Andrea Schiavone  c. 1510/15–1563
NG 1884 
Jupiter seducing Callisto 
NG 1883 
Arcas Hunting

Nicholas Penny, 2008

Extracted from:
Nicholas Penny, The Sixteenth Century Italian Paintings, Volume II: Venice 1540–1600 (London: National Gallery Company and Yale University Press, 2008).

NG 1884
Jupiter seducing Callisto

c. 1550

Oil on canvas, 18.7 × 18.9 cm

NG 1883
Arcas Hunting

c. 1550

Oil on canvas, 18.8 × 18.4 cm

Support

The dimensions given above are those of the stretchers. The maximum measurements of the original painted area of both pictures are 17.2 × 17.6 cm. The original canvas is of a fine tabby weave which has been lined on to a heavier canvas of the same type. There is no evident cusping. The edges of the original canvas are partly concealed with putty. The stretchers are of pine and both have a horizontal crossbar. Paper labels marked with the loan numbers (114a and 114b) given to the paintings when they were in the National Gallery of Ireland are affixed to the stretchers. Since the paintings originally decorated the sides of a chest, the canvases were probably glued to thin panels. As discussed below under Previous Owners, they may still have been on panels in the eighteenth century. The vestiges of a wax seal are apparent on the back of NG 1884.

Materials and Technique

Samples taken from both paintings in July 1957 revealed no evidence of a gesso ground, but there is a layer of yellow‐brown priming consisting of iron oxide with a little lead white, applied directly to the canvas. The blue of the sky consists of azurite and lead white, and the flesh of lead white with an unusually crimson vermilion.¹

Very fine threads of shell gold are employed in the archer’s hair, bow, arrow and quiver in NG 1883, and in Jupiter’s cloak and the clouds in NG 1884. Under magnification it is apparent that ‘scraps of gold leaf were laid over still soft underpaint of parts of the foliage and then glazed’.² A fingerprint in the red lake in the cloak in NG 1884 reveals that surplus paint was blotted with the fingers.

Conservation

The paintings were cleaned and restored between February 1996 and June 1997. There is no record of any earlier treatment in the Gallery, and the thick varnish removed on that occasion was probably applied before 1860.

Condition

The copper‐green glazes in the foliage have darkened. The lake glazes in Jupiter’s drapery in NG 1884 have probably faded, so that only the darkest shadows are clearly defined. The colour of the cloak now appears lilac, whereas it was probably originally more purple. There are numerous pin‐sized losses on both paintings, and some small chips of paint are missing, notably from the shoulder of the nymph in NG 1883 and from the legs of both the figures in NG 1884.

The Companion Painting and the Subjects

The two paintings were correctly associated by Richardson in 1980 with a larger one of nearly identical height (19 × 49 cm) of Diana and Callisto (or, more accurately, the ‘Discovery of the Pregnancy of Callisto by the Nymphs of Diana’) in the Musée de Picardie, Amiens (fig. 1).³ The three paintings were assembled together in the exhibition Denon: l’Œil de Napoléon in 2000. It was obvious that they had been made as an ensemble,⁴ with the two square canvases presumably decorating the ends of a chest and the horizontal canvas decorating its front.

The subjects of NG 1883 and 1884 had simply been identified as ‘mythological scenes’ by Gould.⁵ Richardson retained these general titles, but they must be presumed to depict other episodes in the story of Callisto, as told in Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

The nymph Callisto, a favourite of Diana, attracted the attention of Jupiter. When resting in a grove she heard a god greet her and believed that she was in the presence of Diana, whom she addressed as ‘divinity’ (‘salve numen’) and as ‘greater in my eyes than Jupiter himself’.⁶ But it was in fact Jupiter himself, disguised as Diana, and Schiavone has, it seems, depicted in NG 1884 the moment when this becomes [page 119]apparent to Callisto. The nymph’s knees bend in a curtsey or a faint, her right hand pressed against her thigh (a detail that was not visible before cleaning). Although she struggles, she is unable to resist, and her fellow nymphs reveal her pregnancy to Diana.

