Salvator Rosa, 'Philosophy', about 1645

Philosophy

Salvator Rosa

Room 32

About the work

Overview

The man thrusts a tablet bearing a Latin inscription towards us – translated, it reads: ‘Keep silent, unless your speech is better than silence.’ The phrase is taken from Stobaeus’s Anthologia, a fifth-century collection of extracts from Greek authors. There has been much debate over the sitter’s identity, but recent scholarship has shown that the figure was originally painted as a personification of philosophy.

Rosa wished to be recognised as a learned painter of philosophical subjects. He produced this work during the early 1640s for Filippo Niccolini, who belonged to the circle of educated men Rosa befriended during his stay in Florence.

In-depth

A scowling man wearing a scholar’s cap and brown gown appears before us. His drapery, wrapped tightly around him, has the smooth, solid look of a sculpted Roman bust. Half of his face is in shadow and the cold lighting emphasises his long, narrow nose, unkempt hair, unshaven face and furrowed brow. The low viewpoint makes it feel as if the man is looming over us. This, along with his intense gaze and the setting of his dark form against a stormy sky, creates a powerful impression and a slightly threatening mood.

The man thrusts a tablet bearing a Latin inscription towards us – translated, it reads: ‘Keep silent, unless your speech is better than silence.’ The phrase is taken from Stobaeus’s Anthologia, a fifth-century collection of extracts from Greek authors. Rosa later created his own compilation of witty sayings in Il Teatro della Politica, which included several on the virtues of silence, a concept associated with many philosophers of antiquity.

There has been much debate over the identity of the sitter. Due to an eighteenth- or nineteenth-century inscription on the back of the painting, the picture was thought to be a self portrait when it entered the National Gallery’s collection, but recent scholarship has shown that it was originally painted as a personification of philosophy. It has a pendant, Poetry (now in the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut) – the woman depicted in that picture was probably based on a portrait of Rosa’s long-term companion, Lucrezia. Philosophy reflects a wider interest in philosophical debates and the thinkers of antiquity that existed in Italy during the seventeenth century. The composition and sombre colouring recall the half-length depictions of philosophers painted in Naples by Ribera during the 1630s.

Rosa painted Philosophy during the early 1640s, while he was in Florence, for Filippo Niccolini, tutor and later chamberlain of Rosa’s patron Giovan Carlo de' Medici. Niccolini shared Rosa’s passion for theatre and belonged to the circle of learned men the artist had befriended during his stay. Rosa took inspiration from the philosophers, scientists and actors he met in Florence and Rome, many of whom shared his fascination with dark and disturbing subjects, such as the one explored in Witches at their Incantations. He wished to be recognised as a painter of philosophical subjects rather than a specialist in types of art considered inferior at the time, like landscapes and genre scenes. To his frustration, this was a reputation he never quite achieved, and he was most original as a landscape artist.

Key facts

Details

Full title: Philosophy
Artist: Salvator Rosa
Artist dates: 1615 - 1673
Date made: about 1645
Medium and support: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 116.3 × 94 cm
Acquisition credit: Presented by the 6th Marquis of Lansdowne in memory of his father, 1933
Inventory number: NG4680
Location: Room 32
Collection: Main Collection
Frame: 18th-century Roman Frame

Provenance

Painted for Casa Niccolini, Florence; lent by Marchese Lorenzo Niccolini to the exhibition at SS. Annunziata, 1767. Acquired from Casa Niccolini by the Rev. John Sanford by July 1832; exhibited for sale at G. Yates’ Gallery, London, 1838 (no. 29); lent by Sanford to the British Institution, 1839 (no. 115). In the collection of Lord Lansdowne at Bowood by 1844; lent to the Burlington Fine Arts Club exhibition 1925 (no. 37). Presented by the 6th Marquis of Lansdowne, in memory of his father, the 5th Marquis, a Trustee from 1894–1927, in 1933.

Additional information

Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Michael Levey, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Italian Schools’, London 1986; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.

