Antonio Pisano, called Pisanello c.1394(?)–1455
NG 1436 
The Vision of Saint Eustace

Dillian Gordon, 2003

Extracted from:
Dillian Gordon, The Fifteenth Century Italian Paintings, Volume I (London: National Gallery Company and Yale University Press, 2003).

c. 1438–42

Egg tempera on wood, 54.8 x 65.5 cm

Saint Eustace, carrying a decorated hunting horn and wearing a golden fur‐edged giornea, a blue headdress and golden spurs, is out hunting with his hounds, one of which is coursing a hare. Before him is a stag with a crucifix between its antlers. To the left and centre are two more stags, and in the upper left part of the picture a doe; to the right is a bear. The various birds and animals on either side of the wooded ravine that divides the composition include a hoopoe, pelicans, swans, herons, a kingfisher and an egret, none of them painted to scale.

The cross is inscribed INRI (= Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudeorum) – repainted, but possibly reflecting the original. No traces of an inscription can be detected on the white scroll at the bottom (fig. 30).

Technical Notes

Restoration

Restored at an unknown date before acquisition by the National Gallery. Cleaned in 1895.

Panel construction

Height 54.4/54.8 cm, width 65.5 cm. The panel has a vertical grain. It seems to be made up of two planks of wood, perhaps joined where there is a large area of vertical damage through the centre. It has been thinned to approximately 1 cm, and cradled.

There are the remains of a barbe on the left edge and possibly on the right edge. The panel may have been trimmed slightly at the base. It has been cut at the top: the X‐radiograph shows that ragged rectangular patches of canvas were applied irregularly over the surface, possibly to cover knots in the wood; a triangular remnant is visible at the top right‐hand corner, indicating that the panel was originally taller, although it is impossible to estimate by how much (see below).

On the back is a label: Albrecht Dürer. A. Finke (Berlin). And written in pencil: Drawing Room – opposite window Right. March 15 1888 (see Provenance).

Condition and technique

The condition of the painting is deceptive.¹ The figure of Saint Eustace and the animals and birds are abraded and have mostly been extensively retouched, although faithfully following the original forms. The landscape background is less abraded but has darkened considerably, obscuring much of the detail, probably because of darkening of the malachite pigment itself, underpainted in the traditional way with black,² and also because malachite, which is translucent, was the main green pigment; the paint is raised in places, owing partly to the thick and crusty nature of malachite. Otherwise the background is well preserved, particularly the flowers and foliage around the horse and hounds. The light pebbled foreground is extensively repainted; a very few fragments of original paint remain.

In the figure of Saint Eustace and his horse all the gold has been renewed, possibly over traces of original gold; the saint’s jacket has been completely regilded, incised with a pattern, and the folds modelled in a brownish glaze.³ The areas of pastiglia have been regilded, but the pastiglia itself is clearly original. The saint’s hat and face are largely well preserved, with minor retouchings, while the fur of his jacket, and his hose, have been entirely repainted over traces of original paint. His horse was originally a whitish grey,⁴ but the extensive retouching has discoloured, resulting in a brownish dappled effect.

In contrast to the thick painting of the landscape background, the animals were relatively thinly painted in order to maintain the reflectance of the ground. Some (such as the bear at the top right) have been almost entirely repainted, with a paint now a reddish brown used elsewhere by the restorer – for example, in the stag with the crucifix, the hare, the stag behind Saint Eustace, and in the hound standing behind the saint. Another distinctive feature of the restoration is the use of a white paint with a characteristic viscous texture, which has been used, for example, to reconstruct the white velveting near the head of the left antler of the stag with the crucifix (whereas the white velveting of the upper part of the antler, and of the antlers of the other stag, is original and has been subtly done). It has also been used on the left end of the scroll and the white highlight along the top of its central part; the right end is original but there is no remaining evidence that the scroll ever bore any lettering.

Some underdrawing can be seen around the contours of the animals, but because of the dark underpainting of the surrounding landscape, outlines are likely to be obscured in infra‐red examination. The underdrawing is similar in character to that of NG 776.

