PROFESSOR LANGTON DOUGLAS AND DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE.
SIR,
Professor Douglas’s long and elaborate reply to my note is no doubt interesting; but it seems as if he considers the subject of more vital importance than I do; and I fancy most readers of The Burlington Magazine will agree with me so far. It is scarcely necessary to point out the personal turn to which his arguments veer; but I am unregenerate enough to draw attention to the fact that, in spite of much circumlocution, he brings out none that really prove me wrong in my contentions. I do not deny the talents of either Signor Centofanti or Signor Donati (of the works of the former and the friendship of the latter I have reason to speak most highly); but their names alone scarcely carry conviction to the ordinary English reader. I must repeat that I do not consider that Professor Douglas’s assertions with regard to Sodoma will bear close examination. The explanation of this in detail would take too long here; but I hope some day to have an opportunity of going fully into the subject of that artist’s name and family. That Beccafumi was very frequently designated as ‘Mecharino,’ or ‘Mecarino,’ is beyond dispute, and the statements here brought forward are certainly not sufficient to account for the entire omission of this important fact from Professor Douglas’s work. With regard to Matteo’s Massacre of the Innocents, I can only suggest to anyone interested in the subject to go and look at the picture, signature, and original document, and then form his own opinion.
On both these points the reader cannot do better than compare the statements here set forth with those in the ‘History of Siena.’ I need say no more; but, in conclusion, I cannot resist remarking how great was my astonishment to find that until last April Professor Douglas, in spite of all his studies at Siena, was not aware that the Archivio dei Contratti of that city (Archivio Notarile Provinciale)—referred to continually by Milanesi and others, and containing many important documents (including two wills of Francesco Tolomei, in the second of which Matteo’s picture is not mentioned)—is an absolutely different institution from its younger, and admittedly more imposing and interesting, rival—the Archivio di Stato, is under different control, and is even a cause of jealousy. Surely, when preparing to overthrow the consensus of opinion of a number of competent predecessors, it is scarcely safe to trust implicitly to copies, and a search for this original will would have saved that situation anyhow. Had I not received this information from the writer’s own lips, I could not have believed it possible. For the historian of Siena to admit ignorance of the separate existence and constitution of this important storehouse seems to me to be more damaging to his reputation for accuracy than any points of detail upon which differences of opinion can arise.
ROBERT H. HOBART CUST.
THE AUTHORSHIP OF A MADONNA BY SOLARIO
SIR,
The Madonna by Solario which you reproduce in your number for May is a picture by no means unknown in art literature. It is reproduced on Plate XXXVII of Rosini’s ‘Storia della Pittura Italiana,’ and as No. 29bis, IIS. in Muxell’s ‘Catalogue of the Leuchtenberg Collection,’ and such well-known critics as Waagen, Rumohr, Hettner, and Crowe and Cavalcaselle have spoken of it. The last-named writers unhesitatingly ascribe the picture in question to Andrea Solario of Milan, declaring the signature a coarse forgery. Rosini, who seems to have known all about the picture, says:—‘Could we trust this signature—Antonius da Solario Venetus f—there would be no doubt regarding the home of this artist. But are we bound to have a blind faith in a signature, when we happen to know the history of the picture, and how it passed through the hands of restorers and dealers before it was sold to the collection where it now hangs? Experience has taught me to entertain very serious doubts.’[48]
I share these doubts, for I cannot hesitate a moment in ascribing this very charming Madonna to Andrea Solario. Mr. Roger Fry in his admirable note on this picture mentions the points of likeness which it has with the Brera Madonna and Saints, dated 1495. There happens to be another work even closer to this one, and in my opinion certainly by Solario, although not attributed to him.[49] It belongs to Dr. J. P. Richter, and represents the Madonna adoring the Holy Child. So Venetian are its colour, tone, and feeling, that more than one good critic has attempted to find its author in Venice; but so singularly like are the ovals, so identical the eyes and mouths of the Virgins in Dr. Richter’s and in Mr. Wertheimer’s pictures, that they could not have been painted by different hands. A Madonna belonging to Signor Crespi of Milan, never, that I am aware, ascribed to another than Solario, although of later date, again betrays identity of hand, in the landscape at least, with Mr. Wertheimer’s painting.
But Mr. Fry, who, if any one, has a right to an opinion, admits the possibility that the signature is genuine; in which case Mr. Wertheimer’s picture would be by a painter famous in Neapolitan art-mythology, who is supposed to have executed the frescoes in the cloister of Sanseverino at Naples. Mr. Fry, with a candour by no means common among recent writers on art, tells us that he is not acquainted with these frescoes. I happen to know them well, and I can assure Mr. Fry that these paintings and Mr. Wertheimer’s Madonna have nothing in common. The latter, like all of Solario’s works, even the most Venetian, displays many characteristics of an art substantially Milanese, while the frescoes contain no element of the kind. The principal author of the series (he freely employed assistants) seems to have been a Sicilian educated under Antonello, Gentile Bellini, and Carpaccio. In his wanderings up and down the peninsula his fancy seems to have been taken by Pintoricchio’s landscape—a taste for which Carpaccio’s romantic scenery had doubtless prepared him. No other influences are visible in his work, neither Lombard, nor Ferrarese, nor Florentine. I am amazed that paintings so obviously Venetian should have remained so long unrecognized for what they are.