Justus of Ghent and Workshop
NG 755  
Rhetoric  
NG 756  
Music

Lorne Campbell, 1998

Extracted from:
Lorne Campbell, The Fifteenth Century Netherlandish Schools (London: National Gallery Publications and Yale University Press, 1998).

Provenance

The two panels NG 755 and NG 756 were by about 1850 in the collection of Cosimo Conti (1809–55), who in 1835 was created Prince of Trevignano. He owned a palace in Florence and his seals are on the reverses.² When the panels were in his possession, they were restored and engraved. A paper concealed in the panel of NG 755 and discovered in 1993 is inscribed ‘Long live Victor Emmanuel King of Italy. Death to the Austrians. We want the independence of Italy, otherwise eternal hatred’.³ The paper must have been hidden in the panel by a patriotic Italian restorer after 1849, when Victor Emmanuel II became King of Sardinia, and before 1855, when Cosimo Conti died. His wife was, from 1847, maggiordoma maggiore at the court of the Austrian Grand Duke of Tuscany.⁴ An engraving showing Music and the inscription on Rhetoric was published in or shortly after 1850, with the note that the picture was in the palace of Prince Conti in Florence.⁵ In 1853, neither Eastlake nor Cavalcaselle had yet seen the two pictures;⁶ Eastlake came across them before 1856, when they seem still to have been in the Conti palace, and tried to buy them for his private collection but his offer was ‘not enough’.⁷ Conti’s heir was his nephew Gino Ginori (born 1836).⁸ The panels were acquired in 1858 by the dealer William Blundell Spence (1814–1900), who had residences in Florence and in London.⁹ He offered them to Thomas Gambier Parry, to Eastlake, to Lord Lindsay and to the Louvre (in 1864).¹⁰ In Florence in 1860 he showed Rhetoric to Richard Redgrave; Music had already been sent to London, where it was seen in 1859, 1861 and 1863.¹¹ Spence then took it back to Florence, where it was reunited with Rhetoric. The two paintings were bought from Spence in Florence in June 1866.¹² When they arrived in London, they were restored by Rafaelle Pinti.¹³ In October 1866 they were placed, under glass, in the Gallery.¹⁴

Exhibitions

(NG 756) BI 1863 (28); (both panels) ‘Juste de Gand Berruguete et la cour d’Urbino’, Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Ghent 1957 (21–2); London 1975 (251–2); ‘Ideas Personified’, NG 1994 (not catalogued).

Engraving

In Litta’s Famiglie celebri d’Italia there is an engraving of Music; above the print there is an engraving of the inscription on Rhetoric. The plate is inscribed ‘Bramati dis.’ and ‘Bramati inc.’ and is the work of one of the brothers Giuseppe (1795–1871), Antonio (1799–1875) and Luigi (1801–60) Bramati. The engraving is not an accurate copy. Music is not crowned but wears strings of pearls and jewels in her hair; a pearl necklace has been added; the laurel branch has been omitted; and the young man does not have a fringe.

Technical Notes

The supports underwent a major restoration in about 1850 and the paintings themselves were ‘badly restored’.¹⁵ They were again cleaned and restored in 1866 by Rafaelle Pinti, an Italian restorer and dealer who was then working in London.¹⁶ In 1882 they were ‘cleaned and varnished’; and they were surface‐cleaned in 1939.¹⁷

Though the two paintings undoubtedly belong together, the supports differ in structure and they are in differing states of preservation.

Rhetoric

The ground is discoloured. The paint is not in good condition, the main problems being a very intrusive craquelure over large areas of the picture and a great deal of wearing so that, in the worst‐preserved parts, the paint is broken into islands surrounded by areas of ground and lines of dirt lodged in cracks. Losses are mainly confined to splits, joins, the edges of the insets and plugs inserted into the obverse of the panel and those areas where pegs have been replaced. There are also small losses caused by woodworm damage. Although there is much repaint, it is not particularly obtrusive and the colours are well matched with the original paint. The whole surface is obscured by thick yellow‐brown layers of varnishes, wax and dirt.

The panel (fig. 5) is of three boards of poplar, laid vertically and vertical in grain, and measures 157.2 × 105.2 cm. It is 37 mm thick at the right edge. The constituent boards are 35.3 cm, 33.4 cm and 36.4 cm wide at the top edge and 32.2 cm, 35.3 cm and 37.7 cm wide along the bottom edge. The planks are held together with loose‐tongue joins. At each join, channels have been cut into the thicknesses of the boards, which have then been butt‐joined to form a rectangular slot; a separate tongue of wood has been inserted into the slot and fixed with pairs of pegs driven through the front of the panel into the tongue on either side of the join. There are four pairs of pegs on the left join, three pairs on the right join. The joins have been broken, the loose tongues and pegs removed and replaced and the backs of the joins covered in places with canvas. This happened in the mid‐nineteenth century, before two horizontal battens were dovetailed into the reverse. The upper batten was removed in 1993, when the rolled paper described above under Provenance was found next to the loose tongue on the right of the reverse.

Before the ground and paint were applied, iron fixings (fig. 8) were set into the panel in two horizontal rows of four, approximately 93 cm apart. One of the eight fixings is missing; it has been extracted through the back of the panel and the hole has been filled with a wooden plug. The fixings have been set in from the obverse of the panel, in which cross‐shaped recesses have been cut to accommodate iron rods bent into rings at their centres and set horizontally, across the grain of the wood. The recesses, which were between 6.8 and 8 cm wide, were then filled with wooden plugs, three in each cross‐shaped recess. Holes cut into the reverse expose the rings, into which links are fitted. To each link is attached an iron pin, with a ring at one end, inserted into the link, and with a slot through the other end (fig. 7). The pins in the top row are about 6.5 cm long; those in the bottom row are about 5.8 cm long. The rods, links and pins must all have been joined before they were inserted into the panel and provided a strong and secure means of bracing and hanging the very heavy panel.

The two rows of pins were presumably inserted into small holes in strong planks and secured at the backs with split pins passed through the slots. The planks might then have been strapped or clamped to the wall or impaled on spikes set into the wall. These elaborate arrangements would have provided a secure means of hanging which was completely invisible from the front of the picture. Four holes through the panel, irregularly placed towards the centre of the top edge, may have been made in order to remove it from its original site.

Again before the ground was applied, pieces of wood were inlaid into the obverse, presumably in an effort to correct irregularities in its surface. One piece, which extends to the top edge, is about 1 cm deep. There are various splits, the worst of which has been closed with a wooden butterfly, and much woodworm damage. Exposed woodworm channels, rough saw marks and the composition of the picture itself show that the panel has been cut on all four sides.