Original Appearance

The vertical grain of the panel, the fragment of canvas at the top right‐hand corner, and a painting formerly in the Cini Collection, Venice (fig. 1), which seems to derive closely from it, all suggest that NG 1436 originally extended considerably further upward, and that originally the composition was not so claustrophobic, but included a stretch of sky above.⁵ Its original shape, before it was cut down, is reflected in the ex‐Cini Collection painting, which appears to be a nineteenth‐century copy of a sixteenth(?)‐century painting. The copyist has made some radical changes: notably moving up the stag so that it towers above the saint; the costume of Saint Eustace has been changed to a northern fashion, and a northern type of landscape inserted behind the main focus of the narrative. Presumably unhappy with the unrealistic background and the discrepancies in scale, the copyist has also adjusted the composition of NG 1436 by moving birds around to different positions. For example, the swan has been moved from the top left to the centre front, the bird in flight in the forest above the fleeing hare has been moved to the right behind the crucifix, and the bird in flight above the crucifix has been transferred to the centre, in front of the horse’s head. The fact that the painting certainly reflects NG 1436 is confirmed by the [page 311][page 312]inclusion of a heron in the bottom right‐hand corner, with its neck and beak stretched upwards; this is not found in NG 1436, but is found in one of a series of sketches from Pisanello’s workshop (Paris, Louvre, inv. no. 2471).⁶

It is possible that the painting originally included a hanged man on a gibbet. The preparatory sketch for the crucifix (fig. 7), discussed below, includes a cursory study of a single figure hanging on a gibbet, and this motif is included in one of the versions by Jacopo Bellini (fig. 2). The motif complements that of the crucified Christ – sinful man on a gibbet redeemed by the Son of God on a cross.

Subject and Iconography

The story of Saint Eustace is told in the Golden Legend : while out hunting, Placidus, a soldier of the Emperor Trajan, had a vision of a stag with a shining cross, with an image of Christ upon it, between its antlers. Christ spoke to him, saying: ‘O Placidus, why are you pursuing me? For your sake I have appeared to you in this animal. I am the Christ whom you worship without knowing it. Your alms [that is, good deeds] have risen before me, and for this purpose I have come, that through this deer which you hunted, I myself might hunt you.’ Placidus was converted to Christianity, changing his name to Eustace.⁷ NG 1436 closely follows the details of the Golden Legend : Pisanello shows the stag standing at the top of a high peak with Christ on the cross between its antlers.

The theme of Saint Eustace was rarely treated in Italian art. The cult of the saint was most fervent in the Abruzzi (the saint had his vision near Subiaco in the Abruzzi) and in Rome, where he was buried in the church of Sant’Eustachio, founded in the twelfth century.⁸ Earlier versions had shown the figure of Christ between the antlers as a half‐length blessing Redeemer rather than on the cross.⁹ The change to Christ on the cross may have been prompted by the iconography of the Crucifix speaking to Saint Francis or of the Crucifix speaking to Saint John Gualberto,¹⁰ although Christ is shown as Christus patiens (as opposed to triumphans), head slumped, eyes closed. Pisanello characteristically emphasises the imminent moment prior to speech. The three drawings of the subject by Jacopo Bellini, who, like Pisanello, worked at the court of the Este, seem to reflect a knowledge of Pisanello’s painting (see fig. 2).¹¹

A similar story of the vision of the stag with the crucifix between its antlers is told of Saint Hubert (see fig. 28),¹² and indeed NG 1436 was in the past sometimes identified as depicting that saint.¹³ The identification here of the figure as Saint Eustace rather than Saint Hubert is based partly on the fact that Pisanello painted Saint Eustace opposite Saint George on the exterior wall of the Pellegrini Chapel in Sant’Anastasia, Verona. The fresco, now lost, was described by Vasari.¹⁴

The subject served as a pretext for painting a number of animals within a hunting scene,¹⁵ and Pisanello has painted Saint Eustace not as a Roman soldier but as a fifteenth‐century Italian prince, out hunting alone with his hounds. The painting would have recalled the type of lavishly illustrated hunting treatise written by Gaston de Foix, using the pseudonym Phébus, between 1387 and 1389, of which forty‐four manuscripts have survived to this day.¹⁶ The treatise covers the hunting of hares and stags, among other animals, with forest particularly recommended as the best location for tracking down the stag.¹⁷ The different breeds of dog accompanying Eustace would have been recognised for their particular skills:¹⁸ the greyhound (‘lévrier’) coursing the hare and the brown greyhound behind it were esteemed for their swiftness (see fig. 3);¹⁹ behind the brown greyhound is what seems to be a running hound (‘chien courant’), which pursued its quarry not by sight but by scent, and was particularly used in the hunting of stags (see fig. 5).²⁰ At the horse’s hindquarters may be an alaunt (‘alanz’); these dogs were more massive, especially in the head, and were used for hunting bears, wild boars and wolves (see fig. 6).²¹ At the bottom left‐hand corner are spaniels (‘chiens doysel’), used for flushing out birds and small game, especially partridge and quail (see fig. 4).²²

