Filippo Mazzola (Parmese: died 1505).
The Mazzola family affords one of the many instances in the history of painting of artistic heredity. Filippo's two brothers were also painters, and his son was the more famous Parmigiano (see under 33). The Mazzoli were much employed in Parma, but their work seldom rose above mediocrity. By Filippo—called delle erbette from the plants which he was fond of introducing into his pictures—there are religious-subject pictures to be seen at Parma. But he is best known for his portraits, in which the influence of Antonello da Messina is to be traced (see Morelli's German Galleries, p. 418). An excellent one in the Brera bears his signature.
This picture is in its original frame, of early cinque-cento pattern, richly carved, gilt, and painted. A somewhat similar frame has recently been given to the "Vision of St. Eustace" (1436).
1417. CHRIST'S AGONY IN THE GARDEN.
Andrea Mantegna (Paduan: 1431-1506). See 274.
A celebrated picture (painted in 1459 for Giacomo Marcello, Podestà of Padua), and a specially interesting acquisition to our Gallery—first, as belonging to an earlier period of the master than his other important works here; and secondly, for its strong family likeness to the picture of the same subject by his brother-in-law, Giovanni Bellini, which, hangs in an adjoining room (No. 726). At the time when these pictures were painted Giovanni and Andrea were working at Padua under the influence of Giovanni's father, Jacopo Bellini (Vasari has some family gossip on this subject, ii. 265); and the original suggestion for the treatment of the subject in both pictures appears in Jacopo's sketch-book, now in the British Museum. A prominent object in the distance (an Italian version of Jerusalem) is a little gilt equestrian statue, which was evidently suggested by Donatello's equestrian statue of Gattamelata, still to be seen at Padua. The foreshortening of the apostles suggests the work of Uccello (see 583), who is known to have painted in that city. The picture has been described as "a marvellous combination of the fantastic and the realistic"; note for curious details the rabbits and storks, and the cormorant on the withered tree. This picture is more quaint than Bellini's; but Bellini's is the more original. "Mantegna's," says Mr. Monkhouse, "exhibits only a strong personal treatment of old conventions: Bellini's proclaims the dawn of a new world of art. What was old in the pictures—the Christ kneeling on a little hill, with the sleepy apostles in foreshortened attitudes in the foreground, the angelic vision on a cloud, and the suggestion of a neighbouring city—are common to both pictures. What was new—the fresh observation of nature for its own sake—is found only in Bellini's. We see this in the smouldering clouds of sunset, the light thrown on the distant buildings, the half-shade on the cliffs, the bringing-out of the figures into something like the real open, sun-illumined air, the attempt at solution of the problem of the tone of a face and figure relieved right against the sky" (In the National Gallery, 1895, p. 192).
1417a. ILLUMINATED INITIAL LETTER.
The letter D: enclosed within it is painted "The Agony in the Garden," copied from the preceding picture by Mantegna. The picture and this letter were both in the collection of Lord Northbrook.
1418. ST. JEROME IN HIS STUDY.
Antonello da Messina (Venetian: 1444-1493).