On the reverse (fig. 1) are various incised horizontal lines. Two mark the positions of the metal attachments; the others are of uncertain function. Drawings in black paint are perpendicular to the vertical axis of the picture and appear to stop at the joins: they seem therefore to have been made before the planks were assembled into a panel. In the top left corner of the reverse are the neck, torso, thighs and knees of a nude man; on the central plank, partially concealed by a batten, are the hindquarters of a horse and other lines not readily comprehensible. Also on the reverse are the painted number 508 and a red wax seal showing a quartered coat of arms with an escutcheon of pretence, on which are the arms used by Cosimo Conti.¹⁸ On the top batten, removed in 1993, were, upside down, the pencilled initials WBS (presumably for William Blundell Spence).

The ground is gesso and is discoloured, probably because it contains an excess of glue. Infra‐red photographs and reflectograms reveal limited amounts of underdrawing but the condition of the paint and the thickness of the varnishes inhibit penetration and make it difficult to interpret the reflectograms. Traces of underdrawing are found in some of the cross‐sections. No unusual pigments have been identified. The greens are verdigris, sometimes mixed with lead‐tin yellow; the green glazes are copper greens but apparently not ‘copper resinate’. In the green textile on the steps, the medium is linseed oil.

Beneath the paint in the top right corner, above the letters AC, is a drawing apparently representing a face, which has nothing whatever to do with the painting (fig. 9). The head of Rhetoric has a clear reserve. Some underdrawing is apparent in the face but the lines are difficult to interpret. The underdrawn headdress is of a simpler design than the painted headdress (fig. 10). The head of the man appears to have been drawn in a slightly different position and was perhaps smaller, lower and more in profile (fig. 11). The design of the patterned cloth on the stairs is pounced from a pricked cartoon and the pricked design continues across the areas of the steps which are not covered in the painting (fig. 12). Various ruled lines are incised into the ground. The purposes of some of them are not obvious; others outline parts of the throne, the cornice behind the throne, the plinth of the throne and the upper edge of the top step. There are incised verticals near the two lateral edges and, centred between these two, a vertical line running between the top of Rhetoric’s head and the top of the cornice above the inscription. Most of the circles in the decoration of the throne have been incised, with compasses or dividers; the central hole is often visible.

The layer structure is not complex and glazes have been used sparingly. The picture gives the impression of having been painted at great speed.

Music

The ground is rather discoloured and there are considerable paint losses in the cornice above the left side of the throne, at the point of Music’s nose and around her left shoulder, in the book, in the man’s hair and the wall behind, in the organ and in the textile on the step second from the top. There are other losses along the joins and along splits in the support. A fine network of cracks covers the entire surface but the paint has [page 277]not broken up as it has on the Rhetoric. The first letters of the inscription may originally have been EC rather than I(?)C. The retouchings of the losses, though old, have not discoloured and are not obtrusive. The surface is obscured by thick yellow‐brown layers of varnishes, dirt and wax.

The panel (fig. 6) is of six poplar boards laid horizontally and horizontal in grain; it measures 156.3 × 97.4 cm and is about 37 mm thick. The heights of the constituent boards are, from the top: at the left edge, 7.8 cm, 32.7 cm, 33.8 cm, 19.0 cm, 31.3 cm and 30.7 cm; at the right edge, 8.0 cm, 35.2 cm, 33.0 cm, 20.8 cm, 30.5 cm and 28.8 cm. The joins at the top and third and fifth from the top are loose‐tongue joins secured with pegs, like those in Rhetoric. The joins second and fourth from the top are now held by battens, which are not original and which have been set in from the back across the joins. The battens seem to replace loose tongues cut out from the reverse of the panel. The upper horizontal batten is reinforced with three modern butterflies. These battens are now flush with the reverse but exposed worm‐channels show that they have been thinned, presumably so that two vertical battens could be applied. These are not original, nor do they replace original battens; they cover and reinforce areas from which original fixings have been extracted. They were assuredly iron fixtures similar to those still in place on the reverse of Rhetoric. They were inserted in two vertical rows of five, approximately 63 cm apart, through the obverse of the panel and were covered by rectangular wooden plugs which measure about 8 cm by about 2.6 cm, which are mounted across the grain of the panel and which are still in place. The metal fixtures were removed through the back of the panel, where the holes are concealed by the vertical battens. The panel is roughly finished, contains several knots and has been extensively attacked by woodworm. It has been cut on all four sides.

On the reverse (fig. 3) are drawings in black paint, similar to those on the reverse of Rhetoric, but, whereas those were made before the planks were assembled into a panel, the drawings on the back of Music are on the vertical axis of the panel and continue across the joins: they were therefore made after the panel had been assembled. Seven drawings can be discerned: a sketchy back view of a nude; a horseman in a strange hat with a hawk(?) on his fist; another nude with raised arms (fig. 16); a head in profile (fig. 15); another profile of a grotesque head, possibly with a protruding tongue (fig. 14); a male nude seen from the back and holding a large trumpet (or perhaps a club); and another male nude seen in front view. Painted on the reverse are the numbers (…) 8, in reddish paint, and 534, in bluish paint and corresponding to the number 508 on the reverse of Rhetoric. Also on the reverse are the remains of a seal in red wax, identical to the Conti seal on the reverse of Rhetoric.

The ground is gesso and is discoloured, probably because it contains an excess of glue. Infra‐red photographs and reflectograms reveal limited amounts of underdrawing and traces of underdrawing are found in some of the cross‐sections, but, once again, the condition of the picture and the thickness of the varnishes inhibit infra‐red penetration and make it difficult to interpret the reflectograms. No unusual pigments have been identified in the original layers. Ultramarine is present in the sash hanging between the legs of Music. The greens are verdigris, sometimes mixed with lead‐tin yellow; the green glazes are copper greens but apparently not ‘copper resinate’. A yellow pigment is found in the flesh of Music’s right wrist. Her red dress consists of one layer of vermilion and red lake, with highlights painted on top in red lake and lead white and with red lake glazes in the shadows. In the green glaze on the textile covering the steps, the medium is heat‐bodied linseed oil. The opaque green of the same textile is in linseed oil which has not been heat‐bodied; it is much leaner in medium than the glaze. In a white highlight on the man’s sleeve, the medium is walnut oil.

The man’s head is underdrawn below and to our right of the painted profile (fig. 13). Very small areas of pouncing are discernible in the textile covering the steps: in the crook of the man’s right knee and at the back of his left thigh.