Composition

The use of an illustrated treatise, such as that of Gaston Phébus or one of its derivatives, as a visual source is suggested by the position and pose of the bear at the right‐hand side, which appears at the right of the illumination depicting the hunting of a bear in one such treatise.²³ The arrangement of animals and landscape is also very similar to that in Franco‐Flemish tapestries, many of which were documented at the Gonzaga and Este courts.²⁴ In the representation of the tipped‐up landscape and the placing of the birds, Pisanello may also have been influenced by French illuminated manuscripts, such as the Belles Heures of c. 1405–8 by the Limbourg brothers (New York, Cloisters): see, for example, Saint Anthony seeks Saint Paul’s Hermitage (f.191 verso) and Saint Anthony guided by a Centaur (f.192).²⁵ Kurt Barstow also relates the landscape with its individual studies of birds to God creating the Birds and the Fishes in the Bible of Nicolò d’Este, illuminated in Ferrara before 1434(?) by Belbello of Pavia (Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Barb. Lat. 613, f.5 verso).²⁶

Attribution, Date and Related Drawings

NG 1436 was previously attributed to Dürer (label on the back). It was first given to Pisanello by Bode and Tschudi,²⁷ and since then the attribution has been widely accepted.²⁸ The painting is not dated and has been placed at various stages in Pisanello’s career. Raimond Van Marle saw it as ‘a production of his very earliest activity’;²⁹ Ferdinando Bologna [page 315] considered it an early work still influenced by Gentile da Fabriano.³⁰ Coletti thought that it preceded the frescoes in San Fermo, Verona (1426);³¹ Adolfo Venturi discussed it between Pisanello’s activity in San Fermo and in Rome in 1431;³² George Hill saw it as falling between the San Fermo frescoes and the Sant’Anastasia frescoes (probably begun c.1434?).³³ Alfred Hentzen and Enio Sindona dated it c.1440;³⁴ Giovanni Paccagnini also saw it as a late work, executed at the Gonzaga court,³⁵ as did Bernhard Degenhart, who dated it after 1447.³⁶

The related studies are of limited help in dating the pictures because Pisanello frequently reused and adapted sketches and drawings. Moreover, there is no consensus of opinion regarding the attribution of the studies.³⁷ However, the majority of scholars consider NG 1436 to be roughly contemporary with the Sant Anastasia frescoes, as there are numerous studies common to both of them.³⁸ This was argued by Degenhart in 1945, who called NG 1436 an echo of the frescoes (although he subsequently changed his mind regarding the date), and afterwards by other scholars, such as Brenzoni, and most recently Annegrit Schmitt.³⁹ A sheet in pen and ink (the hands first done in black chalk) with studies for the crucified Christ (Paris, Louvre, inv. no. 2368; fig. 7), which are probably studies for NG 1436, also has a minimal sketch for the hanged figures on a gibbet in the Sant’Anastasia frescoes; the recto has a pen and ink study of a horse and rider (fig. 8) very close to Saint Eustace in the painting.⁴⁰ Two other studies, which are very similar in style (Paris, Louvre, inv. nos 2365 and 2366; figs 9 and 10), are for the hindquarters of the horse in the painting, with one hoof raised, one study being particularly close to the final version.⁴¹

The study of the horse and rider (Paris, Louvre, inv. no. 2368) shows the rider’s hand lowered on the reins (in NG 1436 one hand is concealed and one raised, apparently in astonishment, or perhaps to hush the sounds of the forest). A study in black chalk which appears to be for the hound turning his back on the spectator and facing backwards (Paris, Louvre, inv. no. 2429 verso; figs 24 and 25) includes a study of a left hand which may have been for the hand holding the reins; on the recto of the sheet is a coloured drawing of a hound’s muzzle, also preparatory for NG 1436.⁴² Close in technique to the study of the hound, with a similar sporadic touching in with watercolour, is the study of a horse’s head in profile (Paris, Louvre, inv. no. 2356): none of the large‐scale studies of horses’ heads⁴³ precisely mirrors the position of the horse’s head in NG 1436, which is very slightly angled away from the spectator, with the neck tightly arched, but close to NG 1436 is the Louvre drawing (inv. no. 2356; figs 26 and 27), which includes a study for a horse’s leg standing still and has been considered as preparatory to NG 1436.⁴⁴

As well as making studies for the crucifix, Pisanello made detailed studies for the head of the stag with the crucifix between its antlers (Paris, Louvre, inv. no. 2490; figs 11 and 12).⁴⁵ Dominique Cordellier also agrees with previous scholars that Louvre 2489, a deer seen from the back lying down, is a preliminary study for NG 1436, since he has detected a very light and barely visible metalpoint drawing of the stag holding the crucifix between its antlers on the same sheet.⁴⁶ As noted above, the bear (see Louvre, inv. no. 2414; figs 13 and 14) used for the upper right‐hand side of the painting seems to have been taken from the hunting treatise of Gaston Phébus.⁴⁷

