Guardi and Longhi

Author(s): George A. Simonson

Source: The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Vol. 10, No. 43 (Oct., 1906), pp. 53-54
Published by: Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd.
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/856845
Accessed: 07-01-2023 21:41 UTC

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and
extend access to The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs

This content downloaded from 86.33.78.198 on Sat, 07 Jan 2023 21:41:20 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Notes on Various Works of Art
difference between these early works and the painted the same subject, reproducing all th
paintings of Holbein's maturity, one or two principal figures and the setting of Guardi'
features of the New York picture confirm the date picture, and only omitting parts which are no
painted upon the background. The flesh tints essential to the composition. The chief difference
are paler and flatter than they become later, and between Guardi's version and that of Longhi is not
the drawing has everywhere a certain uniformity one of detail but of size and excellence. Guardi's
of definition suggestive of primitive work, which work, which now enriches the collection of M.
the master afterwards learned to dispense with. Edouard Kann, Paris, though the smaller, is by
The curious smallness and brilliance of the eyes, far the most brilliant of the two renderings of the
with the painted Mantagnesque frieze in the back- spectacle. Visitors to the Museo Correr, Venice,
ground, may also be noticed as characteristic of can hardly have failed to notice in it Longhi's Sala
Holbein's earlier works at Basle. The sitter wears del Ridotto and its companion picture the Sala del
a black doublet with red sleeves, the black cap Convento di S. Zaccaria.
too is relieved with red; the background is in A careful comparison of the two pictures of the
grisaille. The picture was originally painted in Ridotto
oil makes the conclusion irresistible that one
on paper and stretched on canvas, but has now of the two painters copied his composition from
been transferred to panel. the other. Which of them was the plagiarist ?
The full history of the picture is not yet known,Without the aid of the reproductions of the two
but it is hoped that the researches which have works, which I will gladly place at the disposal of
traced it back to the Burckhardt family and the any of your readers who may be interested in the
beginning of the last century, can be carried stillpoint I am raising, it will readily be understood
further and, perhaps, lead to the identification ofthat I cannot show conclusively that Longhi's com-
the sitter. The suggestion has been made thatpositionhe is borrowed from that of Guardi. The
is the painter's brother Ambrose, and from what extent to which Longhi appropriated Guardi's
we know of the personal appearance and history grouping of figures for his large picture may be
of Ambrose Holbein there is something to be said brought home to your readers by the reflection
for the idea, since the picture undoubtedly that Longhi's Ridotto has recently been attributed
resembles the other portraits of him, and there to is Guardi by several connoisseurs, who have never
a tolerable amount of evidence to show that he heard of the existence of the latter's picture but
was working at Basle in the year 1517. The agewere struck by the clever counterfeit of Guardi's
of the sitter is mentioned on the inscription as style in Longhi's composition and in the drawing
twenty-two, so he must have been born in 1495,of his figures. Their presentiments of Guardi's
the date generally given as the date of the birth of
influence appear to go some way towards showing
Ambrose Holbein. Notwithstanding these co-that he, not Longhi, was the original painter of
incidences, the sitter has the air of a man of this attractive subject. Nobody who sees Guardi's
wealth and position far higher than those of interior can suppose for one moment that it is the
a young and not very successful painter, as is handiwork of Longhi, as Guardi's sign-manual is,
indicated by the rings, the chain round the neck as it were, impressed on every detail of his picture.
and the sword-hilt damascened in the Italian If one remembers that in the 18th century painters
manner with an imitation Cufic inscription. These
had less conscience in the matter of appropriating
again may be no more than studio properties, sotheir
it colleagues' compositions than they have
is safest, in default of more positive evidence,nowadays,
to there will be no difficulty in believing
leave the sitter's identity an open question. that, in the present instance, Longhi, who may be
presumed to have occupied a much better social
GUARDI AND LONGHI. position in Venice than Guardi, made some kind
of friendly arrangement with the latter in order to
(To the Editor of THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE).
induce him to part with his picture, or else that
129, Queen's Gate, S.W.
Longhi bought it from him for a trifle.
17th September, 19o6. It is so unusual to find examples of painters of
SIR,-I venture to bring to the notice of your
different calibre leaving in their works unmistake-
readers a small interior by Guardi, known only
able to of their artistic connection, that a
traces
a few connoisseurs, which is a most vividspecial
represen-
interest is attached to the pictures of the
tation of a masquerade at the Ridotto towards 1760,
Ridotto by Guardi and Longhi.
with numerous ladies and gentlemen in rococo I am Sir,
costumes. Besides being of supreme value as a Your obedient servant,
pictorial chronicle of decadent Venice, it ranks, in GEORGE A. SIMONSON.
my estimation, as one of Guardi's chefs d'oeuvre,
surpassing his well-known Sala del Collegio in the POSTCRIPT.
Louvre by the Watteau-like grace of the sprightly
In order to complete my description of Guardi's
figures introduced in it. Its interest is interior,
consider- I should mention that a companion
ably enhanced by the fact that Pietro Longhi
picture tohas
it exists, representing the anteroom to