A complex series of ruled lines has been incised into the ground and some of them may indicate that the artist first intended to show a ceiling meeting the back wall at a point halfway between the two painted cornices. Two vertical incised lines run near and parallel to the lateral edges. Some of the vertical and most of the horizontal lines of the throne and all the steps are incised; the arcs and circles of the throne, including the little arcs of the shell shapes in the niche, are incised with compasses or dividers. The central hole is usually visible. The organ and the hat are painted on top of the textile covering the steps. The outlines of the organ are incised but, in contrast to the other incised lines, they appear to be free hand. The X‐radiograph shows diagonal shapes in the top right corner which were perhaps a looped curtain, suppressed during the course of execution.

To the left of the incised vertical line about 3.5 cm from the left edge, a band of vermilion and red lake runs along the edge beneath the paint of the wall and the steps. In samples taken within this band, from the step second from the top, green is found beneath the red, which is covered by original layers of lead‐white and brown. The green textile at first ran to the present left edge; the red band was then added and subsequently painted over in brown, evidently to indicate the stone of the step. The original brown layer was afterwards overpainted in a green which contains chromium and must be nineteenth‐century repaint. When the picture was completed, the green did not extend to this edge.

In the throne, impasto has been used to make a pattern which suggests, to some extent, the texture and the modelling of the marble. Beneath the leaves, a pattern in the coloured marble has been made by working the wet paint with a stick; in other areas, for instance the right column of the throne, the artist may have used his fingers to work the paint. The layer structures are not complicated and glazes have been used sparingly: the picture gives the impression of having been painted at great speed.

Description

In NG 755, a woman richly dressed in dark grey damask(?) is seated on an elaborate throne ornamented with gilding and with enormous jewels and pearls. Her clothes, which are exotic rather than fashionable, are edged with gold braid and gold embroidery and are sewn with pearls; around her neck are two strings of large pearls. On her head she wears a wreath of leaves, which are perhaps laurel leaves, and into which are entwined purplish‐pink objects, ribbons or possibly flowers. Across her right knee and under her left elbow is a semitransparent cloth. She holds an open book, from which any inscriptions have disappeared, and points with her right hand to a passage in the vanished text. The young man kneeling on the steps in front of her and receiving the book wears a long dark grey garment. His sleeve is dark red velvet(?), the hat slung over his right shoulder is red and his shoe is brown. The steps are covered with a green textile patterned in brownish‐green and bordered with golden‐yellow stripes. It terminates just above the lower edge of the panel. On the left is the shadow of another throne. The wall is inlaid with coloured marble and with ‘antique serpentine’ (green Greek porphyry) and the inscription on the frieze below the cornice is in yellow letters – presumably intended to represent gilt‐bronze letters – on a red‐brown background. The orthogonals of the throne do not vanish to a single point but converge approximately towards the centre of the lower edge.

In NG 756, the interior and the throne are less richly and less elaborately decorated. The woman wears a crown and a light red dress; she looks and points towards a mitre‐shaped portative organ. The man’s jacket is grey, patterned in green: it is evidently made of figured cloth of silver and is edged with brown fur. His right sleeve is slashed and there are golden eyelets in the hem of the slash. One pair of eyelets is empty; two other pairs are tied with whitish laces with gold tips attached to gold(?) tassels. The dull purple or pink scarfs of his chaperon(?) pass under his left knee and over his left shoulder, where the end is tied with a lace, used as a drawstring, with golden tips. He appears to be looking at the organ and is counting on his fingers: he is perhaps expounding an argument. His cap lies on the steps, which are covered with a green textile patterned in lighter green. Its border, marked with two golden stripes, is visible above the lower edge of the panel. Attached to the wall on the left is a branch of laurel. The inscription is in yellow letters on a green (‘antique serpentine’?) background and the back wall seems to terminate on the right, where it meets at right angles a second wall. The orthogonals of the throne do not vanish to a single [page 279] point but some converge to the right of the centre of the lower edge.

The Berlin Allegories

Two similar paintings, clearly from the same series, were in the Berlin museum but were destroyed in 1945 (figs 17, 18).¹⁹ In the first, a young woman presents a book to a kneeling man identifiable from other portraits and from the coat of arms on the sconce above his head as Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino. Through a window on the right is an open door. The inscription reads DVRANTIS COMES (Count of Durante); a continuation, SER, is visible only in some of the available photographs, on the wall on the right. The second Berlin painting represented an elderly woman giving an armillary sphere to a kneeling, bearded man; a crown lay on the step beside him. The area of the panel where an inscription must once have been had been lost and replaced.

Iconography

NG 756 represents Music and the second Berlin painting (fig. 18) represents Astronomy: the organ and armillary sphere are their attributes. It seems reasonable to assume that the [page 280][page 281][page 282] whole series represented the Liberal Arts and the figure in NG 755 has generally been identified as Rhetoric, while the woman in the first Berlin panel (fig. 17) is usually called Dialectic.²⁰ Unlike Music and Astronomy, they have no obvious emblems; but the wreath of leaves worn by the woman in NG 755 is an attribute sometimes assigned to Rhetoric and the open door visible on the right of the first Berlin panel is an attribute of Grammar, the gateway to learning.²¹ There are seven Liberal Arts: the Trivium of Dialectic, Rhetoric and Grammar; and the Quadrivium of Arithmetic, Geometry, Music and Astronomy. The four paintings are probably from a set of seven; the three missing pictures are apparently Dialectic, Arithmetic and Geometry.

