Click on Image to view Zoomed Image

SIMON VOUET
Paris, 1590 – 1649

Portrait of a gentleman with his dog

Oil on canvas
199.2 x 114.5 cm

PROVENANCE:
Private Collection, London

Bullart and Félibien, as well as Florent le Comte, make much of Vouet’s early activity in the field of portraiture, and it was this talent that was the occasion for his early London visit to paint a “lady of high rank and great beauty,” as it was also for the subsequent trip to Constantinople where he painted the Great Sultan. These abilities were also in demand in Italy when the artist moved there, and ten years later in a couple of letters sent from Genoa, where he had gone for this same purpose, the artist, writing to Paolo Giordano Orsini, Duke of Bracciano (21 March 1621) and to Cassiano Dal Pozzo, referred to his commission to paint the portrait of Isabella Appiana, Princess of Piombino, for the former, her intended husband. Of these portraits, only a few bust-length pictures have so far surfaced, among them several self-portraits on a relatively small scale. Recently Carla Benocci has published a number of references to Vouet’s work for Paolo Orsini, who had probably been introduced to him by Dal Pozzo (see C. Benocci, Paolo Giordano Orsini nei ritratti di Bernini, Boselli, Leoni e Koremann, Roma, 2006, and E. Schleier, in exh. cat. Simon Vouet, Les annés italiennes 1613 – 1627, Nantes & Besançon, 2008/2009, p. 69). Another of ‘Sua Signoria Illustrissima’ on copper cost its patron a modest six scudi in 1618; Paolo Orsini seems to have used Vouet exclusively as a portraitist. Vouet appears to have gone to Genoa towards the end of 1620; after the artist’s return to Rome and the election of Urban VIII in 1623 he painted the new Pope and Cardinal Francesco Barberini; these portraits have not so far been discovered.

The various portraits that are known do, however, demonstrate his great abilities and the life-likeness of his sitters, the most impressive so far are the self-portrait heads like the one in Arles. But it is surprising that none of his pictures known so far include any of the great full-length portraits of nobles who, we must suppose, would have sought out a painter with such a talent. What we read of in the sources underlines the scale of his production in this field, which has come down to us in a very small part. The technique of the ruff in this extraordinary portrait, with its rapid brushwork subtly indicating the successive layers of cotton, is the same as in the Self-Portrait of about 1620 (Exhibition Simon Vouet, Les années italiennes 1613/1627, Nantes and Besançon, 2008/2009, No. 1) or the Spadassino in the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig (Fig. 21 in the same catalogue). The same bravura is to be seen in the Portrait of a Man at Hampton Court, (ibid., Fig 26), but the red lacquer of the costume is applied with a more virtuoso technique that is especially striking, and more colourful than most of the works of the Italian years. The fine brushwork in the detailed breast plate decoration, also echoes that of the arabesque embroidery and medallion in the beautiful St. Agnes (ibid. No.47) of c.1626 in terms of its impasto.

The Portrait of a Gentleman with his Dog was first recognized as Vouet’s work by Dr. Erich Schleier, and both Dominique Jacquot and Pierre Rosenberg concur. It is the first example that fills this great gap in the artist’s oeuvre. In the absence of any documentary information like a coat of arms, it has not been possible to identify the sitter, but his grand costume and swagger point to a high social rank.

The sparse setting, limited to a bare brown interior with no decorative detail that might compete for the viewer’s attention, is strictly intended to emphasize the spectacular profile of the noble sitter, who wears a splendid costume, that is striking, the marked shadows cast by the jacket on the shirt. Much naturalistic attention is devoted too to the small dog (here a pentiment shows a double profile for the nose) that matches the spontaneity of its master, keen to catch the slightest hint of a movement that would mean a command.