The archer in NG 1883 has been supposed to be the god Apollo,⁷ but he has no part in this story. In 1999 I proposed that the figure might represent Callisto herself,⁸ depicted as she was when she first caught Jupiter’s eye, hunting in Arcadia: ‘This lass was not one for spending hours spinning soft threads of wool or coiling her hair in varied styles. She was one of Diana’s warriors, wearing her tunic pinned by a brooch, her tresses carelessly tied back by a white ribbon, and carrying in her hand a light javelin or her bow.’⁹ There are, however, good reasons to doubt this. First, she is not dressed in the same way as Callisto in the other two episodes. Secondly, if the paintings were placed on the right side of the chest (which would be essential for compositional reasons) the sequence would not be chronological. Carol Plazzotta, for these and other reasons, proposed (in April 2006) that the archer was intended as Arcas, Callisto’s son by Jupiter. When the pregnancy of Callisto was revealed to Diana (the episode on the front of the chest) the goddess turned her into a bear. Arcas grew up to be a keen hunter and killed a bear without knowing that it was his own mother. Plazzotta’s interpretation is confirmed by slight traces of an animal with a snout in the foliage to the left of the painting (previously supposed to be a wild boar) and, indeed, had there not been some special significance in the prey to be seen there, the artist would not have placed the archer so far to one side.

Attribution

The paintings were attributed to Schiavone when they were in the Algarotti, Denon and Beaucousin collections, and when acquired by the National Gallery, and it is unlikely that they had ever been supposed to be by anyone else. In his catalogue of 1959 Cecil Gould wrote that they were ‘by or after Andrea Schiavone’ but added that their ‘present condition precludes a decision between these alternatives’ – his hesitation, even his phraseology, reflecting the influence of Martin Davies.¹⁰ Richardson regarded this formula (which Gould preserved in his catalogue of 1975) as ‘overcautious’. His claim that the paintings were ‘not seriously damaged’ and ‘surely autograph’ was fully vindicated by the cleaning in 1996.¹¹

Visual Sources and Dating

Callisto’s pose, her profile and her pearl‐sown coiffure in NG 1884 recall Psyche in Schiavone’s painting of Cupid and Psyche in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.¹² The archer in NG 1883 is reminiscent of a figure in one of Schiavone’s etchings, especially in the way his drapery billows across his legs and his hair streams backward in the wind.¹³ These observations, made by Richardson, do not help us to date the works, nor can we be sure which came first. But if, as seems reasonable, we assume that the Diana and Callisto in Amiens is of the same date then we can be fairly certain that the paintings were made after 1548, because that is the date of an engraving by Vico after Parmigianino which was, as Richardson also remarked, surely Schiavone’s inspiration for the imperious pose of Diana (a pose he also borrowed for his own etching of Persephone).¹⁴ The pointing gesture is close to that used by Titian in his painting of the same subject in 1559 but Titian may have taken this idea from Schiavone, as he did other ideas.¹⁵ A date around 1550 seems consistent with Schiavone’s development.

Previous Owners

An ‘Apollo in un bosco che faetta’ and a pendant (‘suo simile’) showing ‘un vecchio che tiene abbracciata una giovine’, of the same size, approximately, as NG 1883 and 1884, were published in about 1779 in the catalogue of the collection of Count Francesco Algarotti (1712–1764),¹⁶ the cosmopolitan connoisseur, author and arbiter elegantiarum who had acted, in the early 1740s, as art agent for Frederick‐Augustus II, Elector of Saxony, and, in the later 1740s and early 1750s, as adviser to Frederick the Great, by whom he was ennobled. Algarotti may have obtained the paintings in his native Venice, when he lived there in 1743–5 or again in 1759–64, but in any case he maintained contact with the city, and some of the two hundred or so pictures that he owned when he died had been acquired by his father and his brother Bonomo (d. 1776). Bonomo’s daughter, the Contessa Maria Algarotti Corniani, found the catalogue after his death.¹⁷ It is interesting that Algarotti purchased for Dresden one of Schiavone’s most ambitious paintings.¹⁸

The catalogue of Algarotti’s collection describes all three small paintings as ‘in tavola’. A possible explanation for this is that the canvases were glued to panels – indeed they were probably made that way, because canvas pictures, when fitted into furniture, were not likely to be on stretchers. NG 1883 and 1884 were regarded as pendants. Diana and Callisto was listed next, but as a pendant to another work by Schiavone, The Queen of Sheba before Solomon. In all, there were seven paintings by Schiavone in the collection, making him and Carpioni the artists best represented there, after Tiepolo.

The two little paintings are next recorded in 1793, in a letter sent by Dominique‐Vivant Denon to a friend, which lists a few pictures that he wished to be sent from Venice to Paris.¹⁹ Vivant Denon (1747–1825) began to collect art while serving as a diplomat in Italy. He was himself an accomplished draughtsman and printmaker with a keen interest in archaeology. He is likely to have acquired the paintings between October 1788 and July 1793, when he was living in Venice. It has been suggested that he obtained them from Anton Maria Zanetti the Elder (1679–1767),²⁰ because we know (see the section below on Prints) that Zanetti projected a woodcut of the archer in NG 1883 and that Denon acquired Zanetti’s great collection of drawings from his nephews in 1791.²¹ Zanetti himself had died well before the publication of Algarotti’s collection, so it is much more likely that Denon bought the paintings from Algarotti’s heirs.

After he had organised the publication of Voyage dans la Basse et la Haute Égypte in 1802, Denon’s wide knowledge, his diplomatic skill and his ability as an administrator were [page 120]given official recognition when he was appointed Director General of Museums. The Musée Napoléon was in large part his creation, and after the Battle of Waterloo he refused to cooperate in the restitution of works of art to Italy and Germany. He was also director of the mint and of the factories of Sèvres and Gobelins, and directed much of the official patronage of Napoleon, from medals and coins to history paintings and triumphal arches.²² After the Restoration he retired from public life and devoted himself to compiling a history of world art, based on his own collection. In the posthumous inventory of his possessions at 5 (modern 7) Quai Voltaire, Paris, made between 16 and 26 May 1825, the two Schiavones are recorded as hanging in his bedroom.²³

In 1793 and again in 1825 the paintings were associated with Diana and Callisto, which, as noted above, had also been in the Algarotti collection, where, however, the three pictures seem not to have been recognised as a group. They were offered together as a single lot (no. 43) at the sale of Denon’s paintings and drawings in May 1826. According to the annotated version of the catalogue in the Bibliothèque Centrale des Musées Nationaux, they were purchased by the artist and dealer Laurent Durand Duclos for 810 francs.²⁴ However, a well‐informed publication of 1829 stated that the Diana and Callisto remained in the possession of Denon’s nephews.²⁵

NG 1883 and 1884 are next recorded, without the Diana and Callisto, in another Parisian collection, that formed by Edmond Beaucousin (1806–1866) and kept in his second‐storey apartment at 16 Boulevard Montmartre, together with a choice collection of ivories, bronzes and enamels.²⁶ Forty‐two of Beaucousin’s paintings, almost all of them of the late fifteenth or sixteenth century, were bought by Eastlake for the National Gallery for £9,205 3s. 1d. (230,000 francs) on 27 January 1860.²⁷ Beaucousin’s chief supplier seems to have been the London‐based dealer Chrétien‐Jean Nieuwenhuys, who was, it seems, disappointed that his client was selling and therefore no longer collecting. Nieuwenhuys not only refused to supply Eastlake with information concerning the provenances but disparaged some of the pictures he himself had sold. Beaucousin was distressed. He had handled the affair with ‘délicatesse de conscience’ (‘tact and consideration’). He could understand that Nieuwenhuys was ‘contrarié’ by the sale, but such behaviour was uncalled for: ‘Enfin, le cœur humain a ses faiblesses …’ (‘after all at heart we are all flawed’), he lamented in a letter to Lady Eastlake.²⁸