It was usual to represent the Liberal Arts as enthroned women. Often they are accompanied by exponents of their arts who are seated below or beside them: Cicero with Rhetoric, Priscian with Grammar, Ptolemy with Astronomy, Tubal‐cain with Music.²² In the Berlin panel of Grammar, the kneeling man is Federico, Duke of Urbino. It has been assumed that, because the man before Grammar is a portrait, the men before Rhetoric, Astronomy and Music must also be portraits of men related to, or associated with, Federico. They are wearing contemporary dress; it is possible that they are portraits of contemporaries in the roles of Cicero and the rest. It is not clear why Federico might have wished to masquerade as Priscian. The bearded man who has laid his crown at the feet of Astronomy and who receives from her an armillary sphere might be identified as the astronomer Ptolemy, who, in a related painting from the studiolo of Urbino, is shown crowned, bearded and holding an armillary sphere. But the Urbino Ptolemy (now in the Louvre) is in exotic dress,²³ while the figure in Astronomy is in contemporary dress, though he breaks with contemporary fashion by wearing a beard. The beard may have been the work of a restorer, but it was not removed during any of the cleanings; if it was original, it may have been included to strengthen the association with Ptolemy. The crown, besides being an attribute of Ptolemy, implies that the figure is a king. The lost inscription on this panel probably referred to the King of Naples²⁴ and the profile of the kneeling figure is not totally unlike that of Federico’s ally and patron Ferdinand or Ferrante, King of Naples from 1458 until his death in 1494.²⁵ It is conceivable that the figure is a portrait of Ferrante, perhaps in the guise of Ptolemy. The young man before Music, once claimed to be the Duke’s son and successor Guidobaldo (1472–1508),²⁶ has often been identified as Federico’s brother‐in‐law Costanzo Sforza (1447–83), Lord of Pesaro; but comparisons with Enzola’s medals of Costanzo are inconclusive.²⁷ It is difficult to believe that this expensively dressed young man is assuming the role of the smith Tubal‐cain. The youth at the feet of Rhetoric, seen in lost profile from the back, is plainly not a portrait in any orthodox sense. He may conceivably represent the Duke’s son Guidobaldo, then a child, as he will be when he matures: it may not be coincidental that the inscription above seems to proclaim him Duke of Urbino. He is perhaps masquerading as the young Cicero.

The Cufic inscription on Music is claimed to relate to Persian musical theory. Federico da Montefeltro had received a Persian envoy in 1472, owned at least one manuscript in Arabic script and was in contact with Flavio Mitridate, the leading orientalist of his day.²⁸ It is not clear why so obscure a reference might have been introduced into the painting.

Reconstruction

The Berlin allegories have often been described and reproduced but they appear never to have been X‐rayed. No authoritative condition reports have been discovered; no one seems ever to have investigated the structures of the panels or to have described or photographed the reverses. Grammar was the better preserved of the two and measured 150 × 110 cm. It was restored between 1886 and 1909.²⁹ When Astronomy was acquired in 1821, it was too damaged to be put on exhibition and, stored under unsuitable conditions, it suffered further damage.³⁰ It seems to have undergone at least three major restorations: the first in 1880, when it was taken out of store and when it was enlarged to match Grammar;³¹ the second before 1909, when a window, probably painted by the previous restorer to balance the window in Grammar, disappeared;³² the third in 1933, when it was photographed in a partially cleaned state (fig. 18).³³ The support measured 150 × 110 cm; there were additions of varying widths on all four sides. The original section of the panel was made up of planks laid [page 283]horizontally; the joins had been reinforced with wooden pegs driven into the surface of the panel; rectangular wooden plugs had been set vertically into the panel in at least one vertical row on the left side. The panel was therefore constructed in the same way as that of Music. The two top steps appear to have been repainted as one step; the level of the suppressed step seems to have been indicated by an incised line. Many other incised horizontals can be detected in the photographs. The orthogonals do not vanish to a single point but converge in an area level with the bottom step and roughly 60 cm from the right edge.

The panel of Grammar was constructed of planks laid vertically: vertical splits and joins are clearly visible in the photographs. One join, secured with pairs of pegs, ran to the right of the upright of the T in the inscription. Also visible in the photographs are two horizontal rows of cross‐shaped plugs set horizontally into the panel. The upper row is at the level of the chin of Grammar; the lower is in the bottom step. This panel was therefore constructed in exactly the same way as that of Rhetoric. Many incised lines can also be observed in the photographs. The orthogonals, once again, do not vanish to a single point but most converge towards an area level with, or slightly below, the lower edge and roughly 65 cm to the left of the left edge.

All four panels have been cut down. Astronomy had been cut on all four sides; Grammar seems to have been trimmed above, below and on the left.³⁴ Rhetoric has preserved more of the cornice at the top than Music, while Rhetoric has been cut at the bottom along the line of the textile. In Music, a strip of step about 4.7 cm wide is visible below the textile; Rhetoric must have been cut by 4.7 cm or more at the bottom and was once at least 162 cm high. It is impossible to estimate how much has been cut from the lateral edges of the panels. The incised line and overpainted red band at the left of Music probably indicate where the painter at first planned to terminate the composition, which was then extended – perhaps to accommodate the young man’s left foot. Since the painted foot is cut by the present edge, the finished composition must have extended further to the left.

In attempting to reconstruct the order in which the paintings were originally displayed, it is important to take account not only of the iconography, the compositions, the perspective, the lighting and the inscriptions, but also of the construction of the supports. The care with which the metal fixtures were implanted into the panels seems to imply that they were unusually heavy. In order to have hanging attachments secured as strongly as possible into the panels, it was necessary to cut holes into the obverses, insert the iron fixtures and close the [page 284]holes with wooden plugs (fig. 7). The related series of Famous Men, painted for the palace of Urbino, were on panels similarly constructed with loose‐tongue joins and with metal rods implanted into the supports. They may have been made by the same carpenters. The Famous Men, now cut into twenty‐eight fragments, were originally on seven large panels, each measuring about 240 × 160 cm.³⁵ There, however, the iron rods were inserted from the reverse and across the joins so that they served the double purpose of reinforcing the joins and providing hanging attachments. There was assuredly a compelling reason to alter the system for the Liberal Arts, where the joins are reinforced with pegs hammered into the obverses of the panels and where the iron rods, implanted through the obverses, were very much more securely held into the wood. Since the new system involved seriously damaging the surfaces of the panels with pegs and plugs, there must have been a pressing need to find a stronger means of securing the hanging attachments. The implication seems to be that the panels of the Liberal Arts were heavier than those of the Famous Men. The supports of the Famous Men vary in thickness between 25 mm and 50 mm, whereas the Rhetoric and the Music are about 37 mm thick. The supports of the Liberal Arts were consequently about the same thickness as those of the Famous Men but may be presumed to have been very much larger in area. Rhetoric and Music (157.2 × 105.2 cm and 156.3 × 97.4 cm) are considerably smaller than the reconstructed panels of the Famous Men (about 240 × 160 cm). It therefore seems probable that they have been cut from larger supports.

The inscriptions on Rhetoric, Grammar and Music give some of Federico’s titles, which were listed in a set order. It seems reasonable to assume that the completed inscription was the same as that on the frieze below the cornice in the studiolo at Urbino and similar to other inscriptions associated with Federico.³⁶ It may be reconstructed as follows: [FEDERICVS MONFELTRIVS]/ DVX VRBINI MONTISFERITRI AC/ DVRANTIS COMES SER/[ENISSIMI REGIS SICILIE CAPITANEVS GENERALIS SANCTEQVE ROMANE]/ ECCLESIE CONFALONERIVS. Rhetoric and Grammar would have been the second and third of the series; Music the seventh(?) and last.

