Probably by Zanobi Strozzi, 'The Abduction of Helen', about 1450-5

The Abduction of Helen

Probably by Zanobi Strozzi

Not on display

About the work

Overview

The unusual shape of this picture is the first clue to its purpose, and the lively literary story painted upon it, the second. It was probably made as a commemorative but also functional household object, known as a birth tray or desco da parto. Such trays were given as gifts to celebrate a pregnancy or the birth of a child and would have been used to bring food and gifts to the expectant mother. In the centre of the image, a woman with three feathers in her hat is carried on the shoulders of a young man towards a boat moored at the island. The woman is the beautiful Helen, wife of the Greek king Menelaus captured by the Trojan prince, Paris. He awaits, dressed in armour, by the boat. According to the author of this particular version of the story, popular in Strozzi’s time, this was the moment the pair fell in love. Strozzi, who also painted manuscript illuminations, has included lots of small details – the boats in the sea, flowers on the lawn, and the little child fleeing the scene – to delight his client.

In-depth

The unusual shape of this picture is the first clue to its function. X-ray images have shown that it has been cut down: it was originally larger and more elaborate with 12 sides. Panels of this shape were made as trays called deschi da parte. They were given as gifts to pregnant women and used to bring offerings into her chamber or room during her pregnancy. Sometimes they were given to celebrate the birth of a child. Research has shown that almost half of Florentine families owned a desco da parto. Their popularity shows how important childbirth was in Renaissance Italy when many children did not survive into adulthood. The reverse of such trays were often personalised with the family’s coat of arms. This one has been thinned down and the reverse painted over and so we cannot know who the original owner was but it was probably, like Zanobi Strozzi himself, someone from a Florentine family.

Birth trays were commonly decorated with secular imagery drawn from ancient mythology or literature. The popularity of these subjects reflected the increasing knowledge and study of ancient texts and art that characterised the Renaissance period. Here we see the abduction of Helen, the wife of the Spartan king Menelaus, by the Trojan prince, Paris: the action that sparked the Trojan War. This story was recounted in several versions including, most famously, in the Iliad, by the ancient Greek poet Homer. This image is probably based on a translation of a text by Dares Phrygius that tells the Trojan side of the story, a version that was popular in this period. Phrygius stresses that Helen’s capture was welcome, since she fell in love with Paris at first sight, making it an appropriate subject for a birth tray.

Helen, with three feathers in her hat, is at the centre of the scene on the shoulders of a young blonde man. Paris, in the meantime, also blonde and dressed in armour with red ties, waits to take Helen on to the large boat moored nearby. Three other women are also seized – two within the temple itself while another appears to embrace her captor.

Phrygius' version set the abduction at the Temple of Apollo on the Greek island of Cythera, a backdrop that allowed Strozzi to embellish the picture with delightful details. Boats with billowing sails fill the sea; fortified hillside towns encircle the slopes of the mountainous island across the water. The architecture of the temple is similar to that of a Florentine palace belonging to the Rucellai family which was built at about the same time that this tray was painted – the only hint that it is a temple is the statuette of the deity on a column at its centre. A little boy, perhaps a reminder of the child in whose honour the tray was given, darts across the flowery lawn away from the chaos inside the temple. The charm of these details reflects Strozzi’s main occupation as a manuscript illuminator; the small scale of book decorations inviting such attention to detail.

Key facts

Details

Full title: The Abduction of Helen
Artist: Probably by Zanobi Strozzi
Artist dates: 1412 - 1468
Date made: about 1450-5
Medium and support: egg tempera on wood
Dimensions: 51 × 60.8 cm
Acquisition credit: Bought, 1857
Inventory number: NG591
Location: Not on display
Collection: Main Collection
Frame: 15th-century Florentine Frame (original frame)

Provenance

From the collection of the Marchese Albergotti at Arezzo. In the Lombardi-Baldi Collection, Florence (1845 catalogue, no. 48); purchased with other pictures from Lombardi and Baldi, 1857.

Additional information

Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Dillian Gordon, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Fifteenth Century Italian Paintings’, vol. 1, London 2003; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.

Exhibition history

2014

Building the Picture: Architecture in Italian Renaissance Painting

The National Gallery (London)

30 April 2014 - 21 September 2014

Bibliography

1903

B. Berenson, The Drawings of Florentine Painters, London 1903
1906

H. Stokes, Benozzo Gozzoli, London 1906
1919

C. Phillips, 'Florentine Painting Before 1500', The Burlington Magazine, I, 1919
1923

R. van Marle, The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting, 19 vols, The Hague 1923
1923

P. Schubring, Cassoni: Truhen und Truhenbilder der italienischen Fruhrenaissance: Ein Beitrag zur Profanmalerei im Quattrocento, Leipzig 1923
1950

G.J. Hoogewerff, Benozzo Gozzoli, Paris 1950
1950

L. Collobi Ragghianti, 'Zanobi Strozzi pittore, 2', Critica d'arte, XXXIII, 1950, pp. 17-27
1951

Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: The Earlier Italian Schools, London 1951
1955

L. Collobi Ragghianti, 'Studi angelichiani', Critica d'arte, 1955
1956

C. Volpe, 'In margine a un Filippo Lippi', Paragone, LXXXIII, 1956, pp. 38-45
1961

M. Davies, The Earlier Italian Schools, 2nd edn, London 1961
1963

B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: A List of the Principal Artists and Their Work, with an Index of Places: Florentine School, 2 vols, New York 1963
1971

C. Gilbert, 'Piero della Francesca's Flagellation: The Figures in the Foreground', Art Bulletin, LIII, 1971, pp. 41-51
1972

A. Padoa Rizzo, Benozzo Gozzoli: Pittore fiorentino, Florence 1972
1980

H. Wohl, The Paintings of Domenico Veneziano, ca. 1410-1461: A Study in Florentine Art of the Early Renaissance, Oxford 1980
1986

Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: The Earlier Italian Schools, revised edn, London 1986
1990

L. Bellosi, Pittura di luce: Giovanni di Francesco e l'arte fiorentina di metà Quattrocento (exh. cat. Casa Buonarotti, 16 May - 1 September 1990), Milan 1990
1991

J. Dunkerton et al., Giotto to Dürer: Early Renaissance Painting in the National Gallery, New Haven 1991
1992

A. Padoa Rizzo, Benozzo Gozzoli: Catalogo completo dei dipinti, Florence 1992
1994

C.A. Luchinat, Benozzo Gozzoli, Florence 1994
1995

M. Boskovits, 'Attorno al tondo Cook: Precisiazione sul Beato Angelico su Filippo Lippi e altri', Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, I, 1995, pp. 32-67
1996

D.C. Ahl, Benozzo Gozzoli, New Haven 1996
2001

C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
2003

Gordon, Dillian, National Gallery Catalogues: The Fifteenth Century Italian Paintings, 1, London 2003

About this record

If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.

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Probably by Zanobi Strozzi, 'The Abduction of Helen', about 1450-5

About the work

Overview

In-depth

Key facts

Details

Provenance

Additional information

Source

Exhibition history

Bibliography

About this record

Images

More works by Zanobi Strozzi