53

This content downloaded from 86.33.78.198 on Sat, 07 Jan 2023 21:41:20 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Notes on Various Work of Art
the Ridotto with senators and other figures. Both The boy's jacket and cap are dark green; the
cap being ornamented with two plumes, one
works which came from the collection of the late
M. Eugene Piot, Paris, are now owned by M.blue, one scarlet, and against this last the pale
Edouard Kann, Paris. blue and white of the drum tells with charming
coolness. On the other side, the gold lace on the
A PORTRAIT OF A BOY BY GOYA. jacket is repeated in the trappings of the
Velasquez-like toy horse, and in the yellow
The name of Goya is one that conjures up dull crimson of the saddle finds
shoes ; while the
such lively associations of a daring, capricious
an echo in the warm tone of the ground, and a
personage, and an equally daring and capricious
contrast in the cool grey of the wall behind. The
art, that we are sometimes inclined to feel as if
this remarkable artist were remarkable for no picture, in short, is one that well repays examina-
tion, and appears to be in the excellent condition
other qualities than those. The lover of the
in which so many of Goya's works survive,
queen of Spain and the duchess of Alba, the
owing, no doubt, to the direct simplicity of his
revolutionary who lived in the headquarters of
handling. The portrait is signed, dated, and the
the Holy Inquisition and openly caricatured and
sitter's name given in the left bottom corner as
derided it, the painter of sudden death in its
follows :-' Pepito Costa y Bonella por Goya,
most violent and horrible forms, who did not
1804,' and the size of the canvas is 4I1 in.
hesitate to draw his sword upon the duke of
by 33- in.
Wellington to avenge a fancied slight, and who
in his work broke away from all tradition andAN UNDESCRIBED WOODCUT BY
anticipated much subsequent painting, which even
now the average man hesitates to accept, is a figure WOLFGANG HUBER.
so bizarre, violent, and sombre, such a blend of
Bavarian art of the region bordering on th
cynic, bull fighter, and sans culotte, that though
Danube has lately been receiving much attent
we might grant him perception of the sharpest
and, on occasion, supreme subtlety, we arefrom
not both German and English students. A
recent article in this Magazine dealt with t
wont to associate his name with tenderness.
Yet there are times when Goya, as if from
extremely interesting group of Regensburg pictu
sheer contrariety, finds tenderness where no one which was brought together this summer at
else has found it. The duke of Wellington, forBurlington Fine Arts Club from several pub
instance, even in extreme old age, is hardly and
a private collections in Great Britain an
tender figure, yet Goya met him at the height Ireland. The publication of a dated woodcut b
of his laborious career, saw in him what no Huber, hitherto undescribed, cannot fail to inter
admirers of the Donaustil.
other painter saw, namely, imagination, and
compels us in his marvellous drawing in the The woodcut represents three landsknechts
British Museum to recognize a man of genius. marching to the right ; it is not signed, but bears
Other portraits of Wellington seem to catch only the date 1515 ; it measures 21o by 173 millimetres.
the hard exterior of an able martinet. In this Formerly in the Herryns collection at Antwerp, it
sketch Goya has pierced through the mask isand now the property of Mr. Alfred Huth, who was
wrought out with infinite tenderness the inner kind enough to lend it to me recently for study,
and to consent to its publication. It is not
man, stern and self-centred, if you will, but gifted
with a fire and inventiveness that explains, as described
no in the printed catalogue of the Huth
other portrait of Wellington quite explains,library
the and collection of engravings.
defeat of Napoleon. The attribution may surprise those who are only
acquainted
In the portrait of a boy, which, by the courtesy with the group of small and highly-
of the owners, Messrs. Knoedler & Co., we finished
are woodcuts bearing Huber's signature, by
which he is represented in most considerable
permitted to reproduce, this tender sympathy
collections.
with the freshness, spirit, and independence of Here the drawing is more free and
boyhood is the dominant note. In England, sketchy,
of there is less precision and routine in the
cutting. But Mr. Huth's woodcut is unquestion-
course, Reynolds, Gainsborough and their con-
ably by the same hand as the woodcut signed
temporaries had rendered boyhood as freshly
W. H., also representing three landsknechts, which
and naturally some thirty or forty years earlier,
but at the dawn of the nineteenth century Goya is one of the many rarities in the Basle Museum.
stood practically alone in his frankness, since Though
the unique, the cut at Basle is widely known
English tradition was emasculated by the example by the facsimile (No. 67) in Hirth and Muther's
of Lawrence, while Ingres, the first of the conti-' Meister-Holzschnitte' (1893). On laying the two
nental realists, was still an obscure student. Thisby side, it is obvious that they are companion
side
freshness of spirit is enhanced by a correspondingsubjects, or portions of a larger set. The dimen-
freshness in the colour scheme, which whensions it is are almost exactly equal, the cut at Basle
analysed proves to be as scientific as it is bold.measuring 212 by 169 millimetres; the proportions

54

This content downloaded from 86.33.78.198 on Sat, 07 Jan 2023 21:41:20 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms