Italian Cultural Institute of New York

686 Park Avenue, New York, NY