The style of the work points to a date in Vouet’s career around 1620-21, suggesting that it was painted in Genoa, a moment when his work is especially Caravaggesque in character. For in Vouet’s letter to Cassiano dal Pozzo of 4 September 1621 he wrote that his hosts in Genoa, Marcantonio and Gian Carlo Doria, had asked him to paint some portraits of them “m’ hanno pregato a far qualche loro ritratto, ciò che infin ora non avevo voluto f­­are in conto alcuno’. It has a certain parallel with the Portrait of a Gonfaloniere by Artemisia Gentileschi, now in the Museo Comunale (Palazzo Accursio) in Bologna. The Gentileschi is signed (on the reverse of the original canvas, and apparently dated 1622, a time when the artist was back in Rome, after traveling to Florence and possibly to Genoa. Although her presence in the city is not documented, it has been suggested that other pictures with a Genoese history, like the Lucretia formerly in the Durazzo-Adorno collection, may have been sent to Genoa from Rome at the beginning of the 1620s (see R. Ward Bissell, Artemisia Gentileschi and the Authority of Art, Penn State, 2000, p. 190, Cat No. 13). The painting seems to have come from either the Gentile or Pepoli families in Bologna, and has some features that are paralleled in each, like the helmet on the table, and there is some indication that Vouet may have included a banner in the upper corner of his picture, subsequently not elaborated, but echoed in the Bologna painting. It may well be that the painting is of a member of the Doria family, and so linked with the over life-sized portrait of Giovanni Carlo Doria by Vouet now in the Louvre (RF 1979-20). This picture would appear to be referred to in a correspondence from Vouet with Cassiano Dal Pozzo (4 September 1621). From both of these grandiose images we can see how the young painter caught the spirit of his time, in employing the new realism that was essentially of Caravaggesque origin, in combination with a bombastic emphasis of the importance of his client. This is similar to the achievement of the young Van Dyck, in works like his grandiose state portrait of Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio in Palazzo Pitti, Florence, which is generally accepted to have been painted in Rome in 1623.

The dating is also supported by some interesting reflections on the costume,for which we are indebted to Graziella Butazzi’s experience in this field, and which we can summarize here. Generally the habit suggests the military background of the sitter, referred to in the helmet on which he rests his right hand. The leather waistcoat lined with red cloth is fashioned and decorated like a breastplate, worn with the short pantaloons that were current at the end of the sixteenth century, but slightly longer here, as became fashionable in the first decades of the seventeenth century. The stiff revere below the waist is another feature of this period. The elaborate collar, of a type known as “à la confusion,” characteristic of the fashion in the first three decades of the century, an alternative to the stiff ruffs that were also current, gave the wearer greater ease of movement, and so was more suitable as military apparel. The open right boot with its flap folded down to below the knee certainly points to a wound that had been inflicted in battle or in a duel. Indeed, this leg does not have a close fitting sock as would normally have been worn inside the boot, but it is folded down revealing a striped bandage that must cover a wound.

Click on Image to view Zoomed Image

SIMON VOUET
Paris,  1590 – 1649

Saint Peter visiting Saint Agatha in Prison

Oil on canvas
129.8 x 183.2 cm. (51 1/8 x 72 1/8 in.)

c. 1624

PROVENANCE:
Possibly commissioned by Francesco Barberini for Sant’ Agtha dei Goti, Rome;
Private Collection, New Orleans;
William Dickinson Griswold, Terre Haute, IN, c. 1850;
by descent to Hamilton Smith III, Brandy Station, VA;
by descent to Hamilton Smith Jr., Old Greenwich, CT;
Private Collection

LITERATURE:
R. Spear, Caravaggio and his Followers, exh. cat., Cleveland Museum of Art, 1971, no. 75, pp. 190–91;
B.Nicolson, “Caravaggesque at Cleveland,” in The Burlington Magazine, Vol. CXIV, No. 827, February 1972, p. 114;
A. Brejon de Lavergnée and J. P Cuzin, in Valentin e les caravagesques français (exh. cat., Académie de France à Rome. 15 November 1973-20 January 1974; Grand Palais, Paris, 13 February – 15 April 1974), Paris 1974, p.256;
B. Nicolson, The International Caravaggesque Movement, Oxford, 1979, p. 109;
B. Nicolson, Caravaggism in Europe, 2nd ed., Turin, 1989, Vol. I, p. 210, and Vol. II, pl. 727;
V. Abbate, Pittori del Seicento a Palazzo Abatellis, Galleria Regionale della Sicilia, Palermo, 1990, p. 172;