The running hare seems to come from a pattern book: a study exists of a hare identical to the one in NG 1436, but running in the opposite direction (Paris, Louvre, inv. no. 2445; figs 17 and 18).⁴⁸ It is similar to the hare in the sketchbook of Giovannino de’ Grassi (Bergamo, Biblioteca Civica, MS D.VII, 14 (Cassaf. I.21), folio 16), but was evidently adjusted after studying a dead hare. Although there is no direct study for the hound coursing a hare – a common subject, which Pisanello or his workshop elsewhere copied from a Lombard fourteenth‐century study (Paris, Louvre, inv. nos 2547 and 2568)⁴⁹ – Pisanello seems to have used a coloured drawing of a hound with a red muzzle and collar, standing still and facing in the other direction (Paris, Louvre, inv. no. 2435),⁵⁰ as a basis for the hound in the foreground of the painting. A study [page [318]][page 319] of plants recently identified in Montauban (Musée Ingres, MIC 69.2.D; figs 21 and 22)⁵¹ was used for the tiny plants in the left foreground. Similarly, a large‐scale watercolour of a hoopoe (Louvre 2467; fig. 19) was presumably used for the small hoopoe in the lower right (fig. 20).⁵² Pisanello made a number of coloured studies of birds – for example, a stork (Louvre 2451),⁵³ wrynecks and goldfinches (Louvre 2466)⁵⁴ and a duck (Louvre 2461) – as well as pen and ink sketches – for example, of kingfishers (Louvre 2507 and 2509; fig. 15),⁵⁵ herons (Louvre 2450⁵⁶ and 2472)⁵⁷ and a swan (Modena, Galleria Estense, inv. no. 895)⁵⁸ – and drew on these for his small‐scale depictions of birds in NG 1436. Any discussion of the relationship between surviving studies and the birds in the painting is complicated by the fact that the painting has been considerably cut down, and the sky probably contained a larger number of birds, as suggested by those in the copy formerly in the Cini Collection (see fig. 1), which have been moved to the lower part of the painting.

Besides the lost part of the painting, there are likely to be lost drawings: one of the pair of small brown spaniels in the foreground also appears in the left foreground of the Sant’Anastasia frescoes and it may be that there was a drawing similar to the studies of small dogs (Louvre 2432).⁵⁹ A number of other drawings have been related to NG 1436, probably incorrectly.⁶⁰

Function and Patronage

The choice of Saint Eustace in the frescoes of the Pellegrini Chapel in Sant’Anastasia has been explained by the fact that, like Saint George, Saint Eustace personified ideals of aristocratic Christianity.⁶¹ Furthermore, Saint Eustace’s association with hunting – a popular aristocratic pastime – must have appealed to courtly taste. The subject matter of NG 1436 suggests, therefore, that the painting originated in the context of secular patronage. Paccagnini saw it as belonging with the chivalric Mantuan frescoes.⁶² Bernhard Degenhart saw the figure of Saint Eustace as a portrait of Lodovico Gonzaga (see p. 301, fig. 8).⁶³ Other scholars have argued that it was made for a member of the Este family.⁶⁴ Chiarelli wrongly argued that Vasari was referring to NG 1436 in his description of the Saint Eustace scene in the Pellegrini Chapel, and that the painting was the altarpiece for the chapel.⁶⁵ This is unlikely on grounds of scale, and Hans‐Joachim Eberhardt has convincingly shown that the lost figure of Saint Eustace in Sant’Anastasia was, together with the figure of Saint George sheathing his sword, an iconic figure, not part of a narrative scene, and that both were painted on pilasters on the exterior of the chapel.⁶⁶ Moreover, the chapel itself was dedicated to the Apostles.⁶⁷ However, it remains a possibility that a member of the Pellegrini family commissioned the painting for personal use.⁶⁸

A possible court patron is Filippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan from 1413 until his death in 1447, whose portrait Pisanello painted and of whom he also made a medallic portrait.⁶⁹ Visconti’s biographer, Pier Candido Decembrio, made a point of emphasising how highly he prized his horses and hounds, and how passionate he was about hunting in the woods and pursuing boars, stags and birds.⁷⁰ Another possibility is Borso d’Este, the younger brother of Leonello, who was so enamoured of hunting that he ennobled the keeper of his hounds and his falconer.⁷¹