Exhibition history

2010

Salvator Rosa (1615 - 1673): Bandits, Wilderness and Magic

Dulwich Picture Gallery

15 September 2010 - 28 November 2010

Kimbell Art Museum

12 December 2010 - 27 March 2011

Bibliography

1677

F. Bocchi and G. Cinelli, Le bellezze della città di Fiorenza, dove a pieno di pittvra di scvltvra di sacri templi di palazzi, i piu notabili artifizj, e piu preziosi si contengono, Florence 1677
1838

G. Yates and Son, Catalogue of Paintings, Belonging to the Rev. John Sanford; Collected in Italy, from 1815 to 1837: Entrusted to G. Yates and Son, to be Partially Disposed of by Private Contract, at 209, Regent Street, London, 1838
1854

G.F. Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain: Being and Account of the Chief Collections of Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, Illuminated Mss. […], vol. 2, trans. E. Eastlake, London 1854
1897

G.E. Ambrose, Catalogue of the Collection of Pictures belonging to the Marquess of Lansdowne, London 1897
1934

National Gallery, National Gallery and Tate Gallery Directors' Reports, 1933, London 1934
1955

B. Nicolson, 'The Sanford Collection at Corsham', The Burlington Magazine, XCVII/628, 1955, pp. 207-14
1963

L. Salerno, Salvator Rosa, Milan 1963
1971

M. Levey, The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Italian Schools, London 1971
1973

M. Kitson et al., Salvator Rosa (exh. cat. Hayward Gallery, 17 October - 23 December 1973), London 1973
1974

H. Langdon, Salvator Rosa: His Ideas and His Development as an Artist, Phd Thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art 1974
1974

H. Langdon, 'Salvator Rosa in Florence, 1640-1649', Apollo, C/151, 1974, pp. 190-7
1974

F.B. Salvadori, 'Le esposizioni d'arte a Firenze dal 1674 al 1767', Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, XVIII/1, 1974, pp. 1-166
1975

L. Salerno, L'opera completa di Salvator Rosa, Milan 1975
1978

W.W. Roworth, Pictor Succensor: A Study of Salvator Rosa as Satirist, Cynic and Painter, New York 1978
1981

U. Meroni, 'Salvator Rosa: Autoritratti e ritratti di amici', Prospettiva, XXV, 1981, pp. 65-70
1983

M. Helston, Spanish and Later Italian Paintings, London 1983
1986

Levey, Michael, National Gallery Catalogues: The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Italian Schools, London 1986
1986

O. Ferrari, 'L'Iconografia dei filosofi antichi nella pittura del sec. XVII in Italia', Storia dell'arte, LVII, 1986, pp. 103-81
1988

W.W. Roworth, 'The Consolations of Friendship: Salvator Rosa's Self Portrait for Giovanni Battista Ricciardi', Metropolitan Museum Journal, XXIII, 1988, pp. 103-24
1989

W.W. Roworth, 'Salvator Rosa's Self-Portraits: Some Problems of Identity and Meaning', The Seventeenth Century, IV/2, 1989, pp. 117-48
1990

A. Sumner, 'The Clerical Connoisseur', Antique Collector, 1990, pp. 124-30
1992

P. Bjurström, 'Filosofernas skog: En tecknad skiss av Salvator Rosa', Årsbok för Statens Konstmur, XXXVIII, 1992, pp. 47-53
1994

E. Leuschner, 'The Pythagorean Inscription on Rosa's London "Self-Portrait"', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, LVII, 1994, pp. 278-83
1995

J. Scott, Salvator Rosa: His Life and Times, New Haven 1995
1998

K. Patz, 'Sub Rosa: Verschwiegene Beredsamkeit im Londoner Selbstporträt von Salvator Rosa', in C. Göttler and U. Müller Hofstedes (eds), Diletto e Maraviglia: Ausdruck und Wirkung in der Kunst von der Renaissance bis zum Barock, Emsdetten 1998, pp. 60-3
2001

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

J.R. Snyder, 'Sincerity in Seventeenth-Century Italy', Rinascimento, XLIII, 2003, pp. 265-86
2007

W. Regel and H. Köhler, …Hoch gerühmt, fast vergessen, neu gesehen: Der italienische Maler und Poet Salvator Rosa, Würzburg 2007
2007

E. Fumagalli (ed.), Filosofico umore, e, maravigliosa speditezza: Pittura napoletana del Seicento dalle collezioni medicee (exh. cat. Uffizi, 7 June 2007 - 6 January 2008), Florence 2007
2008

S. Cassani, Salvator Rosa: Tra mito e magia (exh. cat. Museo di Capodimonte, 18 April - 29 June 2008), Naples 2008

About this record

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

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