EXHIBITED:
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, on loan from 1967–71;
Cleveland Museum of Art, Caravaggio and his Followers, 1971;
Yale University Art Museum, New Haven, on loan 1972;
Cummer Museum of Art, Jacksonville, on loan from 1974–2001;
Requested for the exhibition Simon Vouet in Italie, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Besançon and Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nantes 2008/09

This masterpiece was painted by Vouet at the height of his powers during his early Caravaggesque Roman period. First published by Spear in his pivotal 1971 exhibition Caravaggio and his Followers, and later on long term loan to three important American museums, the painting’s real quality has been revealed after being cleaned in London this year. It has just been requested for the exhibition Simon Vouet in Italie, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Besançon and Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nantes 2008/09 which we document Vouet’s activity in Italy from 1613-1627.

Vouet depicts the moment when St. Peter visits St. Agatha in her prison cell carrying ointment to heal her wounds. According to her legend during the persecution under the emperor Decius (249-251), the city prefect of Catania, Quintianus, having heard about Agatha’s wealth and beauty, sent his soldiers after her to bring her to trial as a Christian. She was then thrown into prison after rejecting the advances of the Quintianus, and was subjected to violent tortures, including the shearing of her breasts. She was then visited by St. Peter  and when St Agatha was led to torture again, Quintianus was astonished to see her completely healed, with no trace of cutting. She was sent for further torture and at this moment an earthquake took place in the city, and many buildings were destroyed. The terrified Catanians rushed to Quintianus, demanding an end to Agatha’s tortures. Fearing a revolt by the people, Quintianus sent St Agatha back to prison where she later died.

In his early Roman period Vouet uses the same models in a number of his paintings. The figure of St. Agatha here echoes that of Sophonisba in Vouet’s painting in Staatliche Museen, Kassel and likewise the model of the angel is the same as the chalice carrier – whilst also appearing in the single figure works now in Minneapolis Institute of Art, Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation and Museo di Capodimonte, Naples. He also frequently portrayed the features of Virginia da Vezzo, the daughter of his neighbor in the Via Ferratina, whom he would marry at San Lorenzo in Lucina on April 21st 1626. She was a painter in her own right, and belonged to the Accademia di San Luca in her own name; other women artists, like Maddalena Corvino chose to stay unmarried while following their profession.

Although it is not known by whom the work was commissioned, St. Agatha was born in Catania and is the city’s patron saint – indeed she is now regarded as the patron saint of breast cancer. Further research on Vouet’s original patron is needed. A connection with the church of Sant’ Agtha dei Goti in Rome should not be excluded for it was rebuilt in the early 17th century and has Barberini connections. Francesco Barberini became patron of the church in 1624 which would coincide with the suggested dating of this picture.  This is later than the Nativity of the Virgin in San Francesco a Ripa, c.1618-20, and makes Lanfranco’s wonderful treatment of the subject, now in the Galleria Nazionale, Parma,  around 10 years earlier in 1613. An inventory of 1635 of the Duke of Savoy’s collection at Turin, lists a painting on copper of the subject, which is certainly a copy after this work. There is also a larger copy in Palazzo Abatellis, Palermo.

Vouet arrived in Rome in late 1613 and was immediately influenced by Caravaggio’s style. He settled in the parish quarter of San Lorenzo in Lucina where other French artists resided, including Tournier, Valentin and Renieri.  This was a period of great recognition for the young French painter, for in a special assembly (24th October 1624) called by the protector of the Accademia di San Luca, Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte, Antiveduto Gramatica was ousted as Principe and replaced by Vouet. Gramatica was also one of Del Monte’s favorite artists, but had become increasingly intolerant of competition and was accused of trying to sell the Academy’s Raphael altarpiece. It was Caravaggio’s old enemy, Mao Salini, who sided with Ottavio Leoni to outmaneuver Gramatica, and the episode resulted in Vouet being elected president of the Accademia. It is perhaps not surprising to find him painting in a technique that is so reminiscent of the masterpieces of Del Monte’s patronage of Caravaggio himself, which are also echoed in the celebrated paintings done by Vouet in 1624 for the Cappella Alaleoni in the church of San Lorenzo in Lucina before the artist was recalled to France by Louis XIII in 1627.