THE GOLDSMITH PAINTERS
During the generation which preceded the activity of Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449–1494) (who appears in the official Catalogue under the name of Grillandaio) the art of the painter had often been combined with that of the architect and sculptor. In time the influence of the goldsmith is seen in the inclination of the more prosaic painters, among whom Ghirlandaio holds an important place, to subordinate the pictorial qualities of their compositions to the gold-worker’s love of ornamental detail and fanciful jewellery. Paintings carried out in the goldsmith’s shop thus contained in the action of the figures, the treatment of the draperies, and the fanciful head-dresses, imitations of silver and bronze work. Domenico Bigordi owed the name of Ghirlandaio, by which he is now generally known, to his having been apprenticed to a goldsmith who acquired fame as a maker of the jewelled coronals (ghirlande) that became fashionable. This pupil of Alessio Baldovinetti, who was a craftsman quite as much as a painter, is to-day best known by the large number of frescoes he painted in Tuscany.
PLATE III.—DOMENICO GHIRLANDAIO
(1449–1494)
FLORENTINE SCHOOL
No. 1322.—PORTRAIT OF AN OLD MAN AND HIS GRANDSON
(“The Bottle-Nosed Man”)
(Portrait d’un Vieillard et de son petit-fils)
An old man, wearing a red robe edged with fur, looks down tenderly at his golden-haired little grandson who lifts up his face to be kissed. Through an open casement is seen a landscape.
Painted in tempera on panel.
2 ft. 0½ in. × 1 ft. 6¼ in. (0·62 × 0·46.)
In Ghirlandaio’s Visitation (No. 1321) the Virgin, her conventional robes fastened by a morse such as this goldsmith-painter repeatedly introduced into his pictures, stoops to greet St. Elizabeth. On the left is Mary Cleophas, and from the right Mary Salome trips lightly on to the scene. As always in a painting of this subject, the principal figures are silhouetted against the arch in the background, through which the sky is seen. Characteristic of Ghirlandaio’s paintings is the jewelled architecture which bears the date 1491, three years previous to his death. The Catalogue suggests that this large picture was finished by either Davide or Benedetto, the brothers and assistants of Domenico, but it is possible that his brother-in-law, Bastiano Mainardi, may have worked on it. The French, having pointed out to the Duke of Tuscany in 1815 that Florence possessed many better examples of this painter’s art, were allowed to retain this panel picture, which had been brought in 1806 from the Church of S. Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi at Florence.
The delightful Portrait of an Old Man and his Grandson (No. 1322, [Plate III.]), which is usually known as The Bottle-nosed Man, is an admirable study from life. The winsome attitude of the little boy and the refined expression of the old man are very pleasing. It is an incontrovertible, but perhaps not obvious, fact that mere physiological ugliness can in the hands of an accomplished artist be transformed into a medium of beauty. The picture has unfortunately been damaged, notably in the forehead of the principal figure. The certainty of touch and the delicacy of the modelling indicate that this panel belongs to the last period of the artist’s activity, when he also executed the magnificent Portrait of Giovanna degli Albizzi, now in the collection of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan.
One of Domenico’s brothers, Benedetto Ghirlandaio (1458–1497) is credited with a Christ on the Way to Calvary (No. 1323). His own son, Ridolfo (1483–1561), painted the Coronation of the Virgin (No. 1324) in 1503, the date being inscribed on the panel. Mainardi (fl. 1482–1513), the brother-in-law, pupil, and imitator of Domenico, painted many pictures which usually pass under the name of his more illustrious relation. This pupil has painted in the tondo of the Madonna and Child (No. 1367) a morse somewhat similar to that seen in the Visitation (No. 1321). In this same group of artists must be placed a nameless assistant of Domenico. His pictures have been grouped by Mr. Berenson, who calls him by the descriptive name of “Alunno di Domenico,” and tentatively identifies him with Bartolommeo di Giovanni, of whom very little is known. Alunno di Domenico is thus credited with having executed the companion pictures (No. 1416a and No. 1416b) of the Nuptials of Thetis and Peleus, a pagan subject which suggests the advent of the decadence in Florentine art. These two panels are officially catalogued under the name of Piero di Cosimo.