By 21 May, Eastlake had put aside eleven of Beaucousin’s paintings as unsuited for display in the Gallery, and he explained to the Treasury on that date that he preferred to transfer these to other public collections rather than sell them at auction. NG 1883 and 1884 were among the six dispatched on loan to Dublin on 18 June.²⁹ Thus Eastlake, one of the finest connoisseurs in Europe, discarded paintings which had been treasured by Algarotti and Denon. He cannot have been insensitive to the colour, movement and pattern (like a butterfly taking flight) in NG 1884 or the nervous and witty drawing in NG 1883, but perhaps he felt that the voluptuous content was inappropriate for a public collection. This was a problem with two other, more prominent paintings in the Beaucousin collection: Bronzino’s Allegory with Venus and Cupid (NG 651), which in consequence was partly repainted, and Garofalo’s Allegory of Love (NG 1362), which was dispatched to the National Gallery of Scotland.³⁰

Provenance

See above. Published in the posthumous catalogue of Francesco Algarotti’s collection, 1776. Recorded in the possession of Vivant Denon in 1793 and in his posthumous sale in May 1826. Bought at the latter sale by Laurent Durand Duclos. Purchased by the National Gallery from the collection of Edmond Beaucousin in 1860 and lent to the National Gallery of Ireland in the same year. Returned to the National Gallery on 29 March 1926.

Prints

In the catalogue of Algarotti’s collection it is noted that Zanetti made a print after NG 1883. This must in fact record his intention to do so. An impression of the woodcut by Antonio Belemo (active by 1756, d. 1791; fig. 2) is inscribed as having been drawn on the woodblock by Zanetti before his death. Another impression is inscribed with the information that the woodblock had passed to Francesco Novelli (d. 1836), who had commissioned the cutting of the design [page 121]from Belemo.³¹ Since Novelli was a pupil of Denon in Venice, as we know from the records of the State Inquisitors,³² it is likely that Denon was involved. If so, it is curious that the woodcut so prominently declares itself as an invention of Parmigianino. This is probably an error on the part of Belemo but perhaps reflects the recognition by Zanetti that Schiavone’s source was Parmigianino (see Visual Sources above). The diagonal trunk of a fallen tree is more distinct in the print than it now is in the painting but the bear in the wood was presumably already hard to see, or at least regarded as irrelevant, and the archer now occupies the centre of the composition.

Richard Ford (1796–1858), the collector, connoisseur and traveller who owned one of the impressions of Belemo’s print, also etched a copy of it. Denon may have intended to include lithographs of both NG 1883 and NG 1884 in his encyclopaedic anthology illustrating the evolution of the figurative arts, begun in 1816. The Monuments des Arts du Dessin, when it was eventually published in 1829, included a lithograph of Diana and Callisto by Gounod.³³ There is a proof lithograph of NG 1884, probably intended for this publication, in a private collection.³⁴

Frame

Between 1860 and 1996 the two paintings were exhibited in gilt frames with press‐moulded composition ornament consisting chiefly of a double line of fluting on the broad outer moulding. The same pattern of frame is recorded on some other small pictures in the Gallery: NG 1887, NG 1888, NG 1304 and NG 652. Despite the misleading numbers, these paintings were all part of the Beaucousin collection acquired en bloc in 1860. It is possible that the frame was a standard one given to the paintings by the Gallery’s framer at that date but, since examples have been found on no other paintings in the Gallery, and different patterns are known to have then been employed by the Gallery for small paintings, it is more likely that the type of frame was one that Beaucousin had favoured. Since his collection had been formed relatively recently, the condition of Beaucousin’s frames was likely to have been acceptable and, even if the style had not been much liked, the Gallery could not easily have justified the expense of reframing, as these paintings were all sent out on loan. The example illustrated in fig. 3 is the frame that remains on NG 652 (Charity, formerly attributed to Francesco Salviati, now attributed to Michele di [page 122]Ridolfo Tosini) because it is the best preserved, although it is the only one with a frieze decorated with concentric squares. The inspiration for these frames must have been a Tuscan frame of the mid‐sixteenth century such as the carved walnut mirror frame in the Lehman collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.³⁵

After cleaning in 1997 the two paintings were reframed in parcel‐gilt walnut mouldings made by the London firm of Paul Mitchell. These were replicas of an architectural profile frame in Mr Mitchell’s possession and were designed to recall the furniture into which the paintings would originally have been inserted.

Notes