It is in any case clear that Rhetoric and Grammar were placed side by side: the figures are all lit from the left; and the perspective schemes share a vanishing area. If the perspective is taken as a guide to their placing, there was a gap approximately 15 cm wide between the right edge of Rhetoric and the left edge of Grammar. On the left of Rhetoric was the missing panel of Dialectic, where the arm of the throne, casting a shadow across the background of Rhetoric, was similar in design to the arms of the throne in Grammar. The throne in Dialectic cannot have been far from its shadow and its orthogonals presumably vanished to the same area as those of Rhetoric and Grammar. The three paintings may all have been on one support, which would have been approximately 350 cm wide (fig. 19). As this would have been very much larger than the panels of the Famous Men, the unusual care taken over the metal attachments would have been entirely justified. Some of the incised horizontals in the Rhetoric seem to have continued in the Grammar: through the lettering, above the cross‐bars of the As; and along the mouldings of the cornices above the dado. If these were continuous lines, that would imply most strongly that Rhetoric and Grammar were parts of the same panel. The inscription on the Rhetoric is on a red‐brown background, whereas that of Grammar seems to have been on a greenish background. There would, however, have been space to insert between AC and DVRANTIS a small decorative division. Conceivably it was a mask, which might have related to the mysterious underdrawn face above AC (fig. 9).

The composition of Grammar, with the wall closing the painted space on the right and the inscription on the frieze apparently turning a corner, indicates that it was designed to hang where two walls met at right angles, with its right edge in the corner. The composition of Astronomy, with the wall closing the painted space on the left, indicates that it too was designed to hang in a corner, but with its left edge in the angle. It cannot have been hung perpendicular to Grammar, for such an arrangement would have made nonsense of the relationships between the corners in the painted interiors and the corners of the actual room in which the paintings were displayed; but Astronomy is likely to have been placed opposite Grammar, in the facing corner. This would explain why the two compositions appear to be lit from opposite directions. If they faced each other across a room, they would have been lit from the same source.

In Music, the wall on the right implies that it too hung in a corner. Astronomy and Music are on supports similar to each other in construction but different from those of Rhetoric and Grammar; the figures are lit from the right, whereas the other two are lit from the left; their thrones and settings are similar and simpler than those of the other two; the horizontals of their steps and cornices appear to agree, whereas there is no agreement at all between Music and Rhetoric, except in the heights of the thrones. The overpainted red band on the left of Music may indicate that it was attached to another composition and that the band marking the first division between the two compositions was moved or suppressed altogether. The ways in which both panels are constructed imply that they have been cut from much larger supports. In both, the planks are set horizontally: which seems to indicate that both have been cut from supports which were broader than they were high, though not as wide as the panel of the Trivium. The perspective of Astronomy, with the vanishing area far to the right of the right edge, shows that it cannot have hung alone. Music, however, cannot have been attached to Astronomy, as the planks of their panels are not continuous. In the latter, a join ran above the head of Astronomy, while in the former a join runs through the nose of Music. Equally the structures of the two panels show that it is impossible that the two are from a four‐part composition on one support.

The simplest solution is that both are from paired compositions perhaps some 220 cm wide, that both pairs had common vanishing areas and that they hung on the same wall, where the two pairs might have been separated by a door. The Quadrivium would have faced the Trivium and all [page 285] seven compositions would have been lit from the same source. The inscription on Astronomy would have continued that of Grammar: [SER]ENISSIMI REGIS SICILIE. On the missing paintings of Geometry and Arithmetic would have appeared the words CAPITANEVS GENERALIS and SANCTEQVE ROMANE. The inscription would have split into its component parts and each allegory would have had a text of about twenty letters and spaces. One problem, which is inherent in the composition of Music (however the other allegories are reconstructed), is that the young man faces a wall and turns his back on all his companions. This was, almost without question, the last composition of the series; but perhaps there was on the end wall not only a window, giving light to both the Trivium and the Quadrivium, but another painting towards which all the figures attending the Quadrivium were turned in respect.

The perspective of the four paintings indicates that they were hung above eye‐level. The fact that, on the reverse of Rhetoric, the metal attachments in the top row are a little longer than those in the lower row may indicate that the panels were angled slightly away from the walls so that they would have been more readily visible.

The Original Setting

Grammar and Astronomy were in the collection of Edward Solly, which was bought in 1821 for the Berlin museum.³⁷ Rhetoric and Music were acquired for the National Gallery in 1866 from W.B. Spence, who was asked to provide all the information he had on their history. On 28 September 1866 Spence wrote: ‘all I know is that I bought them from the heirs of Principe Conti at Florence that the Guidobaldo is engraved in Lytta’s work on the celebrated Italian families and that the Prince got them at Urbino soon after the French left Italy. – That there was a collection or suite of seven of these pictures in the library at Urbino and that 3 were destroyed by fire – one is at Berlin 1 at Windsor & 2 in your possession out of Galleria Spence.’³⁸ Here Spence seems to move from fact (that the pictures came from Conti and that one had been engraved for Litta) to rumour to unsubstantiated hypothesis. The picture at Windsor to which he refers is the Federico da Montefeltro and Others listening to a Discourse, now at Hampton Court. It had been discovered in or shortly before 1845 at a villa near Florence and was purchased in 1853 by Queen Victoria.³⁹ The Principe Conti was Cosimo Conti, born in 1809 and created a prince in 1835. He can hardly have acquired pictures in Urbino ‘soon after the French left Italy’ in 1814. Cosimo’s father Gian Giuseppe Conti (1769–1828) might have done so. He was an adventurer who rose from humble origins to become the favourite of Maria Anna of Savoy, Duchessa del Chiablese. Though he was dismissed from her service in 1822, one of her properties near Rome was to pass to his son. No links between the Conti and Urbino have been discovered.⁴⁰

The theory of an Urbino provenance was probably suggested solely by the inscriptions on Rhetoric and Music; they must have provided the only basis for identifying the young man in Music as Guidobaldo da Montefeltro. Spence’s first idea seems to have been that Music came from the sacristy of Urbino Cathedral;⁴¹ he then changed his story and stated that both pictures came from the library at Urbino, that the Berlin Grammar and the Federico listening to a Discourse also came from the library and that three other paintings from the series had been destroyed by fire. These unsupported statements may be disregarded.