In his discussion of the description of Pisanello’s paintings by Bartolomeo Facio in De Viris Illustribus of 1456, Kurt Barstow suggests that Facio’s description of a painting by Pisanello of Saint Jerome and his description of a wilderness, [page 321] in which there are animals of different kinds, are closely linked.⁷² Although Barstow makes it clear that the assumption that the latter refers to a painting of Saint Eustace is mere conjecture, he proposes that the two subjects were meant to be viewed as a pair, pointing out that elements from both are combined in Taddeo Crivelli’s Saint Jerome (Los Angeles, Getty Museum) and in Saint Jerome adoring the Crucifix, attributed to the Master of the Gesuati, c. 1450 (Turin, private collection). He suggests that the two subjects were complementary, with the theme of hunting serving as a metaphor for spiritual search. He interprets the dog coursing the hare in NG 1436 as an allusion to the spiritual hunt and suggests that the cartello at the bottom was originally intended to carry Christ’s words spoken to Eustace. Barstow hypothesises that such a pair of paintings could have been made for Giovanni Tavelli (for whom see p. 56), although he stops short of suggesting that NG 1436 was one of such a pair.⁷³

A connection is often made between the landscape, flora and fauna in NG 1436 and the various evocative landscapes praised by Pisanello’s contemporaries, such as the humanist poets and writers Guarino da Verona, Tito Vespasiano Strozzi and Basinio da Parma.⁷⁴ Luke Syson has suggested that the cartello was never meant to be painted, but was included as part of the humanist debate on the relative merits of art and literature to underline the fact that a painting could describe nature just as well as, if not better than, the written word.⁷⁵

Provenance

According to the label on the back, in the collection of A. Fincke, Berlin.⁷⁶ In the Ashburnham Collection, London, by 1878;⁷⁷ purchased from the Earl of Ashburnham, 1895.

Exhibited

London 1893/4, New Gallery (163); London 2001, NG , Pisanello: Painter to the Renaissance Court (75).

Select Bibliography

• G.F. Hill, Pisanello, London 1905, pp. 62–8.
• A. Hentzen, Die Vision des heiligen Eustachius, Berlin 1948.
• R. Chiarelli, L’opera completa del Pisanello, Milan 1972, pp. 94–5, no. 66.
• G. Paccagnini, Pisanello e il ciclo cavalleresco di Mantova, Milan 1972, pp. 222–7.
• B. Degenhart and A. Schmitt, Pisanello und Bono da Ferrara, Munich 1995, pp. 206–20.
• T. Franco in Pisanello. Una poetica dell’inatteso, ed. Lionello Puppi, Milan 1996, cat. no. 5, pp. 72–5 (with full bibliography).
• K. Barstow, The Gualenghi‐d’Este Hours: Art and Devotion in Renaissance Ferrara, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles 2000, pp. 58–68 and 169–77, esp. p. 176.
• L. Syson and D. Gordon, Pisanello: Painter to the Renaissance Court, exh. cat., National Gallery, London 2001, pp. 156–89.

Notes

9. For example, the fresco of 1351 in Pomposa Abbey by Vitale da Bologna, and in the cycle in the late fourteenth‐century shutters from Campodigione in the Abruzzi. See G. Kaftal with the collaboration of F. Bisogni, Iconography of the Saints in the Painting of North East Italy, Florence 1978, no. 98. For the Campodigione shutters, which have been stolen, see M. Eisenberg, ‘A Late Trecento Custodia with the Life of S Eustace’, in Studies in Late Medieval and Renaissance Painting in Honor of Millard Meiss, eds I. Lavin and J. Plummer, vol. I, New York 1977, pp. 143–51. For the cycle in Pomposa, see also Roberto Longhi, Lavori in Valpadana dal Trecento al Primo Cinquecento, Florence 1973, pp. 30–1 and figs 30–2. (Back to text.)

65. R. Chiarelli, ‘Due questioni Pisanelliane. Il Pisanello a Firenze e gli affreschi “perduti” della Cappella Pellegrini’, in Atti e memorie della Accademia di Agricoltura, Scienze e Lettere di Verona (1965–6), Serie VI, vol. XVII, 1967, p. 381. Chiarelli’s argument is based on the [page 324]supposition that Vasari mistakenly thought that the depiction of Saint Eustace was a fresco when in fact it was a panel painting, and that the painting was in fact NG 1436 because it contains a similar dog, and a hound turning back as if it had heard a sound. However, the subject is not identical, and it has since been shown that Saint Eustace was painted on a pilaster and presumably matched the now lost standing figure of Saint George (see note 66). (Back to text.)