In the National Gallery catalogues from 1867, the Rhetoric and Music were described as having come from the palace at Urbino. This assertion, presumably made on Spence’s authority, is unlikely, as they are not mentioned in Bernardino Baldi’s description of the palace, which was written in about 1585 and where he listed all the pictures of any distinction then in the palace.⁴² In the 1945 catalogue, Davies proposed that the pictures may have come from the studiolo in the ducal palace at Gubbio.⁴³ This room still exists: it was decorated with intarsias, which are now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; above the intarsias were paintings, mentioned but not described in an account of the palace written in 1631.⁴⁴ Davies noted that an inscription along the top of the intarsias reads:
ASPICIS AETERNOS VENERANDAE MATRIS ALVMNOS
DOCTRINA EXCELSOS INGENIOQVE VIROS VT NVDA CERVICE CADANT …
…[ITER FLEXO PROCVBVERE] GENV
IVSTITIA PIETAS VINCIT REVERENDA NEC VLLVM
POENITET ALTRICI SVCCVBVISSE SVAE (‘You see the eternal foster‐sons of the revered mother, men eminent in instruction and genius, how, bare‐headed, they fall… [They have fallen prostrate …ly on bended] knee. With justice/righteousness, awe‐inspiring piety/dutifulness conquers and no one repents of having succumbed to his foster‐mother’).⁴⁵ Davies argued that this inscription, which does not relate to the intarsias, might appropriately refer to the paintings of the Liberal Arts and that it would explain why distinguished men, including the Duke of Urbino, are kneeling in homage to allegories.⁴⁶ The inscription mentions several men but only one(?) woman, their foster‐mother. The precise meaning of the inscription is far from clear; but the theme is the submission of the men to their foster‐mother. It should be stressed that the inscription does not make any reference to the Liberal Arts. The fact that it mentions several ‘eternal foster‐sons’ kneeling ‘bare‐headed’ before their ‘revered mother’ and that, in the Liberal Arts, several mortal men in contemporary dress kneel bareheaded before as many allegorical women does not give sufficient grounds for associating the Liberal Arts with the inscription or consequently with the intarsias or with Gubbio.

In the studiolo at Gubbio, the gaps once filled by paintings measured approximately 222 × 293.1 cm (the entrance wall); 222 × 406 cm (the wall facing the windows); and 222 × 211.5 cm (the wall facing the door).⁴⁷ The fourth wall, pierced by three large windows, cannot have accommodated paintings of any great size. The entrance wall is lit from the left, the long wall from the windows opposite and the other [page 286] wall from the right. The objects represented in the intarsias appear to be lit by the natural light coming from the three windows and it seems likely that the paintings above also conformed to this system of lighting. In the Urbino studiolo, the paintings of the Famous Men neatly filled the gaps between the intarsias and the cornice on which the ceiling rests. It seems probable that the Gubbio paintings similarly covered the spaces above the intarsias.

No one has yet proposed a credible reconstruction to show how the Liberal Arts might have been hung in the Gubbio studiolo.⁴⁸ They cannot be made to fill the available gaps, nor can they be arranged to conform to its scheme of lighting. The Trivium, strongly lit from the left, would have to go on the long wall; but this wall is lit from the front. The gap to be filled measures approximately 222 × 406 cm, whereas the paintings of the Trivium occupied an area roughly 165 cm high and 350 cm across and are therefore very much smaller than the available space. The panels of the Quadrivium would have to go on the short walls, with Music, the last in the series, on the entrance wall and Astronomy on the facing wall. Both are strongly lit from the right; but the entrance wall is lit from the left. Two of the missing panels would also have to be fitted onto the two short walls. Like the others, they must have been between about 110 and about 100 cm wide. The pair on the wall facing the door would have to be jammed into a space 211.5 cm wide, without framing, whereas the pair on the entrance wall would have to be distributed across a space 293.1 cm wide. Like the panels of the Trivium, the panels of the Quadrivium, about 160 cm high, would fit badly into spaces 222 cm high. It is, moreover, impossible to reconcile the painted architecture, especially the corners depicted in Grammar, Astronomy and Music, with the architecture of the studiolo itself.

Since it is impossible to relate the four Liberal Arts in any satisfactory way to the architecture or the intarsias of the Gubbio studiolo, Davies’s hypothesis that they were painted for the studiolo must be rejected. They must have been designed for another room.⁴⁹ Though neither the palace at Urbino nor the studiolo at Gubbio are possible sites, it is perhaps worth considering Castel Durante (Urbania), where Federico rebuilt the palace and constructed the Barco or hunting lodge. He is said to have resided for several months every year in the ‘sumptuous’ palace⁵⁰ and to have established a library in the town.⁵¹ On 26 July 1480 both Federico and Francesco di Giorgio were in Castel Durante and were perhaps overseeing building works there.⁵² In the inscriptions on the Liberal Arts, the words ‘DVRANTIS COMES’ are prominently placed above the heads of Grammar and Federico himself. As Federico did not invariably use the title Count of Durante,⁵³ its prominence and close association with his portrait may be significant. The Liberal Arts may conceivably have been painted for the library at Castel Durante.⁵⁴

Attribution

The two Berlin allegories were once attributed to Bramantino,⁵⁵ the two London paintings to Hugo van der Goes.⁵⁶ In the 1850s and 1860s there was much dispute over the attribution but the London panels were catalogued in 1867 under the name of Melozzo da Forlì and for a time there was some agreement that all four pictures were by Melozzo.⁵⁷ Eastlake in 1859 had considered and rejected the idea that they might be by Justus of Ghent⁵⁸ but, at the beginning of the present century, the notion that Melozzo and Justus might have collaborated gained some support.⁵⁹ Friedländer, Lavalleye and Davies thought that the four paintings were by Justus;⁶⁰ while Longhi, Hulin and others gave them to Pedro Berruguete. Berenson and Post proposed that Berruguete worked from designs by Melozzo.⁶¹ In 1991, Reynaud and Ressort advanced the hypothesis that they were designed by Francesco di Giorgio and executed by Berruguete.⁶²

It is generally recognised that the four panels are closely related in style to the twenty‐eight paintings of Famous Men painted in about 1473–6 for the studiolo of the palace of Urbino and now divided between Urbino and the Louvre.⁶³ Vespasiano da Bisticci, who had known Federico and who visited him in Urbino, apparently early in 1482,⁶⁴ wrote between 1482 and 1498 that Federico ‘had an excellent understanding of painting and, not finding in Italy suitable masters who knew how to paint in oil on panel, he finally sent to Flanders to find an eminent master and had him come to Urbino, where he caused to be painted most eminently by his hand many pictures, particularly in his studiolo, where he had him paint the philosophers and poets and all the doctors of the Greek and Latin churches, done with marvellous art; and there he portrayed his lordship to the life and nothing but the spirit was lacking’.⁶⁵ Justus of Ghent was working in Urbino in 1473–4 and painted for the Confraternity of the Corpus Domini the huge altarpiece of the Communion of the Apostles (Urbino).⁶⁶ It is reasonable to assume that Justus was the ‘eminent master’ whom Federico brought from Flanders and who painted for him many pictures including the Famous Men and a portrait of the Duke. There are, however, difficulties in interpreting Vespasiano’s text. The portrait of the Duke which he mentions cannot be identified with certainty; and the Famous Men appear to have been begun by Justus but to have been finished by a second painter.⁶⁷ Since the remaining archives of Federico’s financial administration were destroyed in Florence in the mid‐nineteenth century,⁶⁸ there is no hope of discovering documents to clarify the situation.

The four allegories were painted in the duchy of Urbino for one of the palaces of Federico da Montefeltro. They are related in style not only to the Famous Men but also to the Federico listening to a Discourse (Hampton Court) and to the Portrait of Federico with his Son Guidobaldo (Urbino). The London panels, with their loose‐tongue joins, are similar to those of the Famous Men, while the hanging attachments, and the way in which they are secured into the supports, are similar to those of the Hampton Court picture. The Urbino double portrait is on a fir, not a poplar, support and, in this respect, differs from all the others. The materials and techniques employed are otherwise fairly consistent: all these pictures are painted [page 287][page 288] in oil. In the Famous Men, there is a priming over the gesso; in the Liberal Arts there is none.

The allegories were certainly painted for a specific architectural setting. A patron who was not carried away by Federico’s enthusiasm for oil paintings would probably have preferred frescoes, which would have been more practical and cheaper. They could have been more quickly executed and there would have been no need to find secure ways of hanging extremely heavy panels. In the allegories, the style of the architecture, the architectural ornament, the lettering and the clothes are all in the Italian taste and the perspectival tricks, with the low vanishing points and with such objects as the draperies, the carpet‐like textiles, the feet, the crown and the organ appearing to project from the steps, are found more commonly in Italian than in Netherlandish paintings. The rules of perspective, however, are not accurately applied, for the orthogonals converge but do not vanish to single points and, while verticals, horizontals and circles are assiduously incised to assist in drawing the architectural ornament, the orthogonals are not incised. The artist’s interest in the refinements of linear perspective was less than enthusiastic.

The basic compositional scheme would have been suggested by the patron and his architect, to conform to the architecture of the room. An architect may well have advised on the architectural details. The painted scheme was perhaps intended to emulate the Muses, painted by Angelo da Siena, Cosimo Tura and others between 1448 and 1463 in the studiolo of Belfiore near Ferrara, or the Virtues, painted by Piero Pollaiuolo and Botticelli in 1469–70 for the hall of the Mercanzia in Florence. Both projects may reflect a dissatisfaction with fresco and a fashionable enthusiasm for panel‐paintings in the Netherlandish manner. The Liberal Arts differ from the Muses and the Virtues in that the allegorical figures were united in a group of three and – probably – in two groups of two; in that the figures are smaller in proportion to their settings; and in that light and shadow play a very much more prominent part in articulating the compositions.

The traditional way of representing the Liberal Arts and their votaries was to show the Arts enthroned with their votaries seated below them. The painter of Federico’s series freed himself from many of the compositional constraints of the traditional scheme by introducing flights of steps below the thrones and by making his votaries kneel and communicate with the allegorical figures. This allowed a more varied distribution of decorative interest – over the surface of each panel and throughout its painted depth – and a much greater freedom to introduce figures in contrasting poses. Cast shadows animated those unrelieved areas of wall and step where, otherwise, there was little decorative incident. Such skill in varying poses, in working out variations on a set theme, is typical of Justus of Ghent and is seen at its most impressive in the Famous Men.

The drawings on the backs of the panels, difficult to parallel in Netherlandish paintings, are quickly done and need not all be by the same artist (figs 1, 3, 14–16 (a, b, c)). There is some consistency in style among the more finished drawings of male nudes, where there is a tendency to place the crotch too low and to splay the feet into strange trapezoid shapes. None of these drawings is necessarily by the painter of the Liberal Arts: in principle, they could well be the work of his assistants. Two of the drawings can perhaps be related to the paintings. The male nude on the reverse of Rhetoric could be a sketch for the figure of Hercules on the clasp of the book held by Grammar; and the profile on the right of the reverse of Music (fig. 15) could be a sketch for the head of the young man in the painting. This is the only area of the two London paintings where the infra‐red reflectograms give an adequate image of the underdrawing (fig. 13). The underdrawn profile, below and to the right of the painted profile, is reasonably similar to the infra‐red photograph of the drawn profile on the reverse. It is strikingly similar to the underdrawn profile of Vittorino da Feltre (Louvre), one of the Famous Men.⁶⁹ In both underdrawings the eyes, indicated with the same economy of line, are too close to the contours of the profiles. Justus of Ghent often misplaced eyes, not only in heads seen in profile, for example in the two foremost apostles in the Communion,⁷⁰ but also in heads seen in three‐quarters and front views, where, on occasion, the eyes are not equidistant from the noses. This is most startlingly obvious in the Solomon (Urbino), one of the Famous Men thought to have been completed by Justus.⁷¹ The near eye of Rhetoric is similarly out of place. Justus’s tendency to elongate the head, by raising the top and reducing the back of the skull, is found in many heads in the Communion, in the Saint Augustine (Louvre) and in the Duns Scotus (Urbino)⁷² as well as in the young men before Rhetoric and Music. Justus drew hands in an idiosyncratic way: the thumbs are usually too short and rooted too far back; there is no great interest in the articulation of the joints in the fingers; the finger‐nails are sometimes too large. Such idiosyncrasies appear in the hands of Music, Rhetoric and her votary. The hands of the young man in Music differ and are closer in style to hands painted by the second artist of the Famous Men.

Rhetoric and Music were painted by an artist who had a very sophisticated command of the oil technique. He used walnut oil with light colours, because it was less liable than linseed oil to discolour, and heat‐bodied linseed oil in glazes, because it dried more efficiently than oil that was not heat‐bodied. This is an important argument in favour of attributing the paintings to Justus of Ghent, who was summoned to Urbino because he was skilled in painting in oil on panel and because Federico could not find any Italian artist possessed of such skills. Justus no doubt trained his assistants in the use of oils. It is, of course, possible that he brought from Flanders assistants already competent in the oil technique. Paradoxically, the Communion, the Famous Men and the allegories are all in rather poor condition. All, and particularly the Communion, have suffered from the attentions of Italian restorers. The networks of cracks which are a conspicuous problem in many of the Famous Men and in Rhetoric may have been caused by early attempts to clean the paintings by washing them.

The Communion of the Apostles is an immense altarpiece. The seven huge panels of the Famous Men and the Liberal Arts themselves constituted two more vast projects. Justus, who was also expected to paint portraits, must have been over[page 289]burdened with work. Federico da Montefeltro, with his many building projects, was a patron in a hurry and may have found it hard to understand that it took longer to paint in oil than in fresco. He may have compelled Justus to leave one commission unfinished so that he could start work on another. Vespasiano da Bisticci wrote that the ‘eminent master’ brought from Flanders produced ‘many paintings’, including the Famous Men. All of them must have been undertaken during the relatively short period between the arrival of Justus in the duchy, early in the 1470s, and the death of Federico in 1482. It is not difficult to visualise Justus, in desperation, relying heavily on his most able assistants and perhaps taking technical risks in unceasing efforts to satisfy an impatient and demanding, but exceedingly rich, patron.

The Famous Men were clearly painted by two different artists: Justus, who designed all the panels, executed most of the underdrawings and finished several of the paintings; and a second artist who completed the unfinished pictures and revised and repainted many of the compositions. Reynaud and Ressort, having established that the series was by two artists, claimed that it was executed in two distinct campaigns;⁷³ but there is no physical evidence to support such a theory, for no indication has been found in the cross‐sections of any layer of dirt that might have accumulated between two separate campaigns. They assumed that work on the series was interrupted because Justus died or left Urbino; and that the second artist was Pedro Berruguete. There is no incontrovertible evidence that Berruguete was ever in Urbino;⁷⁴ and there is very little stylistic connection between the work of the second artist and documented paintings done by Berruguete in Spain.⁷⁵ Berruguete may therefore be left out of the discussion. Whatever his name or nationality, the second artist was a proficient draughtsman and painter whose idiosyncrasies and interests make his contribution readily recognisable. He may have been Justus’s principal assistant. It seems entirely possible that he took over the Famous Men when Federico moved Justus on to another project.

Reynaud and Ressort attributed to the second artist all the other paintings in the Justus group: the Hampton Court and Urbino portraits and the Liberal Arts, which they claimed to have been designed by Francesco di Giorgio. Francesco may have given advice on the architectural elements but the notion that he had anything to do with the figures may be dismissed. Intarsias of the Liberal Arts which were possibly designed by Francesco and which are certainly close to him in style are dramatically different from the London allegories.⁷⁶ Only small sections of the allegories are similar to the work of the second artist of the Famous Men: the hands of the youth before Music, for example, or, as far as they can be judged from available photographs, the hair, beard and hands of the man kneeling before Astronomy. The four paintings appear to have been designed by Justus and executed by him and his assistants, one of whom was the second artist of the Famous Men. Rhetoric is on a more carefully constructed panel and is in a more elaborately ornamented setting than Music. It is likely that the Trivium was painted before the Quadrivium and that assistants contributed more to the Quadrivium panels.

Martin and Bret have put forward the idea that, in the Famous Men, it ‘seems probable’ that Justus painted in linseed oil whereas the second artist painted in walnut oil.⁷⁷ It would be dangerous to give too much weight to this hypothesis, advanced with great caution, or to draw any conclusion from the fact that, in Music, the youth’s sleeve is painted in walnut oil and his hands are in the style of the second artist. This may be coincidental. It is more likely that, in accordance with normal Netherlandish practice, both he and Justus chose walnut oil for light colours and linseed oil for other colours.

It is probable that the Liberal Arts were painted after the Famous Men, which appear to have been finished in 1476, and before the death of Federico in 1482. They are more ambitiously composed, and perhaps more hastily painted, than the Famous Men. The panels of the Liberal Arts are constructed and were hung in the same way as the Federico listening to a Discourse (Hampton Court), which may be dated towards 1480.⁷⁸

One painting on panel survives which has been plausibly identified as a work by Justus executed at Ghent before he left for Urbino. This is the triptych of the Crucifixion, probably painted in the 1460s and still in the cathedral of St Bavo at Ghent.⁷⁹ Though it is superficially unlike the Liberal Arts, parallels can be made. In the triptych, as in the allegories, [page 290] there are dramatic contrasts of light and shade, despite the fact that the scenes of the triptych are set in landscapes. The contours of the figures are often simplified into straight lines. In the Liberal Arts, the contours are again simplified, with greater monumental force. In Rhetoric, Grammar and Music, there is a preponderance of red and green, as in the Crucifixion, and in all these paintings there is a fascination with gesticulating hands, which are not always correctly drawn. Rhetoric and Music are unusual in facial type and impossible to parallel in Italian art but their narrow, ovoid heads, pronounced chins, broadly bridged noses and over‐large eyes and eyebrows are found repeatedly in the figures of the Crucifixion.⁸⁰ The interest in the reflected lights along the shadowed contours of the chins and the ways in which eyes, nostrils and mouths are modelled are similar in the Crucifixion (fig. 22) and the Liberal Arts. The lost profile of the young man in Rhetoric is at least reminiscent of the lost‐profile soldiers in the Crucifixion; while the profile of the youth in Music has much in common with the many profile heads in the Crucifixion: the eye placed slightly too high and too near the contour; the nostril rather far back; the neck too narrow.⁸¹

The stylistic progression from the Crucifixion to the Liberal Arts may seem astonishing but it is surely not impossible that a painter of genius, moving from Ghent to Urbino, would have adapted his style, working procedures and, to some extent, his technique to suit Italian timetables and Italian tastes. He may have exceeded all his patron’s expectations. Rhetoric and Music, despite their sad condition, are the sole remaining fragments from what must have been one of the most ambitious and spectacular schemes of decoration of the period.

General References

Friedländer , vol. III, no. 105; Davies 1954, pp. 142–57; Davies 1968, pp. 69–78.

Notes

Thanks are due to Cecil Clough, Caroline Elam, Ginolo Ginori Conti, Nicoletta Guidobaldi, Elizabeth McGrath, Hannelore Nützmann, Olga Raggio, Erich Schleier and Antoine Wilmering for their help in the preparation of this entry.